During the election campaign Guido’s inbox was red hot with press releases, up to some 50 a day.  Yesterday saw not a single press release from any party.

Mandelson having engineered the relatively painless demise of Brown is now quietly inching towards putting Miliband into Downing Street, with the support of the LibDems, in exchange for perpetual representation and all we are seeing from the Tories in response is the deployment of Michael Gove around broadcasting studios.  Gove is merely spreading sweet reasonableness around the studios whilst Mandelson is manipulating events behind the scenes.

The Tories need to put their case to the people directly before Mandelson succeeds in trying to put together a government of all the losers. They should:

• Bang on that a coalition of celtic fringe parties would demand that England took the burden of public expenditure cuts whilst they kept their sovietised state-dominated economies intact.
• Nail LibDems for trying to get electoral reform without reference to the electorate.
• Shout about the narrow self-interest of the parties claiming to be acting in the national interest.

There is of course the possibility that Mandelson knows that a majority cannot be sewn together from the rag-tag of parties he is lining up and is merely arranging affairs to further the advance of Miliband.  With David Miliband as Labour leader Mandelson could rule by proxy as regent. 

This after all is Mandleson we are talking about…

Mike Smithson reminds us that 313 MPs signed Gordon’s nomination papers 3 years ago today, they didn’t hold a competitive election, they didn’t have a debate in which Gordon would be tested and expected to make his case – a weakness clearly visible in the TV debates.*  Guido said at the time they would rue the day.

Like lemmings they followed Gordon and he will lead them over the edge to electoral oblivion. Yesterday the news channels were full of Labour frontbenchers looking constipated with pain, even accomplished TV performers like Andy Burnham couldn’t find a way to spin it – Gordon had just unfairly and without reason called a Labour voter, with legitimate worries, a bigot.  Neither Mandelson, Campbell or Maguire could find a way to put a positive spin** on it, our Kevin seems to have thrown in the towel.

They knew Gordon had just guaranteed Labour activists hell to come on the doorstep.

Steve Richardson, a long-time apologist for Brown, writes in the Indy this morning

Goodness knows what is going on in Brown’s exhausted mind when he makes these wholly misjudged, angry exclamations. We can only guess… the mystery at the heart of yesterday’s drama. Why was Brown so angry in the first place?

Gordon was angry because he is a malevolent weirdo, unable to relate people like a normal human being, unable to interpret the emotional signals and body language that we all do instinctively.  He is a bonkers, not like an eccentric old aunt, but like a dangerously paranoid political psychopath. Privately aides were grateful yesterday that he hadn’t launched into a foul mouthed tirade or hit anything other than the car “it could have been worse” they were saying yesterday. The voters have now heard a little of the real Gordon, they won’t find it attractive.

*Punters on Political Smarkets currently rate tonight’s TV debate winner probabilities Clegg 54%, Cameron 52%, Brown 12%.

**For a while Mandelson and Whelan tried to blame the Murdoch press / Sky News.  When that didn’t work they Mandelson dropped out of view. Whelan and Prescott, in what is pretty disgraceful lying, are now claiming Mrs Duffy is bought and paid for by Lord Bell and the Sun.  It is as if Damian McBride had never gone away…

Guido’s co-conspirators are everywhere – this came in overnight from San Francisco:

To: guido.fawkes@order-order.com
Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 11:37 PM
Subject: Philip Gould in San Francisco airport

Guido – I’m in the BA lounge at SFO and the guy next to me was receiving some attention. I didn’t recognise him so I ogled his boarding pass. It says “Gould Philip Lord” and I do at least recognise his name. Anyway, he’s not as discreet as he could be. He’s just emailing peter mandelson and I could get a read of the message if I had more balls. Listening to him speak, though, he openly said to someone that he was worried by the polls. He thinks that Labour & Libdems will gradually sink, leaving things clear for Tories. Hoping so…

I’ll email more if he stays indiscreet.

