Following the car crash of a staff meeting on Monday at Labour HQ, staff were further outraged to learn the reason Iain McNicol was not in the office the following day (Tuesday) was, in true David Brent fashion, that he had gone to the races at Cheltenham.

Talking of Charles Allen, one staff member tells Guido

“it is complete disgrace that the NEC has allowed an ex-Goldman Sachs advisor to take over the party, be appointed the Chair of the Executive Board and in effect be the General Secretary in all but name, as Iain McNicol has proved to be such a numpty and not up to the job.”

Comrades, comrades, where is the love?

UPDATE: Over at the New Statesman – which in its heyday would have been all over a developing story like this about trouble in Labour HQ – Mehdi Hasan is complaining that Guido and his former colleague and bitter rival Dan Hodges are getting the scoops that people want to read whilst he is just wails on about Iran and Israel. If Ed Miliband’s biographer wasn’t such a patsy for the Labour leadership he would be reporting the story rather than exhorting Labour to sack our sources. 

An extraordinary stance for a journalist – to want to silence whistleblowers..

Gordon Brown has resigned.

The Labour councillor quit Cannock Chase District Council this week.

Guido really enjoyed writing that headline once again. If only...

Whoever the person at Labour HQ is who's giving @GuidoFawkes hourly updates, I wish they'd stop it. Whatever the beef, it won't fix it.—
Paul Richards (@Labourpaul) March 15, 2012

Paul Richards is clearly not happy about Guido’s run of scoops about the Labour Party’s internal problems.

 “It’s a great shame that someone thinks passing regular updates to Guido Fawkes is the best way of settling disputes. I’m a bit exasperated and I expect many Labour Party members will be too. It’s pretty despicable really.”

This zinger just in from a senior Labour source

“Its a bit f*****g rich of Paul Richards telling people to stop doing hostile briefings, it is a bit like desperate Dan telling everyone to go vegan.”

Our source reminds us that when he was Hazel Blears’ SpAd Paul Richards constantly briefed against John Prescott to try and further Hazel Blears’ position. The poisonous “YouTube if you want to” uncoded attack on Gordon Brown was drafted by him and he encouraged Hazel Blears to wear a “rock the boat” broach on the day of the European and local elections after she resigned.

“He was one of the most poisonous f*****g briefers working for anyone in the cabinet…”

… screams our exasperated Labour stalwart…

The row over the Labour Party’s internal restructuring is growing. Guido understands that Labour HQ staffers have gone to union arbitrators from the GMB as their dispute over the appointment of the new Executive Directors continues. Given that the party managed to overspend by £1.7m last year, a strike might just save them a bit of cash…

Chief of Staff Tim Livesey is said to be in despair at “what an amateur operation the whole thing is…”. In an attempt to take the heat out of the ongoing battle he has told staff that, from now onwards, all appointments will be advertised internally, though that current employees should not hold their breath for selection.

Sir Charles Allen, who is overseeing the transition that will squeeze the National Executive Committee and other elected officials out is, Labour always emphasise, a former chairman of ITV. What the Labour Party are less keen to mention is that he is also a former Senior Private Equity Advisor at Goldman Sachs. Given Goldman’s are back in the headlines after one of their execs spectacularly quit and told the New York Times that they think their clients are Muppets, it’s no wonder one Labour insider said Allen is “treating HQ like muppets…” Well it’s a step up from ferrets…

To get away from questions about his taxes…

GuyNews video coming up shortly. It was a pretty hectic chicken raid, assorted Labour heavies got heavy. Ken chickened out and ran away…

After a big recruitment campaign, the new £65,000-a-year directors of the Labour Party are set to be unveiled next week, and they seem to have recruited from within. As Guido understands it, the three leading directors are likely to be:

• Director of Communications: Bob Roberts.
  Currently Ed’s press man, this is a good move sideways and sort of upwards for the former Mirror Political Editor, some confusion as to if he wants to stay in the Norman Shaw building’s leaders office rather than go to the Labour HQ. Also means his career in the party is not over with a change of leader.
  
  
• Director of Strategy: Greg Beales
  Currently Ed’s policy wonk and general consigliere. His other quarter is Katie Myler, the daughter of the former Screws editor Colin. Not much change here. 

• Director of Policy: Torsten Henricson-Bell
  This former Alistair Darling SpAd was on the inside when they “not only saved the world, but saved the banks too”. He’s been sniffing around for a seat since. He didn’t go far away, and has been advising Ed on economic policy.

There are other less exciting back room roles, but these three will be the significant players. The biggest loser of this reorganisation is the unfortunately titled “Director of Strategy and Communications” Tom Baldwin, who has effectively had his job divided up and handed to other people, in particular Tim Livesey, the former diplomat and adviser to the archbishop. When Tom started, it was made very clear that he was Bob Robert’s boss. It doesn’t really look that way any more…

UPDATE: According to LabourList, who are now catching up with us on this story, Beales will stay in the leader’s office. They also reveal Patrick Heneghan for Field ops and Emilie Oldknow for the dubiously named Governance and Services Director.

UPDATE II: Or not:

Never let it be said I don't admit when I'm wrong – kudos to @GuidoFawkes who was in fact right about Greg Beales… labli.st/A0jJOx—
Mark Ferguson (@Markfergusonuk) March 09, 2012

Atul Hatwal on Ed Miliband’s deficit policy…

“Since Ed Miliband reshuffled his shadow cabinet in early October, the Labour party has issued 830 press releases. Out of these, there have been just two on spending restraint. Two. In terms of Labour’s media effort since this shadow cabinet was appointed, the party has devoted 0.25% of its output to tackling the reason we lost the last election.”

Given that Robert Peston’s “exclusive” Cable letter was actually in the FT last month, the timing of yesterday’s “leak” looks strange. Most coverage has focused on Cable’s unease about the economy and the government’s lack of a “compelling vision”, but the Beeb and Peston have put the call to break up RBS as the top line.

While one theory is that Cable gave the letter to Peston himself, Guido hears Tom Baldwin was pushing the RBS angle heavily to hacks yesterday evening, so much so that some suspect this was his dog in the fight. Pesto should be more careful when an “exclusive” is dangled in front of his face…

After his tax hypocrisy was called out over the weekend, Ken has played another blinder this morning. He’s just strolled over to Downing Street to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister demanding that London Mayors are only allowed “one job”. While you would expect any opponent to try to make a hay out of Boris’ Telegraph column, you have to wonder why Ken didn’t do more to stop London Mayors having more than one job during his own time in office. Was it something to do with him spending over a year as a working MP for Brent East as well as Mayor? Or was it that column he, like with Boris in the Telegraph, himself had in the Indy…

To Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, where at last night’s meeting Councillor Ann Holland, a Labour member for Droylsden West, was turning on the rhetoric:

“Where did Prince Phillip go when he was ill? Where did David Cameron go with his sick child? The NHS. Where did Margaret Thatcher go for her eyes – I dearly wish she’d go blind, but she went to the NHS.”  

The Leader of the Council, Kieran Quinn, tried to distance the council from her comments saying:

“We do wish her well and do not support any of those comments regarding her health.”

During this an enraged Ann Holland shouted “you don’t speak for me!” at her comrade. What a charmer!

Guido has spoken to multiple people in the room who confirm these quotes. He just got off the phone with Ann who refused to deny saying these things. After quizzing Guido on his sources she said “no comment… I have nothing to say. I’m going now.” Going, going…