Liam Byrne, or Baldamort to his friends, has had a bad week. Rule one of spinning for the Treasury is never to give definitive answers on anything. He made an claim on the Daily Politics last week that neither VAT or any other tax would need to rise in a Labour fourth term, he is now spectacularly rowing back. Having overstepped the mark in his role as the Treasury’s election attack dog, he is now firmly back in his box wittering about the Chancellor reserving the right to make the decisions.

Let’s hope his staff were on hand to bring him a soothing cappuccino…

Bad Al Campbell is briefing that the Sun’s endorsement is nothing.  When he was really a player in the game, he used to think differently, take this extract from his diaries:

Monday, March 17, 1997
… As soon as TB finished the Q & A session I took him to one side and said I had some good news. I said you remember in 1994 when I said we should try to get the Sun on board and you said you weren’t sure it was possible, well, they are. He thought it was good news in its own right, but was good in the effect it would have on the other side’s morale. I tipped off Mike Brunson at ITN. On one level, it was ridiculous that it should be seen as a big event, but the reality is that is exactly how it is seen. I felt it was a fruit of three years’ hard work, and there will be many more.

If you read his book, “The Blair Years“, Alastair boasts of lying, of spinning in his own words “bollocks”. It was he who sent David Kelly and thousands more to their deaths on the basis of a dossier of lies.  Labour circles are currently alive to the rumour that Bad Al is negotiating the terms on which he will return to help Mandelson in Downing Street.  Alastair himself is spinning, as if he understands, that the internet changes everything.  Mandelson told Paxman last night that The Sun doesn’t matter because of blogs and Twitter, as if they are some 140 character placebo for democracy. Yes, the internet.  Come on down Alastair, come spin on the web.  Emperor of dirt, we will make you hurt…

Remember the somewhat self-serving hoo-ha last year about spin merchants Bell Pottinger switching their big political party from the Labour conference to the Tory conference. PR Week’s David Singleton reports that the lobbyists are cancelling their Tory Conference champagne glugging gig:

The Tories recently told lobbyists to back off in the pages of PR Week and they will be even more weary about dealing with them in the future following a recent warning from Guido Fawkes…

According to Bell Pottinger’s Peter Bingle the cancellation is because “The public mood has changed”. What a shame…

UPDATE : Bell Pottinger’s Bingle (not a medical condition) comments below

I am amused that our decision about holding a party is such a news story. We understand the body politic better than most. I suspect that I will still be around long after Guido has moved on to pastures new.

Maybe Bingle understands the body politic better than most because he is a boil on the arse of the body politic. Where his ilk tread is over the wishes of the voters. It is a form of corruption where either he is lying to his clients about his capabilities; after all it was Bingle who embarrassingly boasted that Bell Pottinger could help shape the next Tory manifesto for paying corporate clients, or, he is essentially corrupting the democratic process.

So which is it Bingle? Lying or corrupting?

The real reason Bingle is cancelling the party is because after dropping that clanger no self-respecting, ambitious, Tory government-minister-in-waiting wants to be seen dead next to him.  Because of this Bingle will be a pariah who just might not be around longer than Guido after all…

Will caveat this story with a warning that no one concerned has confirmed (or denied) the veracity of the story. Did try to confirm it with Cameron’s spokesgirl, but she is probably too busy with Twatgate…

According to an impeccable source, Roland Rudd had David Cameron over to his Holland Park mansion for dinner at the beginning of the month. Rudd is the spinmeister for Oleg Deripaska, Nat Rothschild and a few nationalised and bailed out banks, including if Guido’s memory serves him right, Lloyds and RBS.  (Rudd is also a good mate of Robert Peston, who coincidentally had the inside track on those same banks during the banking crisis).

Didn’t the Tories claim recently they were telling lobbyists to “back off”?  Odd therefore that the party leader is dining with Rudd.  Guido hopes he supped with a long spoon.  Rudd represents a number of corporate interests critically exposed to government regulation – BSkyB, BAA, and telecoms companies like Cable & Wireless and Vodafone.  No doubt his clients at the bailed out banks are critically keen to protect their interests and bonuses as well.

We seem to be on the path to transparency in politics – the incoming Tory administration is committed to opening up the workings of both  parliament and government to sunlight.  Fine words and promises…

What about the shady world of political lobbying?  People like Roland Rudd, Matthew Freud and Alan Parker are not in favour of an open democracy.  When they lubricate corporate deals with politicians behind closed doors, or nowadays more likely on private beaches, on behalf of their clients you can be sure that the interests of the taxpayers and voters are not on their minds.  Osborne has learnt his lesson with Yachtgate, Cameron should likewise distance himself from these corporate schmoozers. 

Guido’s five year Porkbusters campaign against troughing by MPs is now winding down.  Guido’s new campaign over the coming years will be to highlight the fat cats of spin and their hidden hand in politics, in particular how they corrupt and seduce politicians.  Ironically Cameron is an ex-corporate spinmeister himself.  Guido thinks it extremely unhealthy for democracy that the next Prime Minister is hitching freebie lifts on Matthew Freud’s jet to Santorini, or taking a beach holiday in South Africa with Brunswick boss Alan Parker.  It is human nature to be helpful to people who have been generous hosts towards you.  That politeness is ruthlessly exploited by the likes of these spinmeisters: there is no such thing as a free ride on a jet…

UPDATE : Cameron’s office have got in touch to say it was more like a year ago rather than a month ago that he last dined with Roland Rudd.

