Given that this is the week that shady chats and hand shakes in private rooms will be coming under extra scrutiny, Guido thought he would give Ed a gentle reminder of his promise to publish a list of attendees at a suspiciously “private and off the record” dinner held for him at the home of lobbyist-spinmeister Roland Rudd last week:

Ed has turned to the corporate lobbyist to boost his severely dented, if ever existent, reputation in the business world. Roland’s known clients include Murdoch, the Daily Mail, not so environmentally sensitive miners like Rio Tinto and African Barrick Gold. Rudd’s client list includes Boots and easyJet, owned by predatory asset stripping private equity companies, the most aggressive takeover group in the world KKR – the original “Barbarians at the Gate” - investment banks like Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, UK taxpayer bailed out banks like Royal Bank of Scotland and Greece’s bankrupt Alpha Bank. Glencore the rogue commodities trading operation run out of Switzerland retains Rudd.

Labour’s current favourite targets the big energy companies like ENI, Shell, EON and Centrica could have been sat round the table with Ed. Embarrassingly UK Uncut favourites Vodafone may have passed the port to Ed and given Rudd represents Wonga, which the Labour Party’s Stella Creasey campaigns against, there will be extortionate interest if they were there. Rudd represents hedge fund operators DE Shaw and the London Stock Exchange, currently home to the unwashed 0.99% in occupation. With all these “predators” at his fingertips, which ones did Rudd choose to give Ed “some straight advice”?  No wonder Ed is reluctant to admit who he had dinner with…

Some wise words for these troubled times…

Having spent every hour since his speech trying to convince us that he’s not lurching to the left, Ed didn’t look too happy singing the Red Flag this year:

What happened to the Welsh totty from last year? The whole thing was horrendously off-key. Surely a metaphor there…

Video via Liar Politicians

After spending his entire conference failing to convince us that he’s not a weirdo, Ed has finally had a human moment – he was unable to remember the names of the three candidates grudgingly running for leader of the Scottish Labour Party:

“Ed speaks human!” As the campaign briefing went last summer…

It is the end of the month and the end of a quarter. Britain’s over-taxed small business owners will be worrying about cash-flow. Is there enough cash to make payroll at the end of the month? Will the bank extend the overdraft? Can they find the money for the quarterly VAT bill? Small businesses are the canaries of the economy, the job creators, fast to grow, fast to shrink.

Ed Miliband knows nothing about this, he has never had those worries, profiteering is not a good word for him, it is bad, despite profits bringing jobs and profits paying taxes to support the unproductive. He sits at the top of the table in a shadow cabinet that has not one member who has started or owned a for-profit business. That inexperience is why he prattles on incoherently about business predators.

UPDATE: Exception that proves the rule and it was a government supplier:

Correction: Am told that Liam Byrne launched a software company 'e-Government Solutions' after he left Rothschilds Investment Bank.—
Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) September 29, 2011

Flogs software to the public sector…

Sir Richard Lambert, was not amused, demanding “do we have to go on with this rubbish Jeremy” when Peter Oborne threw his  Guilty Men pamphlet at him across the table with the words “you’re in it, read it”. At the same time a eurocrat version of Comical Ali who had been praising the euro stormed out of the Brussels studio on air after being repeatedly called an idiot by Oborne – at one point even Paxman referred to him as “Mr Idiot in Brussels”. It was an ode to joy…

From the conference darling to roadkill in less than 24 hours is a pretty spectacular career explosion, even by LibDem standards. Party President and King o’the Water Tim Farron has declared live on television that he would not accept the leadership of his party, even if it was handed to him on a plate:

A classic Brillo skewering…

H/T @Liar Politicians

UPDATE: Huhne re-stated his new line that Clegg will still be leader when he has retired from politics. Fingers crossed…

UPDATE II:  Rumour doing the rounds that Farron didn’t have much choice in going on the Daily Politics. Fits in with the Speccie’s Clegg is cross narrative.

Not only was the act crap, Strictly wasn’t on that night, so her girl-of-the-people ruin was utterly inauthentic…