After their tent village was exposed as a sham yesterday, it seems the Occupy London protestors, and especially their designated spin-doctors, are getting a little bit grumpy. Guido hears that a Bryn phoned up the UKIP press office to make a complaint about Nigel Farage’s comments in yesterday’s Express about the threat to Remembrance Sunday. Guido didn’t have them down as Express readers, but maybe they picked up a copy in Starbucks. The gist of their strange complaint was that Farage was making “political capital” out of the protest. It’s not about politics, apparently…

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

Ivan Lewis’s plan to licence journalists has dominated discussion around the conference zone today. It’s been met with near universal derision. Guido hears that Tom Watson and Ivan met up last night, keeping Ed most definitely out of the loop, not least because he was having a polite tête-à-tête with Hugh Grant at the time. Ed, and those around him, were kept in the dark…

Lewis didn’t mention the idea to the fringe event he spoke at last night , despite the fact he had clearly already briefed the press. Conspiracy theories are rife, with party staffers scratching their head at why Lewis dropped this dumb-bomb today of all days…

UPDATE: Ed Miliband’s spokesman has just pulled the rug out from under Ivan to The Sun:

…Ed Miliband's official spokesman: "We're not in the business of regulating journalists".—
Sun Politics (@Sun_Politics) September 27, 2011

Guido is a little torn about the Fifth of November celebrations. Historically it has been characterised by anti-Catholic bigotry for example until very recently in Lewes, Sussex, (holiday home to Polly Toynbee) the famous celebrations featured anti-Catholic “Bonfire Prayers” calling for the Pope’s destruction and the burning of not only Guy Fawkes, but also the Pope. It has now mutated into a much healthier burning of hate figures such as Osama Bin Laden, Sadam Hussein and Tony Blair.

It appears that loony-left Southwark Council is backing away from turning the official municipal fireworks party into something politically correct called “The Colour Thief: A Winter Extravaganza Celebrating The Changing Of The Seasons“. Guido’s preference is for a Guy Fawkes Night that celebrates an attempt to overthrow a tyrant and destroy the political class…

Toby Young blogs this afternoon:

“I’m writing this from the headmaster’s office at the West London Free School which was officially opened this morning by the Mayor of London. Miraculously, the whole ceremony went off without a hitch – even our hastily-cobbled together curtain-pulling mechanism worked. Boris gave a brilliant speech, praising our school as one of the first taxpayer-funded schools to be set up by a group of parents and teachers and expressing the hope that other parents and teachers will follow in our footsteps. He paid particular tribute to the Secretary of State for Education and said he’d added a new inflection to the verb “to give”: We give, they gave, he gove. “He gove us these fantastic free schools,” he said.“

Congratulations are in order, but not everyone thought Toby would get to this point. Guido thinks militant free-school opponent Fiona Miller, aka Mrs Bad Al, owes Young an apology for her “you’ll never do it” attacks…

The Question Time audience is often derided for being out of touch with mainstream public opinion and clapping contradictory arguments, but sometimes they cross the line. Back in 2001, just four days after the attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers, the BBC was hit by one mighty PR disaster when their carefully selected, and oh so balanced, audience almost reduced a former US Ambassador to tears by repeatedly blaming America for the attacks, while the ruins were still smouldering. Director General Greg Dyke said at the time:

“…despite the best efforts of David Dimbleby and the panel, there were times in the programme when the tone was not appropriate, given the terrible events of this week. I have today spoken to Phillip Lader, the former US Ambassador to the UK who was on the panel, and apologised for any distress the programme may have caused him.”

Well we are ten years on and Guido hears that the BBC’s paranoia around tonight’s anniversary episode is intense. Producers are said to be particularly worried about the audience reaction to Reagan and Bush defence advisor, and the spiritual godfather of neo-conservatism, Richard Perle. Insiders say the audience has been “softened”. The programme’s production-company Mentorn declined to comment when Guido put it to them that there had been a significant re-jigging of audience members today…

The BBC press office are looking into the matter…

UPDATE Friday 09:00: The BBC got in touch over night to say usual practice applied to audience selection last night.

