Actor Patrick Stewart boldly goes where multi-millionaire leftie luvvies have never gone before and fires a photon torpedo at the Coalition in the Staggers:

“I have nothing but contempt for the expression ‘we’re all in this together’. That’s bullshit – we’re not all in this together. The members of the cabinet are not in the same position as the people who live near me in Bermondsey.”

Or indeed the people that used to live near him in California. At this house:

Seems he’s an expert at not being in this together.

Last week’s Private Eye called the  blog of one Dr Eoin Clarke “obscure” and noted “many of Clarke’s musings turned out to be idiotic,” before concluding:

“Not even Eoin Clarke’s would claim his writings are essential reading, but his blog appears to be one of the few places on the interweb to give Ed Miliband a sympathetic hearing – so perhaps that’s why he reads it.”

Well it looks like the good doctor has found another reader. In her column this morning Polly Toynbee takes fear mongering about the NHS to new levels, and she has damning sources to back her up:

“If leaks to Dr Eoin Clarke’s website prove correct, the main risk is of costs becoming unaffordable as private companies siphon off profits and GP commissioners lack the expertise to control costs.”

Always keen to help out, Guido went over to the site, but could not find any evidence of any leaks. No quotes, no documentation, nothing. Here is what Clarke said, and Polly thinks justifies the high standards set by her Guardian colleagues:

“I am told that the reason for this is that the report contains a very serious warning about the long term damage the bill will do to the NHS. “

Polly is publishing on the basis of second-hand, un-sourced “leaks” from a website already widely derided for spouting nonsense. What would Lord Justice Leveson say!

Guido won’t bother with the fashion round up this time, but devout nicotine addict Laurie Penny popped up on our television again this lunchtime, complete with a fake cigarette. Jackie Ashley had dropped out at the last minute from appearing on the Daily Politics, so our favourite flame-haired firebrand was called up to fill in. In the course of the interview she offered her services as chairman of RBS, declaring that she could do Hester’s job without the paycheck. Guido is sceptical…

Leaving aside the differences between turning around an enormous multinational financial institution and jetting around teenage trouble-spots with a smartphone, let’s just see what Penny’s comrades at the Occupy movement could teach us about running a bank:

“Following criticism of the way in which the camp’s financial affairs have been run, the finance group quit en masse. That included the person who has the key for the safe — with the result that no one could access the money. Coupled with the fact that donations are now lagging behind expenditure, there has been a serious shortage of money to pay for things such as food and power. Protester Leo Ashford, 20, …told reporters that despite generous donations by supporters, money had been squandered. ‘We’re protesting against bankers, and no one on our finance team knows how to use a ledger or a receipt,’ he said.‘In the second week we had public opinion on our side and enough donations to sustain ourselves. We all could have had brand-new tents and blow-up mattresses. Now no one knows where the money has gone. ‘I’m sad, but I knew a month ago that it would get to the point where we would collapse in on ourselves on essentially our own stupidity.’”

Watching the Penny, you better hope the pounds could look after themselves.

Video via @LiarPoliticians

Guido is happy to welcome Jacking Ashley into the Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association, but he’s not sure she’s doing the cause any favours with this morning’s hysterical hyperbole. While discussing Ed’s critics she compares their behaviour to US Marines urinating on dead Afghans:

“It’s a game that the Westminster village has always enjoyed. Nick Clegg was last year’s victim, now it’s Ed’s turn. If enough pundits treat him as the US marines treated the Afghan dead, and if the public notices and reflects this contempt back through opinion polls, then somehow or other he might collapse.”

They even link back to the Guardian’s own coverage of the incident, just in case you missed this gloriously unsubtle point. Guido is still trying to work out whether the comparison with holding the Leader of the Opposition to account was done with a straight face. He has a feeling it was…

Ronald Reagan said they were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”, but this sentence is a new contender: “he will be forced to undertake diversity training”. A Tory councillor has been suspended for five months for using the word “retard” on Twitter. Hardly the most sensible choice of words, but the punishment seems rather disproportionate.

It’s not like he said mong, loon, spaz or nutter.

All is not well over at UK Uncut. While the group’s spin would have you believe that they are some sort of anarcho-syndicalist, non-hierarchical autonomous collective, they do in fact have leaders and key figures. True to lefty history, instead of fighting the self-perpetuating autocracy, they have started turning their swords of self-righteous indignation on each other.

