Who would have thought that a threat made at four in the morning would prove impossible to implement in the cold light of day. Before Christmas, while on a relative high from his EU spanner in the works, Fightin’ Dave was all mouth about EU institutions, but the dampening of expectations has begun this morning. A full retreat will be signalled when the Prime Minister arrives in Brussels this afternoon, but Hague has hit the airwaves to say that they were “not intending to take action about that now”. Another reverse move that could easily have been avoided. Many more of these and the words “defining” and “feature” will stick…

Poor Jeremy Hunt is getting frightfully carried away with his £12 billion Olympic baby:

“come and enjoy what will be the most exciting time in British history.”

Guido is looking forward to catching up with all the “excitement” after a month at the Maison Secondaire.

A confused co-conspirator whispers to Guido that the Guardian have been working on the story they ran this morning about Michael Gove giving public funds to a group they don’t like for at least two weeks. The latest installment of their campaign against the  education secretary claims that he personally made the decision to give taxpayers’ money to the Community Security Trust despite being, along with fifty others, an advisor to their board. A fair point perhaps, but given that the CST “advise the Jewish community on matters of security and antisemitism”, why did they wait until Holocaust Memorial Day to run the story? Odd, at best…

UPDATE: A source to Gove gets in touch to say said: “It is unbelievable to attack any politician for funding the protection of Jewish children. It is even more extraordinary and frankly offensive to do it on Holocaust Memorial Day.”

UPDATE II: The CST aren’t happy either. They note that the Guardian did not even bother to contact them before running the story and have let rip on their own blog.

Q: How do you know when Denis MacShane is lying?

A: When he’s tweeting.

Yesterday Guido brought  you the disgraced, de-whipped Labour MP’s fibs about the Olympics and the pound. Now this morning a psephological co-conspirator gets in touch to point out another howler:

Polls said support for EU was plummeting in Croatia but 67% vote to join. Old tale – voters tell truth to pollsters but lie when they vote—
Denis MacShane (@DenisMacShane) January 22, 2012

Except, the polls in Croatia, see here, were correctly predicting that Yes would win, and were showing support for the EU growing. A MacShameless porkie…

No invite to Davos for Chuka Umunna. After comparing running RBS to being a local NHS Chief Executive, the acceptable face of Milibandism told the Today programme that bonuses should be linked to performance. He failed to mention that Stephen Hester’s bonus will do exactly that. RBS are not giving him cash, but share options worth £963,000. He will not be able to claim it until 2014, so if RBS shares drop, his bonus will drop. With no one willing to take Chuka on this morning, it was left to John Humphrys to paint the picture of doom at what would have happened to RBS, and taxpayers’ money, if Hester and his board had walked out.

Elsewhere LibDem Jeremy Browne has said Hester should turn the bonus down. Interesting positioning from the right-wing LibDem.

Lining up for Huhne’s job?

Chasing some sympathetic headlines in a bid to redeem her reputation, Diane Abbott has stormed out of cross party talks about abortion counselling:

“Shadow public health minister Diane Abbott said she had walked out of a new cross-party abortion group set up by the Government to look at the issue of counselling following the defeat. She accused the Government of “ploughing ahead” with the controversial abortion changes, saying the new group was a “front” for pushing through the plans which were “unwanted, undemocratic and unsubstantiated with evidence”.

Department of Health sources say they have no real view on the issue and no decision has  been made, hence the point of the cross party committee. They will take the recommendations of the group and see if the public agree. Others are slightly more confused by Abbott’s outburst.

Given that she fell asleep in the first meeting of the group, was half an hour late for the second and didn’t turn up to the third, those that did make it have been left scratching their heads about what exactly she is talking about.

Another day, another Abbott mess…

Poor old Dave. Mick Jagger has poured salt in the wound. After ditching Cameron’s tea party yesterday, the ageing rocker only went and spent the night (together) with Boris instead. Ouch..