And another email reached the inbox a little later…

To: guido.fawkes@order-order.com
Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 11:41 PM
Subject: Philip Gould in San Francisco airport

He got an upgrade to first class and is now in seat 01A. He says he “feels so guilty about this first class thing”. He just bought 3 boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

IP tracing confirms the email was sent from California. Guido suspects Gould and Mandelson’s real game now is to make Miliband leader with Mandelson as the Dark Prince Regent…

UPDATE : Just realised Lord Gould will still be mid-Atlantic and won’t know about this until he lands.

Peter Mandelson is becoming increasingly irritated with the unions stranglehold on Labour Party candidate selection process. Funnily enough they keep turning up their nose up at his friends. He has been looking for a safe seat for one of them since 2007 and Downing Street are pushing hard for control of the race to succeed outgoing Labour MP (and Old Etonian) Mark Fisher.

Guido isn’t sure a name like the Hon. Tristram Hunt is going to go down with the Unite paymasters never mind the voters of Stoke-on-Trent…

There is a certain irony in Lord Mandelson discussing who is and is not suitable for a seat in the House of Lords. Does he really want to go down this route? No wonder the Lords Authorities say they can’t investigate. Has anyone suggested Ashcroft has broken the law? Has Ashcroft been involved in dodgy mortgage cover-ups, shady passport deals with donors and made his millions on the gravy train?

Mandy just told a press conference that “we’ve seen no evidence of bullying in Number 10.” He is on the attack and spinning away. Perhaps though he should have reconsidered his choice of words given the fact Tom Watson told the House in March 2009:

“I can confirm that in the period specified (2007-2009), there were fewer than five cases in the Department where staff were disciplined for bullying and harassment of colleagues. It would not be appropriate to provide a further breakdown.”

So there have been confirmed cases, while Gordon was PM, that were investigated. Sounds like evidence of bullying no?

Last month a co-conspirator in Mandy’s Department of Innovation, Business and Skills sent in a picture of this sign that was guiding mandarins to a training seminar on how to deal with tricky questions. Another co-conspirator put in an FOI request that has revealed the taxpayer coughed up to the tune of £24,985.36 to teach 44 Executive Officers, Higher Executive Officers and Senior Executive Officers how to avoid answering a straight question from the public through a days role-play.

Seems the department weren’t quite up there with Mandy’s forked tongue skills.

The news agenda yesterday oscillated between Phil Hammond saying that the Tories had only identified £1.5 billion of cuts and Labour seizing on Cameron’s shift of emphasis saying that there would be no swingeing spending cuts, just a start on cuts in 2010.  Mandelson claimed that the Tories would pull the rug out from under the recovery by cutting £11 billion this year when he himself said only last month that we need to cut £80 billion-a-year within 4 years.  The government is even legislating to that effect.  It is like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party:

`Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.  Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked. `There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.  `Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.

Meanwhile, back in fiscal reality, Britain is the most indebted nation in the industrialised world.  McKinsey released research yesterday which puts the “billion here, a billion there” political squabbling in perspective.

Have the politicians grasped the magnitude of the deep hole Britain is in? The Tories have publicly identified spending cuts equivalent to less than ¼ of a percent of GDP.  The government is overspending by some hundred times that amount.  This is “through the looking glass” economics.

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

We can’t go on like this…

Lord Forsyth has hit the headlines calling for spending cuts of £75 billion a year.  Sounds like a lot until you realise that government will still be over-spending by more than £100 billion a year since the budget deficit is £178 billion.  A government that over-spends by £2 billion a week is going to worsen the debt crisis.

Before Liam Byrne starts spinning about cruel Tory cuts he would do well to remember that Lord Mandelson said it was ‘vital’ to reduce the deficit by some £80 billion in a speech two weeks ago.  Mandelson is still outflanking the Tories…

If Guido told you this picture was taken covertly in the Victoria Street offices of the Lord Mandelson’s Dept. for Business, Innovation & Skills would you really be that surprised? Whitehall mandarins in the making need training.

Guido would call the press office for an explanation, but presumably if they have done the training course, they won’t give a straight answer.

If anyone wants to enlighten us, email…