The news that sleazy lobbyist Steve Morgan, formerly of the now defunct Morgan Allen Moore, who was retained by Peter Hain in his disastrously dodgy bid for Labour deputy leader has taken his team of spin merchants to the huge American spin shop Burson-Marsteller is a little worrying. Morgan Allen Moore was described by PR Week last year as a “scandal-hit outfit”, becoming the first firm ever to be kicked out of the industry’s self regulatory group.  PR Week reports that

Morgan’s new ‘market access’ practice at Burson-Marsteller will advise healthcare clients on issues related to product marketing and access to the NHS.

Back in the not so distant past Morgan was hired to push a drug responsible for widespread deaths and crippling illness. Ortho Biotech, a division of Johnson & Johnson, retained Morgan Allen Moore in 2001 to push its anaemia drug, Eprex.  Eprex is currently being investigated by the FDA because of the high number of patients who have suffered strokes and died as a consequence of taking the drug. Eprex was withdrawn in September 2001 (“Eprex vials to be withdrawn”, Chemist and Druggist, 22 September 2001, page 28 – not online) because of fears over its safety. On 14 July 2002, the Financial Times reported that

“Eprex has been linked to a rare but devastating condition known as antibody-mediated pure red blood cell aplasia or PRCA. The condition is triggered when the body produces antibodies against its own EPO, shutting down red blood cell production. The only treatment for PRCA is regular, life-long blood transfusions”.

Burson-Marstellar – a company which was itself also investigated by the APPC for having a secret client in 2007 – represents, amongst others, Digene Corp, a company principally specialising in the production of a test for HPV, the virus that causes genital warts in women.  A marriage made in hell, some might say…

If you have ever wondered how it is that all the broadcasters always seem to end up with on-message Labour talking-heads spouting exactly the same drivel after an election, here is why – Labour HQ emails everyone a briefing on “lines to take” before they go on air.  The degree of control demanded by New Labour means ambitious MPs can’t be allowed to think up their own answers.

Hence we end up with a series of robotic talking heads mouthing the party line.  Backbenchers and cabinet ministers alike will all parrot the same form of words regardless of the question asked.  If you were watching the news yesterday you will have heard the script.  Guido is grateful to a “real socialist” co-conspirator for providing yesterday’s “lines to take”.  If you want to see it, Guido has uploaded the dull script to here.   Hopefully the next leader of the Labour Party will be less Stalinist and permit Labour MPs to think for themselves…

UPDATE : It appears that Paul Waugh has blogged this already.

Another sighting of Damian McBride, apparently he has been circulating his new mobile number to his Lobby drinking buddies. Guess that means Guido won’t be able to send him any more text messages.

Maybe he can get a job on the Telegraph, after all he has plenty of experience writing copy for them.  He could always write a book.  If he got one out in time for Labour Party conference he could trouser a quick six-figure advance for a smear and tell book.  Obviously it won’t be worth so much after the general election…

Michael, a co-conspirator, writes:

Seen at 2.15 p.m. today, on the Holloway Road near Highbury Corner, a shuffling near derelict figure in dirty scuffed jeans, run-down trainers and raggedy-arsed donkey jacket.

A double-take. Yup, that rheumey, red-faced pallor.  It is indeed Damian McBride.

“Guido sends his regards,” I yell.  No response.  He looked ruined.

Ratted more like.  Do continue to send sightings…

Members of Damian McBride’s Finchley and Golders Green constituency Labour Party branch are to vote on whether to throw him out.  The local Labour MP for Finchley and Golders Green, Rudi Vis, says:

What he did was scandalous, totally scandalous.  Something like this is really important, especially when the Government is not doing very well. He has done the Labour party an enormous disservice. I don’t believe he is the sort of member we should have. I have never met him, never seen him at any meetings, never even heard of him before, so it won’t be any loss to us.”

Mr McBride’s future will be voted on at the next CLP executive meeting, on May 11. The group’s recommendations will then be accepted or rejected by the General Committee on May 27.  Local party executive member Robinson said:

“I can’t say absolutely yes or no as it is not my decision to make. But I will say that he has not done the Labour party any favours. Lots of people are saying that what he did was stupid, but it was much more than that – it was wrong.”

That will teach McBride for spilling Guido’s pint.

Hat Tip : Hendon & Finchley Times

The Smeargate story still has legs, though it has moved from the front-pages to the comment pages.   John Lloyd in the FT makes the point that the all party shift towards non-ideological, centrist politics means the personal becomes more political - “That view is a rational one, in a politico-media space as tuned to scandal and personality as the British one now is.”

The Sun editorialises against Tom Watson, the Downing Street Minister for Mudslinging,

THE stink of a cover-up hangs over Downing Street.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell rules out an inquiry into whether minister Tom Watson knew about the “Smeargate” emails. He says he is happy to accept the minister’s denials, and the case is closed. That might be good enough for Sir Gus. It isn’t for The Sun. How can we know the full facts without an investigation, which means examining ALL emails involved?

The Sun is gunning hard on this issue saying “Watson, McBride and Draper are the true face of today’s Labour Party: A party that has lost all decency, all sense of honour, all connection with the people it was elected to serve.”  Guido has a theory that Watson has swallowed Gordon Brown’s moral compass.

The Times say Whelan has to go. Well maybe he would go if we could find him. He has gone into hiding. Another public interest service from Guido.