On Sunday the Mail reported that Gordon Brown was looking for someone to replace the piss-poor, soon to be side-lined Simon Lewis.  Lewis is a former press secretary to the Queen and brother of the Daily Telegraph editor, Will Lewis.  He was recommended for the job as Gordon’s spin-doctor by the friend-of-Mandy power-lobbyist Roland Rudd.  He has not worked out with the Lobby or changed the negative narrative pervading Gordon.

Gordon is in desperation seeking someone new to be his Alastair Campbell and make up for the loss of Damian McBride.  He is having difficulty finding takers and has been rebuffed thrice by people he has offered the job – including once the MoS reported by the political editor of a newspaper. It turns out that the political editor was not Damian McBride’s mate Kevin Maguire – Ephraim Hardcastle in the Mail reports* that Gordon wanted something a bit more classy, and begged Old Etonian Patrick Hennessy of the Sunday Telegraph to take on his fellow Etonians.  Floreat Etona…

*Attribution.  Something Ephraim should learn to do.

Alan Parker is the shadowy CEO of Brunswick.  Brunswick refuses to disclose its clients and the government has backed away from revealing meetings between civil servants and lobbyists like Alan Parker.  Parker has the chutzpah to back a political clean up campaign called: Open Up.

It’s aiming  to force MPs to take part in open primaries.  He wants higher standards for MPs, and lower standards for lobbyists.  Funny that.

Overt Opera fan Nick Brown, the government Chief Whip, was well placed last night at the Royal Opera House in the front row of the stalls circle before 5 pm (yes thats when it started) for the new production of Tristan und Isolde. He was in a party with lobbyist Peter Bingle of  spin merchants Bell Pottinger.  Perhaps Gordon should have cause to worry that his Chief Henchman was watching a tale of the betrayal of King Marke by Tristan and Isolde in the company of a Conservative enemy.

George Osborne and his wife were sitting in the stalls on their own, presumably having paid for their own tickets.  At four hours and fifty five minutes Guido would have paid not to attend…

With rumours circulating that Mandelson has lured Alastair Campbell back to take a role in the election campaign, the former Downing Street spinmeister’s prognostications on campaign strategy are becoming more relevant than in the recent past.  GoFourth might just be Al and Prezza’s cheer-up-the-base operation rather than a vote winning operation, but a return to Down Street would really signal taking the fight out of the party activist ghetto and to the media.  Alive to the charge that Cameron and Coulson are simply copying the Blair and Campbell formula he laments “Ah, go the Pot-Kettle-Black brigade, but it is what you and TB did, got the media all squared and onside.”

He reckons a strategic Labour line of attack should be to spin that the media has fallen in love with Dave:

Cameron is a mediaman. For the media. Of the media. By the media. Giving not two tosses about the public other than as the means to be delivered into power. So the Tories and the media have a shared interest in saying the game is over, and it is only a matter of time. There is the makings of a good line of attack in here – the media love him because all he cares about is what they say about him; they’ve decided he’s home and dry … but shouldn’t the public have their say first?  Meanwhile, instead of claiming he has achieved nothing, constantly point up his one big achievement – turning the media into pussycats.

The last election team that faced a national media in love with a candidate was Team McCain, their approach was precisely the approach Campbell is recommending, see here:

In 2008 McCain spun commercials comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and lampooning him as “the one”. Obama still won. When you are reduced to complaining that the other guy gets too good a press and taking campaign cues from a losing strategy, you really have run out of ideas…

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…