Gordon said Blears’ house flipping and tax dodging was “totally unacceptable”, but apparently doing the unacceptable is acceptable if you are in cabinet.  Humiliatingly Brown’s spokesman was later sent out yesterday to express the Prime Minister’s “full confidence” in Hazel.

Blears is a fighter; a weak Prime Minister, unpopular and without authority, deprived of McBride* to put the frighteners on Cabinet ministers, is not going to scare the feisty redhead too much.  So she defys him and gets away with it.  As Brown looks round the cabinet table he can see known tax dodgers and profiteers from the public purse.  Hoon, Darling, Purnell, McNulty and Blears all sitting on their profits from playing the property market at our expense.

Brown is too afraid to reshuffle.  Disappoint Mandelson and the Prince of Darkness could easily lead a deputation for his removal.  Mandelson will surely be the undertaker for the Prime Ministerial coffin, probably with the other end of the coffin held by Jack Straw.  He can’t shift Miliband in case he swaps his banana for a backbone and challenges for the leadership.  He can’t fire Blears, because if Blears goes, Hoon must go too and so on…

At PMQs Cameron taunted him, that he was afraid of an election.  Afraid that he would lose in a landslide that would see Brown consigned to history as the worst PM in memory.  Poor Gordon, the “frightened faertie from Fife”…

*Believed to be in Nice, staying at a family owned apartment.  The booze is cheaper in Nice too.

Matthew Parris yesterday called on the Conservatives to come out of the closet, and behave like conservatives, Guido would be happy if they just behaved like Blairites. The symbolic 63.8% tax rate* should be opposed. Everyone can see that for the government to take more than half your income is not social justice, it is ritually sacrificing the successful on the altar of socialist dogma. Blair would never have countenanced it, he ruled it out in every manifesto that he signed.

The Cameroons have yet to shake off their awe of Blair, who was admittedly a political genius when it came to strategy. Brown is not Blair, when it comes to strategy he is a political idiot, he may be half blind but his bigger handicap is that he is tone deaf to popular feeling. Guido will frame his argument in terms that may resonate with the Cameroons better than Tim Montgomerie’s obituary for New Labour.

Osborne should ignore the siren calls from the likes of Polly and the Fink for acquiescence, there is no need to draw close to Gordon’s dividing line. Labour in government has once again ended in national financial disaster. Think what would Blair do in this situation?

The New Statesman’s James Macintyre, who often takes his copy straight from Mandelson’s friends with whom he has had a close relationship, says that Mandelson wants to fight on a programme of “prioritisation”. Mandelson wants to change the narrative to accept cuts in spending, in this he is supported by the surviving Blairites including Purnell. The Cameroons must not cede this territory to the Blairites in government. Mandelson knows the time for tax and spend is over, buried in debt and deficits.

So accept Gordon’s dividing lines. Think strategically “what would Blair do?” Now is the time for a clear message of fiscal conservativism and sound money.

*That is what the top marginal rate really amounts to when you include the combined NI of 13.8%.   Feudal serfs had to work 3 days a month for the barons.

Derek Draper’s “Red Rag” anonymous smear site was registered on November 4, 2008 according to publicly available records.  Draper had lunch at Chequers with Gordon Brown on Sunday 16, November 2008.

Brown recalled Draper to aid the  Labour Party, Draper boasted to many people that he was helping Gordon Brown.  Did he not discuss with Brown what he was doing for him?  Was Damian McBride also at the same Chequers lunch? 

Are we supposed to believe that the subject of Draper’s online battle plans was never discussed with the PM?

Questioned repeatedly he disowned Dolly, he denied Dolly headed up Labour’s online operation.  Byrne denied he had any official role in Labour.

So why did they launch LabourList in Labour HQ with Peter Mandelson and Dougie Alexander in attendance?  Why did Gordon Brown invite Derek Draper to Chequers?  What did they discuss – Strictly Come Dancing?

UPDATE : Alastair Campbell has just disowned McBride and Draper, with a nothing to do with me  guv dismissal: “I barely know Mr McBride. I was vaguely aware of him being around the Treasury when I was in Number 10, and vaguely aware that he was closer to the Charlie Whelan school of strategic communications than my own. (I’m aware we tend to get lumped together in some sections, but I know the differences, even if they don’t.)”

UPDATE II : Clarke has just called for Draper and Whelan to consider their position.  His was the voice that put the final nail in the coffin for McBride.  He obviously hasn’t finished with that hammer…

Derek Wanless – Gordon Brown’s most trusted banker – who chaired Northern Rock’s audit and risk committees, also has a multi-million pound pension paid for by the taxpayer. Vince Cable railed at the “collapse of Northern Rock; a product of greed and reckless gambling by overpaid executives”.

It was Wanless who failed in his responsibility to rein in that reckless gambling.

The government’s holding company, UK Financial Investments Ltd, is the majority shareholder in both RBS and Northern Rock. Based on the pensions data below, the taxpaying public as shareholders are funding a £14 million plus pension for Wanless. Does Brown think his friend Derek Wanless should be so rewarded given his catastrophic failure in his responsibility to exercise oversight of the risk?

Graphic credit : Paul Waugh

*Based on standard 20 x multiple.

Full ruling here.

Jeremy Clarkson has apologised for mocking Gordon Brown’s appearance – note he did not apologise for calling him an idiot. So the matter is closed says a Downing Street spokesman.

Guido can’t help wondering if the person who chose to hang David Austen’s “Green Electric Morning – Eye” picture from the National Art Collection on the wall in Downing Street might also be having a laugh.

Wonder what Gordon thinks of it everytime he spies the eye out of the side of his one good eye?

Perhaps he uses it as a target for his Nokias?

click to enlarge

Gordon’s confesses his guilt here.