The gentlemen of the Lobby have kept pretty schtum about the drink fuelled circumstances of the Ruth Kelly briefing by Damian McBride at at 3 a.m during Labour Party conference. Danny Finkelstein is alluding to it indirectly.

Guido understands that the PM’s Spokesman had a bottle of beer in his hand during the briefing. Your taxes at work….

Tucked away in a dark corner of the Westminster Arms yesterday evening Guido spied the Mirror’s political editor and the PM’s infamous spin doctor self-medicating. McSnide looked very rough. The Ollie Reed of blogging is no position to criticise, but Damian really looks like he has been hitting it hard. Bloated. Suppose it must be tough in the bunker. In Berlin in 1945 they were dosing themselves up to the eyeballs on amphetamines to escape from the inevitable reality. Damian should think about switching his medications, amphetamines are slimming.

Who knows…?

Another rat is leaving the sinking Downing Street ship.  Paul Sinclair, formerly Wee Dougie Alexander’s SpAd before becoming the Prime Mentalist’s Scottish spin doctor, is jumping ship ahead of the Glenrothes by-election.  He is off to spin at Hill & Knowlton according to Paul Waugh.  Sinclair was considered a potential candidate in Glenrothes…

Bill Jamieson reports that the former head of the Smith Institute, Wilf Stevonson, is working in the Downing Street bunker on the “economic recovery plan“.  With Ed Balls and Shriti Vadera completing the dream team of wonks.  That would explain why it is going so well…

The Indy’s Jane Merrick is reporting “that Stephen Carter, Mr Brown’s high-profile strategist, is to leave his job after a bitter turf war inside Downing Street. The public relations guru’s move to a lower-key role is a victory for the Prime Minister’s long-serving advisers….”

Guido is cautious about the story because it smacks of wishful thinking by some in the Brown bunker, Carter and Muir have not been sugar-coating the dire focus group feedback. It stands out that no one else is reporting the demotion story, Merrick may have just been spun by the Brownies.

Getting rid of Carter and replacing Darling with Ed Balls would signal that the Brown bunker is bonkers, the Treasury is clearly in revolt at the £40 billion state house building splurge supposedly planned by Downing Street. Having nationalised home lending via Northern Rock, Gordon plans to double up on the mistake and nationalise home building. A last gasp of socialism to appease the Labour core-vote – public sector mass housing has been such a success hasn’t it? Huge estates of stable families, high employment, low crime and civic responsibility.

Wonder if Vince Cable will support him this time as well?

UPDATE : Dale says Merrick claims the report is triple sourced though Downing Street denies it. If Carter has quit rather than been demoted what does that say about the dysfunction in Downing Street?

So pleased are they with the functionality of their Flickr photo album they had pictures of flowers from the garden up today – oh and a picture of an undercover police officer. Doh!

Dizzy has the scoop.

UPDATE : Guido knows the identity of the officer (blurred in the picture above), his commendation was related to him receiving a baseball bat beating when on surveillance .

Caroline Flint on Newsnight last night was hilarious – “Kirsty, Kirsty, Kirsty” she kept forlornly shouting on the two-way to studio.

In all fairness she has the worst job in government right now – Housing Minister. It can’t have helped that some moronic briefing to the Sun has brought a stagnant property market to a complete halt – why exchange now when if you wait until September you can save thousands in stamp duty? Which genius clumsily leaked the plan scheduled for September?

Damian McBride has the hotline to the George Pascoe-Watson…