Labour’s part-time Campaign Chief Tom Watson is clearly regretting his outing on LBC this morning where he said: “Those Lab voters thinking of going to vote for Boris, hold your nose, vote for Ken.” Realising his mistake, Watson rushed to his blog to try to blame his own loose tongue on the vast right-wing conspiracy of a Standard hack tweeting the comment. In justifying his words, however, he has dug himself further into a hole:

“There are a number of people who tell us on the doorstep that they would vote Labour if there was a general election tomorrow but are currently considering voting Conservative because they either a; like Boris Johnson or b; don’t like Ken.”

The Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party, with the responsibility for campaigns, casually concedes that his own voters are not backing their candidate. Stick to the Murdoch-baiting Tom…

UPDATE: In other news Ken is now said to be rowing back from his promise to release full set of earnings signed off by an accountant. Quelle surprise!

UPDATE II: LBC have made the full quote available:

“For once, I’m being totally candid with you. I’m saying to you, those Labour voters that are thinking of going to vote for Boris Johnson, hold your nose, vote for Ken, because that’s the way that you will help Labour. Let me also say, that having worked with Ken Livingstone, looking at his interview in The Guardian this morning, he has a beautiful dog. He’s got a Labrador. I shouldn’t say this, but there is an American maxim that when a politician is in trouble, get him a dog.”

Guido thinks Watson doth protest too much…

Labour’s second most famous backer Lord Winston has followed the lead of Alan Sugar and slammed Ken. Talking on the Daily Politics he questioned how the party had managed to select Livingstone. Just a week ago Lord Winston was the face of the Labour Party’s Election Broadcast. If he isn’t backing Ken, then why should any Labour supporter?

Meanwhile Ken has today promised to release all of his earnings, and those of Silveta, and the tax he has paid, signed off by an accountant. There are rumours of avian swine sightings too. At least he admits that his last figures were a load of…

Video via Liar Politicians

After Guido suggested here last week that it was rather odd that a member of the Labour Party Executive board and deputy Chief of Staff to the leader had managed to breeze into the candidacy for a nominally safe Labour seat, Lucy Powell has resigned from both her roles. Funny that she didn’t think it was appropriate to do so before her stitched up selection…

“Legal commentator and former government lawyer” Carl Gardner has been rather vocal in recent days about the Abu Qatada case. He’s billed as an impartial commentator on the airwaves. Today in the Guardian he pronounced that ”I read both cases as supporting Abu Qatada’s reading, rather than the Home Secretary’s.” Surprisingly his opinions might not be as impartial as he likes to present. Writing with a little less legal flair during the 2010 general election campaign, Gardner said “as a Labour supporter, I’m far from being a natural Conservative, and so perhaps I’m likely to be biased”. Someone better tell the “un-biased” BBC…

When she was short-listed last month Guido said he would “eat his hat if Lucy Powell does not win the Labour selection process for Manchester Central.” Well what do you know?

Absolutely thrilled to have been selected as Labour & Coop PPC for #McrCentral . The hard work starts now! Thanks to all those who helped!—
Lucy Powell (@LucyMPowell) April 16, 2012

What was it that first attracted the members to the leader’s deputy Chief of Staff and a member of the Labour Party’s new Executive Board? Presumably this is one by-election that Harman and Watson will find acceptable? A brazen stitch up…

As if by magic, Labour Birmingham Mayor wannabe Siôn Simon has waded into a row entirely manufactured by his allies in Westminster. After Harman and Watson took flack from their colleagues for suggesting that MPs should be banned from triggering by-elections in order give Simon a clear run, he has been able to ride in like a white knight and declare that the plan could not work. There’s one small catch though…

Writing in the Birmingham Post, the union-backed Brownite calls for his rival (either Liam Byrne or Gilesa Stuart) to meet the costs of any by-election from their own pocket:

“Sitting Labour MPs should now be allowed to stand. They should sign undertakings to abide by the result and not to run as independents if they lose, and perhaps also to repay to the Labour party and the Exchequer the cost of their by-elections if they win.”

Wasting taxpayers money is something our Siôn knows all about it. He managed to siphon £21,000 of public money to his sister before being caught red-handed. As an MP he was able to merely pay back the money. As a Mayor in all likelihood he would have been done on corruption charges…

The defeat in Bradford topped off a rough few weeks for Labour’s General Secretary Iain McNicol. After a shambolic handling of the internal reorganisations he lost the support of many of his troops and it was put to Guido that plans were afoot to ease the union man out. Well it seems that is happening…

With Labour downsizing to a new HQ tomorrow, Team Ed will be centralising the operation and one adviser says they “don’t want McNicol in the room”. He’s likely to be spending more time in the Party’s offices in Newcastle and “touring the regions”. Officially it is unlikely to be described as a relocation, but staffers know exactly what’s going on…

UPDATE: Today’s internal gripe is about said office move. Given it’s happening during an election campaign questions have been asked about timetabling. Apparently the party “can’t afford proper office relocation people, so staff have to spend three days packing themselves instead of campaigning.” They don’t seem very happy about this.

After promising to make this campaign about substance and decrying distractions, Ken’s tears stunt has backfired. Tonight 1.6 million Londoners will see this picture of an exhausted and tired old man in tears on the front page of the Standard. Hardly a vote winning look. As one exasperated member of the campaign team put it “it’s impressive to make Ed look like the competent one.”

The fallout continues. Labour colleagues are pointing more fingers at Watson:

“It looks like Watson may have overplayed his hand here. Its difficult to see how Siôn Simon is going to come out of this well and if MPs do make it on to the ballot paper its  going to look like a defeat for them. In 24 hours they’ve managed to give shadow cabinet member Liam Byrne the outsider/underdog status which can only help his campaign. 

 Watson tried to reinvent himself for the new politics era but he’s let the mask slip. He walks around with a halo on calling for more transparency in the media one moment and then be doing secret back room deals half an hour later. He’s the fixers fixer, in many ways he’s like Kevin Rudd in Australia. He complains about “invisible voices” and “faceless men”, but they are him. He called James Murdoch a mafia boss, but it takes one to know one, he’s Labour’s mafia boss”

Labour sources point to the fact normally “the General Secretary would have stepped in by now to sort out this mess,” but Iain McNicol is “an ineffective lightweight with no authority”.

Tempers are flaring…

UPDATE: A former Labour SpAd twists the knife:

“This is now going to turn into a ‘stop Sion’ campaign. Watson, what a genius. Doing for Sion what he did for Gordon…”

As Guido reported yesterday there is open revolt at Harman and Watson’s plans to stitch up the Labour Birmingham Mayoral race as exposed by Patrick Wintour. It was dismissed as stirring but now one of the candidates, Gisela Stuart, has broken cover in the Times:

“The whole point of the mayors was to devolve power and increase democratic participation, but the Labour Party’s response is as an old-fashioned, backward-looking party. The party machinery has to show some faith in the good judgment of voters and you cannot do that by drawing up rules which narrow down the contest.”

You read it here first…

UPDATE:

A senior Labour source gets in touch to say that it "it's inconceivable that MPs will be banned from fighting in Mayoral elections."—
Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) April 11, 2012