A co-conspirator draws to Guido’s attention a report in yesterday’s London Paper. After spending an evening in a Soho restaurant Gordon Brown “emerged, clutching a mysterious brown envelope, he was harangued by a group of hoodies. ‘They were all screaming abuse at him, calling him gay and a poof… They were getting aggressive. A girl said she’d had her benefits cut and was going to rob him.’ ”

The chancellor was bundled into his car by security officers.

This was sent in by an Idle co-conspirator. Guido is off to a lunch of the finest Michelin-starred French food and wine in London with Katy Taylor-Richards and the mystery Red Nose Day bidder. You can safely presume that the blog won’t be updated this afternoon…

Dizzy got a nice scoop* yesterday. Basically Silverfish TV have bought up gordonbrown4leader.com and similar sites. So what? Well Gordon doesn’t officially have a campaign and when he does he will be expected to list cash donations and donations in kind. The Electoral Commission is taking a tough line on this sort of stuff. Silverfish rushed out an explanation that they had bought the domain merely as a speculative punt to make money (something – as Dizzy points out this morning – is prohibited by the internet authorities). Guido frankly finds it unbelieveable that Silverfish really were going to try and make a quick profit out of Gordon Brown.

Silverfish.TV are Labour’s preferred new media / video producers, doing most recently Scottish and Welsh Labour’s Party Political Broadcasts. They also did the “Dave the Chameleon” video for Labour, for free. Obviously it costs quite a lot to do an expensive CGI animation, but they didn’t charge the Labour party a penny. They do however have a number of juicy contracts awarded by Labour cronies and paid for by the taxpayer.

Do you see a pattern here? The Smith Institute is paid thousands of pounds to organise seminars for HM Treasury at the taxpayers expense. The Smith Institute gets to use No. 11 Downing Street for seminars for free. Opinion Leader Research is paid huge amounts to do polling for HM Treasury. Opinion Leader Research does polling for the Smith Institute for free. Silverfish are paid by Downing Street at fat rates, subsidising them to do “Dave the Chameleon” attack videos and coincidentally buy campaign websites on Gordon’s behalf for free.

It is a corrupt practice, Gordon’s campaign bills are being picked up by the taxpayer indirectly. In a secretive, behind closed doors, third-world style, “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours way”. He is running an undeclared campaign, it is funded, and no declarations are being made to the Electoral Commission because the funding is covert. Donors get tax relief from HM Treasury on donations to the Smith Institute, which is a charity of which Gordon is the only identifiable beneficiary. His pollster gets HM Treasury contracts and produces positive push polling for him. Labour’s friendly new media production outfit similarly wins Whitehall contracts and does work for Labour and Gordon for free. It has come to something when Nigerian newspapers are running stories about political corruption in Britain which feature the Smith Institute.

*Notice how despite Channel 4 News and the Times running with it, no credit was given to Dizzy. They say bloggers are parasitical leeches on the Dead-Tree-Press etc.

Following on from Gordon telling us last week he doesn’t bear grudges, he now tells us, via his own handwritten aide memoire reproduced below,* that he is happy, relective and analytical.

Is that normal? Write a note to yourself so that you remember how to describe yourself? You know, must make a note just in case one gets forgetful, “I’m Guido, with a bit of cheeky rebellious streak, who is overly partial to a drink and likes to poke fun at politicians.” Wouldn’t a note to self like that be a bit odd?

“He will dig his feet in over issues because he is so convinced he has the right answer. He is obviously forceful but he was very, very angry when he wrote this – and a bit shaken. He has a vulnerable side but is suppressing that. He doesn’t want to admit a weakness. Quite a few signs of being self-centred come through, even to the point of being egotistic. And he would not like people digging too deep – he wouldn’t be comfortable with that at all.”

UPDATE : How does his handwriting compare to the Granita days when he got shafted by Blair in 1994? Here is the note where Brown wrote Blair “guaranteed this will be pursued”. Slightly less SHOUTY but still stroppy is Guido’s considered view.

Just a simple question – if the Tories think Gordon’s pensions grab was wrong, will they reverse it? Guido suspects that the cunning stealthiness of the ploy means the political reward isn’t worth the fiscal hit. Will it be a manifesto commitment?

The Guardian links to Guido’s Bogey Man video. The Sun says Gordon’s popularity has nose-dived.

The Telegraph “missed the nose-picking bits, and wiping one’s fingers on the back of one’s tie afterwards. (Found them on the internet, though. Yuck.)” Tom Utley in the Mail ask us to imagine Cameron picking his nose on the frontbench.

Guido so enjoyed the best Friday Caption Contest (below) in a long time, he is almost moved to breach with tradition and award a T-shirt. Almost…

From a co-conspirator comes this post-budget joke -

Dave is an occasional reader of this blog, so he’ll no doubt be familiar with the legend. You don’t think he was having a little dig on his blog here, do you?

It’snot just the British horrified by Gordon’s two minutes of public nose excavation. Brown’s bogeytastic behaviour has gone global. Guido has had an overnight traffic surge following the Brown Bogey Man’s behaviour being re-broadcast on French television and trans-Atlantic interest is massive. See it all on Guynews.