Guido’s eyes and ears report of a six-hour meeting  to resolve the fact that “many in the group perceive there to be a strong male-dominated gender bias in the leadership of the organisation, and thus in the development of ideas.” In a sign of how bad things have got, professional moderators have been called in. The meeting was chaired by ethical hippy hand-holders Seeds for Change. They were clearly off their bonces all day today because nobody answered a phone at either of their “training collectives” and UK Uncut have declined the opportunity to comment. Are we supposed to have detected a particularly masculine theme running through their ideas to date? Squatting in the country’s most upmarket tearoom and running around the make-up counters in Boots stores seems rather girly to Guido…

UPDATE: It seems avid Uncut watcher and Telegraph blog-chief Damian Thompson has heard from the splitters too.

As our MPs lie in for another week, the rest of the country has gone back to work this morning with a 5% rise in train fares. While nobody likes that, it’s hardly fair to expect the inner-city workers who earn less to subsidise the countryside commuters. Though that hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from making a lot of noise this morning. Protests have been planned, and leafleters have hit the stations. However is this just about lowering fares?

Take a look at who is organising today’s “#FareFail” protest, which hopes to jam the Treasury switchboards. Those centrists over at Climate Rush have got involved, but pulling the strings seems to be the ludicrously named “Bring Back British Rail” campaign. They have been mentioned by various media outlets in the run up today, but it’s a one-man show headed up by Ellie Harrison, a socialist activist and artist. Her plan to lower fares is to renationalise public transport…

While the fare rises will no doubt hit some people very hard, Ellie has nothing to worry about. She is currently funded by an “Artistic Development” bursary from Creative Scotland. That should cover her travel to and from the protests…

Back in the heady days following the election of Ed to the leadership of the Labour Party the conservative journalist Iain Martin warned us all not to underestimate Ed Miliband, he even jocularly formed DUEMA, the “Don’t Underestimate Ed Miliband Association“. On Twitter he would highlight hope for the leadership of Ed Miliband which he warned was much underestimated by among others, David Miliband. As the year wore on the DUEMA membership dwindled and eventually Iain accepted the inevitable following the last PMQs:

Missed PMQs, but seems to have been a major setback for DUEMA (Don't Underestimate Ed Mili Assoc) and plans to bring it out of chapter 11—
Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) December 14, 2011

@edacuk DUEMA (Don't Underestimate Ed Mili Assoc) going into all-night crisis talks. Without govt bailout I'm not sure we can keep it going—
Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) December 14, 2011

@TimMontgomerie DUEMA filed for (intellectual) bankruptcy and is in Chapter 11. But now facing total collapse.—
Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) December 15, 2011

Guido is happy to announce that a private sector solution has been found. This blog has bought the association off the bankruptcy trustees and is rebranding it the “Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association“. It will remain a not-for-profit, now with an added Big Society social enterprise dimension. This new direction will result in no loss of #hashtags and we have a business plan to see the association run until 2015. In a sign that this is not a hostile takeover the new management is inviting Iain Martin to stay on as Chairman Emeritus.

Our first goal is to shore up support  for Ed Miliband from the left of the Labour Party. So we recommend that he promises to go into the next general election opposing the government’s proposed £500-a-week cap on housing benefit. Luxury flats are a human right!

How nice of the Guardian to follow Red Ed and align themselves to the Occupy movement. How sad though, for both,  that the outreach comes during the death throes of the Occupy “movement”. New York has been reclaimed for the people, with the imposters who claim to be the 99%, evicted. Perfect timing then for the Guardian Comment is Free team to have a boozy lunch and leave their site “occupied”. And it looks like they are starting at the very beginning:

A very good place to start for this lot. The lunatics have taken over the asylum!

Organisers of today’s demo put the number at 10,000, while the police say it’s more like 2,000. An attempt to expand the camp at St Paul’s down to Trafalgar Square was dispersed with short shrift. Back up the road there’s quite a gathering of speakers. Jet set multimillionaire Polly Toynbee, who owns properties in both London and Italy, addressed the crowd, while fellow 1%er and millionaire Billy Bragg provided the tunes…

But panic not, the former Viscount Stansgate, Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn has taken a stroll down from his two million pound plus Holland Park mansion to give them a dose of reality…

UPDATE: Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist Tom Morello was spotted at the occupiers camp today. He’s worth $60m.