Along with Alastair Campbell’s partner Fiona Millar, Francis Gilbert is the co-founder of the Local Schools Network – an anti academy front group set up to try to derail school reform. Paul Goodman over at ConservativeHome is a real fan. This morning Gilbert took to BBC Breakfast in a last ditch effort to talk down the Free School project that is seeing the first batch opening their doors this week:

FG: You’ll get a certain type of middle class parent putting their child into this school and then the local state school will take the more socially deprived pupils who don’t have the savvy parents. So you get this kind of segregation which  has led to things like the London riots in our schools already…

BBC: Let me just stop you there. You’re saying segregation in education in London schools led to the London riots..?

FG: It contributed a certain factor because you’ve got the poorest students concentrated in a quarter of our schools in this country and that’s a real problem. So we really need to solve that by bringing all our children together and this free schools programme will contribute more to this social segregation.

No doubt he is fully signed up to the non-reality based community theory that the riots were caused by teenagers having their Educational Maintainence Allowance cut…

Radical leftist Jody McIntyre shot to fame after he falsely accused the police of brutality after last year’s student protests. Having positioned himself on the frontline in a wheelchair, the police took the decision to move him out of the way for safety. The IPCC threw out the complaint and McIntyre’s integrity took a hit when he boasted about being on the roof of Millbank CCHQ, along with the fire extinguisher tosser. Guido covered the matter at the time.

Obviously McIntyre had everything required to became a darling of the provocative left, and not long after the Indy gave him a blogging platform and Channel 4 commissioned him to make documentaries. Well not any more.

As Harry’s Place points out, McIntyre’s spectacularly badly judged incitement to riot tweets this week have seen him ditched from the Indy, HuffPo and his telly show cancelled. A lesson there. With his career in tatters, young Jody’s heart should be jumping in his mouth every time there is a knock on the door. The same police that he tried to screw over are coming for anyone who stirred up trouble….

That’s not a headline Guido ever expected to write. Les Lawrence, who is in charge of kids and yoof for Birmingham Council, has said those trashing his city centre, stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down and generally causing mayhem, should be spared punishment. It seems he got the hug a hoodie memo about five years too late. Instead of locking up rioters, Lawrence wants the police to take away their X-Boxes and TVs. Presumably their old ones as well as the ones that they stole yesterday?

Coincidently the Tory councillor’s partner is the delectable Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT union…

As embers smoulder across London, fingers of blame are going to be pointed. While there’s no doubt this spread spontaneously beyond anyone’s wildest plans, leaflets found in the broken glass show this hasn’t been a completely disorganised effort:

Guido is looking into what exactly law firm Bindmans knew about their contact details making it on to these leaflets:

For anyone heading to places where riots are: 1) Mask up. Properly, not just a hood. 2) Bindmans solicitors if you get nicked: 02078334433—
The Third Estate (@thethirdestate) August 08, 2011

It’s pleasantly surprising to see some of the usual agitators condemning what is the logical consequence of their rhetoric, but many leftists are still cranking things up. Take the Anti-Cuts Space:

“We offer unapologetic solidarity and support to those involved in the UK uprisings these past nights. This sentiment extends to both the rioters and to those communities affected by them…

…When the working class community begins such a fight, there can be no doubt where loyalties should lie: With ALL of them and against the police and government.”

“Bloomsbury Fight” who came to prominence during the student protests last year were ecstatic as it started to look like their dreams are coming true:

LONDON IS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BLACK BLOC #londonriots #clapham #hackney #chalkfarm #lewisham—
Bloomsbury Fight! (@BloomsburyFight) August 08, 2011

And who did firebrand Labour MP John McDonnell find to blame? The bankers of course…

Reaping what has been sown over 3 decades of creating grotesquely unequal society,with alienated young copying ethos of looting bankers.—
John McDonnell (@johnmcdonnellMP) August 08, 2011

¡Viva la Revolución!