First Fergie, now David Beckham has retired from professional football. Gordon strikes again…

The two Eds will have been following Alistair Darling’s Lobby lunch very closely this afternoon. Darling laid down the gauntlet to Balls, showing a fair amount of leg about a possible return: “At the moment I’m totally focused on the referendum. After that I’ll see where I stand. I will maintain an interest in wider affairs.” 

Some choice words for Miliband too. Darling says Ed “needs to do more to argue case for staying in the EU”, but at least apparently he’s “doing better than people give him credit for” and there is “no need for line by line manifesto” with two years to go. He was coy on Gordon: “I have never provided a running commentary on any conversations I may or may not have had”, but was willing to jokingly flirt with another foe: “there are times I have been tempted to join UKIP”. The tease…

It’s official: 71% of Scots say the Prime Mentalist is a liability. Readers of the Scotsman say Gordon’s attempt to take on the freedom fighters will do his cause more harm than good. It would be some Jonah curse…

H/T @moonbeamfalafel

It was only a matter of time…

Tory strategists could be forgiven for worrying that after three years of little or no growth and a £120 billion spending black hole this year alone, Dave and George’s reliance on blaming Britain’s economic slump on the last Labour government might be wearing thin with voters. Apparently not.

A study by media agency OMD of over 2,000 adults from across the UK has found that 53% still blame the previous Labour government for Britain’s ongoing economic problems, compared with just 39% blaming the coalition. 39% say Gordon is the main culprit, with just 27% fingering Cameron and 23% Osborne. Numbers Downing Street will be clinging onto…

Scottish Coal has gone into provisional liquidation, with 600 people losing their jobs. Asset strippers have moved in, mines are being sold off and the business is winding up. What went wrong?

The doom-mongering Prime Mentalist was all smiles and full of good cheer as he visited Scottish Coal at St. Ninians in Fife last May:

“The Company and all those who work on the site should be very proud of what they are doing. I am sure that the project will be a big success and become a significant asset for our local area.”

Everything he touches…

Ed’s one-time guru Maurice Glasman has some choice words about what things were like under the Prime Mentalist:

“In the end, where there’s no movement, where there’s only outcomes, where it’s all completely administrative: spending money is all you can do. That’s the whole story of what happened to Gordon Brown who was just sitting there allocating or not allocating resources to people. There was no devolution of power, no politics in that. It was an entirely Brezhnevite kind of administrative system.”

The two Eds must have had a great time. From Mr Bean to Brezhnev…

Here is University of Bristol professor Mark Wickham-Jones’ analysis of Labour Party membership figures in Dunfermline during Gordon’s time as their MP at yesterday’s One Nation conference:

“The reality is the grass-roots model is gone, I think. I mean, you know, Dunfermline – Gordon Brown’s constituency in Dunfermline – had nearly 1,000 members in the mid-1990s. At the time of the Labour Leadership election when they gave us fantastic data – which they’ll never do again – it had 163 members. Where did those people go?”

Guido has an idea…

Flowers thrown into the path of Maggie’s gun carriage as it passed through the streets of London. Office workers watching from their windows shout “get a job” at a very small number of protesters below. There was one awkward reunion inside St Paul’s:

Thatcher’s granddaughter Amanda gives a steely reading. A chip off the old block:

An emotional George Osborne:

A stunning aerial shot of St Paul’s (via Sky):

Watch the beginning of the service here:

Guido thinks everyone needs cheering up a little. Here’s one way of comparing recent PMs…