Political correspondents can breathe a collective sigh of relief. As we exit the substance desert that was the silly season they can now start writing “party split” stories.

Keith Vaz, a former minister for Europe, is calling for a referendum on the European constitution that Jim Murphy, the current minister for Europe says isn’t a constitution, just a bit of administrative tidying up. The FCO traditionally lies for its country, Murphy is lying for a foreign superstate. Blunkett says a referendum was promised and Miliband says Labour is not split. Super…

Gummer is getting a kicking from John Redwood saying basically that the mad burger-eater will damage the economy with his Green taxes and plans for increasing airport congestion. Cameroonie sources are briefing that they won’t pay much attention to the loopier ideas from Zac and Gummer. Fantastic…

So we have splits, splitters and lots of easy copy ahead of the party conferences. Cynics among you might wonder if the splits haven’t just been teased out by the media to manufacture a storyline, the Sun (Vaz article) and GMTV (Redwood interview) can take the credit for getting it going. The show must go on…

Iain Dale has alerted Guido to the fact that the blog post on Huhne was recycled in the newspaper diaries this morning. Guido doesn’t usually read ‘em, but they clearly read him…Peter McKay’s Ephraim Hardcastle in the Mail even pinched the carbon based life forms crack. Is Guido bitter? He’d like a case of decent Margaux sent over from Associated Press this time. The Evening Standard’s diary has been stealing stories from Guido and Iain for years without ever paying a penny. Guido is still smarting from receiving a mysterious letter from the Evening Standard headed “Dear Londoner’s Diary Contributor”… is someone fiddling the expenses at Associated?

Iain has a story about the Daily Mirror Caught Trying to Infiltrate Conservative HQ with a posh girl. She came unstuck after they Googled her name and came up with her Mirror byline, then they checked the source of her email back to the Mirror’s offices. Doh!

Iain mutters darkly about legal action – presumably lying on her CV and at the interview – which is a form of attempted fraud. Don’t hold your breath on that going anywhere. Who hasn’t?

Anyway isn’t this what investigative journalists are supposed to do?

As reported here three weeks ago, it seems that the Little and Large blog is dead, it is an ex-blog. Jonathan Isaby and Brendan Carlin seem to have abandoned the idea. Look around some of the other blogs and they are also pretty dead. Ben Brogan at the Daily Mail and Danny Finkelstein at The Times are really the only serious Dead-Tree-Press political bloggers going now.

Elsewhere at the Telegraph the experienced George Jones has apparently been given the push in such a cack-handed way that he’s suing and expected to get a six-figure pay-off. His job is being given to the silent-but-deadly Andrew Porter, of the Sun, formerly on the Sunday Times who is an old chum of Telegraph editor Will Lewis. Key qualities: won’t tell Lewis not to be such a silly boy; won’t be a member of Telegraph ancien regime.

Porter’s place on the Sun (keep up) is being taken by Graeme Wilson of the Telegraph. Wilson’s place on the Telegraph is being taken by James Kirkup from the Scotsman. Toby Helm is rumoured to have wanted to get out of the Lobby – if you’d been passed over for the top job you might conclude there was little point in hanging around to see if you got it next time. One of the things the imported Mailograph newsdesk didn’t realise about him – his sister is married to Jonathan Powell, although that is not such an asset nowadays. The new Mailograph is obsessed with getting scoops, a-la Andrew Pierce. But a lot of Pierce’s scoops stay exclusive, and with good reason.

My friend the Axegrinder notes a memo going around the press gallery yesterday sent by the doyen of the Lobby;

“Lost,” it said. “A black Mont Blanc fountain pen. If found please return to Michael White, The Guardian, Room 15.”

Just to remind you, the front page graphic showed no-one liking Dave and the Tories. Wishful thinking…

Guido was sure his brain was too addled by alcohol when he saw the front page of the Guardian this morning. Rich Johnston emailed it in and the penny didn’t drop until he explained it slowly. According to the Guardian’s ICM poll sample of 1005 randomly telephoned adults, not one single person likes David Cameron and the Conservative Party. Some like the party, some like Dave, but none like both. Guido knew the polls were bad for Dave, but really, does no one like ‘em both?

UPDATE : Turns out that it was a difficult to explain Grauniad cock-up, the actual figures from ICM were very different – 25% liked both Dave and the Tories. Pretty “cavalier with the facts” report, it should have been obvious that something was wrong, maybe over at the Guardian they can more easily believe that nobody likes Cameron. In the real world he is a bit more popular than on Farringdon road.

Since that little embarrassment over the reporting of postal votes in Ealing Southall, the Telegraph’s Little & Large blog has gone silent. The last posting was a week ago.

If Guido shut up shop every time a writ was threatened…

Everybody, everywhere, has been going through Campbell’s The Blair Years so Guido hasn’t bothered. But one little snippet has caught the eye and proves a point. Phil Webster, The Times’ political editor, gets a little testy whenever Guido or his own colleagues hint or suggest that he is a less than objective Brownite patsy.

So Guido wonders how he will feel about this comment about a time in October 1997 when New Labour faced a little PR difficulty; “The words went to Webster, the spin was applied, and away we went,” writes Alastair. Kind of gives the game away…

Startlingly candid admission in Mary Ann Sieghart’s farewell column:

As this is to be my last regular column for The Times, I am in a different position today from other commentators. I don’t have to worry about whether the new regime at No 10 will return my calls, at least until the autumn. I don’t have to curry favour with anyone or worry about giving offence. Instead I can give you an unvarnished prediction of what the next few years of a Gordon Brown premiership will be like.

She has, it is rumoured, taken up the offer of a redundancy payout in the latest round of News International job cuts. Last time Guido indulged in a bit of Times-bashing they got very upset. Peter Riddell even called up an associate to tell him to stop associating with Guido, there was talk of them getting Guido back with an “exposé”. But here you have it from someone who knows; Peter Riddell, Phil Webster et al suck up to Brown and Balls out of fear. It must be true, it is printed in The Times…