Usually the convention is that a PPS who opposes a government motion resigns for the reason that technically they are part of the government, even though they are unpaid. The FT’s Westminster blog lists ten PPS who have signed the EDM opposing Mandelson’s plans to make the Royal Mail pay:

David Wright (PPS to John Hutton), David Anderson (Bill Rammell), Claire Curtis-Thomas (Baroness Scotland of Asthal), David Hamilton (Ed Miliband), Mark Hendrick (Jack Straw), Stephen Hesford (Vera Baird), Sharon Hodgson (Dawn Primarolo), Ashok Kumar (Hilary Benn), John Mann (Tessa Jowell), Stephen Pound (Stephen Timms)

Laura Moffatt is a former PPS to Alan Johnson, her opposition might be a sign of where he really stands. Nick Brown, Gordon’s long time henchman and now chief whip is also said to be not keen mon the bill. It is getting a bit like the dying days of the Major regime when euro-sceptics openly defied the government…

Lord Mandelson’s new found willingness to support the “British” car manufacturers is touching. When he tried to get an £80,000 Italian Maserati mid-life-crisis car as his official car out of the EU budget he was less supportive. He was in fact angry that penny-pinching bureaucrats blocked his turbo-tax-powered transport.

It would be a little more credible if the Labour Party last year had listened to the industry when they, in the name of Green taxes, whacked hundreds of pounds extra in tax on all those models that have stayed in the showrooms since. Forgetting that jobs depended on those cars being bought. It is an entirely foreseeable consequence of jacking up taxes that demand has been suppressed over and above the credit crunch problems…

Guido’s main concern about the Tory plan to insure bank-to-business lending was that it would encourage risky lending in a failing economy. The lenders would not really have to worry too much about the risk because the taxpayer would pick up the tab. The government’s scheme will provide banks with guarantees covering 50% of the risk on existing and new working capital up to £20 billion. It shares the risk between the banks and the taxpayer, encouraging the banks to lend for the same profit for half the risk. This is in some ways smarter than the Tory plan.

The small business component is for a £1.3 billion of bank loans with a government guarantee of 75% to cover working capital. Presumably this is to reflect the riskier nature of small business lending. This is a drop in the ocean and will barely be noticed. We are six months into the credit crunch. The options were admittedly not very palatable. Why did it take so long to put a plan into place? Could it be Mandelson wanted to get the politics right to fit his timetable of spin? No rush..

Is history going to repeat itself? Greg Hands is asking how Mandelson made the money dealing in property in his constituency to install himself in a £2.5 million Regency villa. Mandelson admits to receiving money from Alain Minc, the mysterious French fixer who was an adviser to former premier Édouard Balladur and now makes his millions “fixing” things. Monsieur Minc is worth examining closely…

When Guido looked into Mandelson finances a few months ago he was given the impression that Mandelson trousered £1 million from his brief involvement with the Clemmow Hornby Inge advertising agency – a pretty good return on the £30,000 he invested. This plus an inheritance enabled him to finance his multi-million pound home. Gilligan reveals that the inheritance was not that big. New information has now come to light revealing something unexplained about the sale of the shares.

Something that didn’t come out in the Gilligan article is the nearly 12 month gap between Mandelson selling his shares for circa £1 million in summer 2007, and the purchase of the property in August 2006. Did he get another bridging loan from a benefactor, or did he get a bridging loan from a bank? If so, did he use the shares as collateral for the loan?

Tory backer David Ross was forced to resign his position for failing to declare that he had used his shares in Carphone Warehouse as collateral to finance property deals. Mandelson has been in trouble and had to resign before over declarations about his mortgage…

Andrew Gilligan is digging into how Lord Mandelson can afford to buy a £2.5 million Regency villa on Regents Park. After all he has been a poorly paid public servant for over a decade…

My sister just txted me from Marakesh. Mandy spotted with a young boy. Unfortunately she is not politically nerdy enough to have followed up the spot so the trail is cold. Not much of a tip-off but it may be the start of a trail.

One night in Marakesh some years ago Guido was in a taxi with a champagne-filled Irish girl (not Mrs Fawkes). She somewhat louchely dared Guido to procure some professional company for the night. Guido turned to the taxi driver (from whom we had already obtained some local hashish) and asked him to take us to a brothel. He didn’t bat an eyelid and simply asked “boys or girls?” Guido turned to his companion and asked her what she fancied… well when in Rome…

Patrick Hennessy tells us that there is an interesting dinner planned for tonight, and that in a new found spirit of peaceful cooperation, bread will be broken by two old enemies. Before the great tribal truce and the summoning of the Dark Lord from over the water by the One-Eyed Son of the Manse, Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls were the most vicious champions of their respective masters; Blair and Brown. Briefing and pouring bile about the enemy camp into the ears of anyone who would listen.

It was at the height of the Blair destabilising cash for honours investigation that Guido was sent a document outlining the use of 11 Downing Street by the Smith Institute and the role of that “charity” in furthering Gordon’s ambitions. The note was passed to Guido by an über-Blairite close to No. 10. This was hardly surprising since No. 10 suspected (rightly) the Brownies were stoking the flames of cash for honours, this was essentially a sleaze counter-attack. The note outlined how Gordon got private polling and personal consultants flown in from the States. How they were paid for by cash-for-access meetings in No. 11 involving Brown and his aides under the auspices of the Smith Institute. Balls himself was paid an £89,000 bung by the Smith Institute and is now under scrutiny with the Tories looking to link this payment and others to the unlawful furtherance of Brown’s political ambitions.

After reading Peter Mandelson’s unintentionally hilarious interview in the Guardian comparing Brown to Moses, Alan Duncan, his shadow says;

“First global superhero and now Moses… Labour and Peter Mandelson should spend more time getting a grip on the country’s problems and less time heaping praise on their failed leader. We face massive issues. The automotive sector is grinding to a halt, the payment chain between companies is freezing over and insolvencies are rising fast. Labour has all but bankrupted Britain and as a result we are now badly placed to stave off the recession.”

Britain does need a miracle worker…

UPDATE : Charlotte Corday, the co-conspirator with the most cutting wit in the comments: “The only thing that Gordon Brown has in common with Moses is that they are both basket-cases.”

Obviously the big political news today is the withdrawal of John Sergeant from Strictly Come Dancing. He says he feared he would win.

Hmmm. Guido is suspicious, you don’t think he has been got at? It was after all only a few days ago that Mandelson said he wanted to be on the show….

UPDATE : Mandy has, this really is genuine, released a statement “John Sergeant should not bow out… He has become the people’s John Travolta and he should be a fighter, not a quitter… “. The Guidoisation of politics continues.