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.

With just over two weeks to go and the latest polls showing the LibDems in the lead Cleggmania is now everywhere, tomorrow the Guy News poll of polls rolling average will likely show  the LibDems neck and neck or ahead of the Tories. As Brown and the left cling to the hope of a “progressive coalition” YouGov’s Peter Kellner highlights research showing that whereas 52% of voters would be ‘dismayed’ by a Gordon Brown government, some 42% of the electorate would be ‘delighted’ or ‘wouldn’t mind’ a Lib-Con “Change Coalition“ government.

Guido reads that as telling us that if Clegg signaled his intentions clearly he could seal the deal with the electorate.  If he looks into the camera and says, “under no circumstances will we keep Gordon Brown in government”, swing voters and Tory waverers would no longer fear a Lib-Lab coalition and 5 more years of Gordon Brown, he could break-through to nearer 40% of the popular vote.  Clegg might even win outright…

UPDATE : On the Politics Smarkets Clegg’s price seems cheap for Next PM after Gordon: Clegg is worth backing at 14%, Cameron is still favourite on 65%. Harman 17%, Miliband 14%, Balls 10%, and Johnson 10% are also in the running.

The YouGov daily poll this morning has the Lib Dems on 33%, the Tories on 32% and Labour on 26%.  The Guy News rolling poll of polls above is also reflecting the dramatic rise of the LibDems, if they hold their gains after Thursday’s debate it will confirm that this is no mere bubble. The same YouGov poll asked a number of policy questions including this one on the LibDem’s populist winning-on-the-doorstep tax policy:

Here are some proposals that have been made in the current election. In each case, do you support or oppose it?

Tax: Scrap income tax on earnings of less than £10,000 a year. The £17billion cost of this will be paid for by a tax on bigger houses, a tax on airline flights, restricting tax relief on pensions savings for higher-rate taxpayers, and attempting to clamp down on tax avoidance.

• Support: 66%
• Oppose: 20%
• Don’t know: 14%

Danny Finkelstein and Guido had a bit of Twitter spat about this last night. Guido holds Fink responsible for accepting the Balls/Brown dividing lines and helping to foist on the Tories their “no tax cuts” position.  A policy position that Guido sees as cowardice in the face of the enemy. Relying on the momentum for “change” and making the election a referendum on Gordon left one huge exposed flank – they had forgotten the other “change” candidate and they have now been outflanked not just on change but also on what was once their politically Unique Selling Point – tax cuts.  Don’t say Guido hasn’t warned Fink publicly and repeatedly, as far back as November 2008, that what he advocated allowed the Tories to be outflanked. Clegg himself even told Fink that he was wrong saying “I’m not sure I’ve ever been called a “punk tax cutter” before. I quite like the label… Danny Finklestein is wrong, and cutting taxes is right… Growth is what we need now.” Fink still hasn’t justified his ridiculous over the top claim that the economy would be destabilised by tax cuts with a single historical example of this ever happening.

More real-time polling from Google trends shows what people are searching for online, it suggests people want to know more Nick Clegg:

On the weekend a disappointed Tory insider told Guido they had searched through Clegg’s expense claims from his days as an MEP –  “He wasn’t on the take.”  Instead they are going to attack Clegg for being a former lobbyist – is that really wise when they are also led by a former lobbyist?

Brown sinks to third party status…

From YouGov:

Leaving aside your own party preference, who do you think performed best overall in tonight’s debate?

Nick Clegg 51%
David Cameron 29%
Gordon Brown 19%
Don’t know 2%

Fieldwork was conducted between 21.55 and 22.10 on 15th April; sample size: 1,091 viewers of the debate.

Labour’s trusted twitterers are on the front page of the party’s website, further confirming the belief in Labour circles that twitter is some kind of alternative to democracy.  They have made sure that it won’t be easily hacked.  Not sure what the value is – presumably they are hoping that hacks will consult the page to see what the Labour faithful think of the debate.  A virtual twitter spin room… hmmm…  come back to Guido’s later this evening for a rival virtual twitter spin room…

Spin is cheap, punters put their money where their mouth is, currently the punters on Political Smarkets rate the chances of victory for the leaders in the debates thus:

16:45 David Cameron 55%  Nick Clegg 48% Gordon Brown 29%

18:30 David Cameron 65%  Nick Clegg 48% Gordon Brown 20%

Gordon’s price has improved from this morning where punters where giving him only a 10% chance of winning* tonight’s debate, Clegg was favourite though in late betting Cameron has pulled ahead.   All to play for…

*Winning defined by ICM’s post debate polling results.

Tonight is debate night, the single event with the potential to alter the direction of the campaign more than any other. Punters on the PoliticSmarkets website can bet on who will win the debate tonight : the smart money gives Gordon Brown a 10% chance of emerging victorious, David Cameron a 47% chance and makes Nick Clegg the narrow favourite with a 48% probability of winning tonight’s debate.  In one sense Clegg is already the winner just by getting equal billing…

Above is the Guy News rolling poll of polls from the last seven days.

This week last year saw the biggest move in a party’s rating ever recorded by YouGov.  On April 4th, 2009 Labour were on 34%, the following YouGov poll on April 23rd had them down 7% to 27% with the Tory lead soaring to 18%.  It was the week when Smeargate revealed to voters how Brown’s Downing Street cabal really worked and Labour’s electoral hopes of a post-G20 bounce-back in the polls were finally killed.

It was, in the words of one grateful senior Tory strategist at the time, “a game-changer”…

Above is the Guy News rolling poll of polls from the last seven days. Tories and Others up tick 1%. Lab / Lib unchanged.

Elsewhere YouGov reveal that 35% or 15 million voters don’t know / haven’t made up their minds.  Guido suspects most of them won’t vote…