Dave Would Be a Fool to Cry about it though, and can surely understand why it happened; both Jagger and Johnson like women; both can pull a crowd and an evening out with Boris would be far more amusing than discussing trade with the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile back home Ken’s week is going from bad to worse…

Livingstone seems to determined to waste his two point poll lead. As Guido reported yesterday the ”Fare Deal” fell apart after some fairly gentle probing, and now today Ken Livingstone, king of the gaffes and the personalised put downs has written to Boris declaring:

“…no one could have expected that you would react so badly to a little bit of pressure. Suddenly the Conservative party in London is flailing around and lashing out. David Cameron has told you to raise your game. And you, in turn, seem to be getting pushed around by your campaign manager, Lynton Crosby. It has not taken much for your party to turn to the dark side…. At least, I assume it’s him because you used to have something more interesting to say than resort to cheap insults.”

Despite moaning about Lynton Crosby’s attacks and the dark arts, Ken has been unable to pledge to maintain the four-year council tax freeze at the heart of the dispute. On top of that, all this is coming from a man whose campaign strategy consists of following their opponent around yelling “chicken”. What is that if it’s not a “cheap insult”?

There are 98 days to go in this race, if things carry on at this level it’s going to be an extremely tiresome campaign. Ken should go to radio silence, come back on Monday morning and try again…

Guido can’t find Harriet Harman’s “first major speech on the future of the media” trailed in any other paper besides this morning’s Guardian. Apparently Ed Vaizey’s DCMS shadow is declaring that she is “going to be a champion of press freedom”:

Before her first major speech on the future of the media, Harman claimed there was a clear consensus around these principles, and last night challenged editors to put forward practical proposals. “I think it would really help Leveson if newspaper editors came forward with a solution. We have had a good scoping of the issues, but now it is time for the editors to lay their cards on the table. They need to propose the solution, rather than have one imposed upon them.”

All this has come as a bit of a surprise to a source with knowledge of the Shadow Culture brief. Guido hears whispers of a meeting last Monday (January 16) where Harman had to be talked out of  supporting the state regulating the press. Just nine days ago Harman was openly advocating imposing the very solution that she derides today. Add to that her track record of trying to censor the tabloids and Page 3 plus her past support for extreme political correctness suggests the idea of her being some sort of champion for free speech becomes risible… 

Today’s Mail has picked up on Guido’s scoops regarding the ongoing battle between CCHQ and Roger Helmer MEPs. Tory MPs are now bombarding the chairman’s office with letters demanding that Rupert Matthews is allowed to take over when Helmer resigns, in line with convention. One bit of shameless spin made Guido chuckle:

“However, if Mr Helmer stands down, the returning officer would ask Mr Matthews to become an MEP as the next in line Tory on the list. Party chiefs would have to approve his candidacy, however, and sources say they cannot do so because he has dropped off the list of candidates. A senior source denied Baroness Warsi was trying to manipulate the East Midlands list.”

A bit of dodgy briefing there. The only reason Matthews “has dropped off the list”, is because Warsi threw him off…

UPDATE: Guido understands Crick is doing a bit of a hatchet job on Rupert Matthews for Channel 4 News tonight.

With Ed continuing to plummet in the polls and Labour peers voting against the wishes of Labour voters on the benefits bill, Guido is not that surprised to learn that a crisis meeting has been called, for after PMQs tomorrow at 1230, there will be a briefing session on public attitudes to Labour and welfare reform in the Shadow Cabinet room for members of the PLP.

The session will be lead by James Morris, who is seconded from pollsters Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to Team Ed. He will break the news to the MPs gently, by running through Labour’s private polling. The Shadow Cabinet will be coaxed towards an understanding of the attitudes of that reality based community, better known as the voting public, with hard data about what the public think about Labour’s position on welfare and welfare reform generally. Guido hopes that Morris will offer a slightly more astute and sophisticated analysis than he tweeted last night:

Poll round up: Labour leads in populus and yougov, level in comres, behind in icm—
James Morris (@JamesDMorris) January 24, 2012

This benefits cap issue is toxic for Labour, who are violently out of sync with the public here, in particular their own lower-income working voters. Oh to be a fly on the wall tomorrow…