A Labour source whispers to Guido that Tom Watson is this week planning to attack William Hague over his handling of the North Wales child abuse scandal. Hague set up the Waterhouse Inquiry in 1996 when he was Welsh Secretary under John Major. The report eventually found no evidence of a paedophile ring in North Wales care homes, despite the testimony of hundreds of victims. Downing Street are this afternoon attempting to pre-empt the Watson strike by revisiting the Inquiry:

“Child abuse is a hateful crime. A senior figure will lead an independent investigation of claims of care home abuse in Wales, and will report urgently.”

No. 10 are said to be looking for a judge…

UPDATE: Watson has written to the Prime Minister alleging “a concerted establishment cover-up”.

Computer nerd Tom Watson’s online username is ‘BaggyMP’. Here is his Flickr account, his FriendFeed account, his online university account, and his Last.fm profile. All with the distinctive username “BaggyMP”.

There is an eBay account which coincidentally also uses the name BaggyMP. There is no suggestion Mr Watson used this account to access eBay. Guido doesn’t know for sure – unlike those internet accounts above the eBay account doesn’t provide a real name. Most of the purchases are pretty boring; musical instruments and toys for the owner’s kids etc. Except one. On February 13, 2005, “BaggyMP” left feedback for an online sex shop called Love Erotic that specialises in bondage gear and products like “male enhancer cream”. Apparently BaggyMP was delighted with his or her buy, commenting: “a very nice and unusual acquisition, thank you”. Whomever the eBay BaggyMP is, Guido hopes they had a happy Valentine’s Day…

Taking time out from listening to his £467 stereo paid for on expenses, Labour’s Corby campaign manager Ian Austin has been following orders word for word from his Brownite boot-boy flatmate Tom Watson. Back in August Guido revealed how Watson had ordered his Corby campaign team to brief that they expected to lose Louise Mensch’s old seat, despite being dead-cert favourites. Despite Lord Ashcroft’s comprehensive polling calling the result for Labour already, the Austin spin-machine is in overdrive:

“No one should be under any illusions: we lost this seat in 2010, and winning it back will be a really tough challenge…The truth is that we lost this bell-weather constituency in 2010. Winning it back will be a really tough fight for us and we are not taking anything for granted.”

Not only that, but Austin implies that Corby constituents outside the town itself will be harder to win round. Because they’re rich:

“Corby is the main town but half the voters live in places like Rockingham, Oundle, Irthlingborough and Raunds: picture-postcard market towns and rural villages dotted across East Northamptonshire. Average incomes in these areas are higher than Mid-Sussex and on a par with places like East Hampshire, Woking and West Berkshire.”

Not very One Nation of you, Ian…

The Culture, Media and Sport select committee will give BBC director general George Entwistle the most humble day of his life next Tuesday, the day before the elections to  fill it with new faces. With the three promotions and a by-election,  four vacancies have opened up. Ben Bradshaw , the shunned former Culture Secretary, has replaced Tom Watson on the Labour side. Meanwhile the Tories who have publicly declared are:

• Conor Burns – Tory A-lister turned Lords rebel Burns announced he would be standing earlier this month. Good opportunity to remain high profile.
• Angie Bray – Needs a new job after being sacked as Frankie Maude’s PPS for voting against Lords reforms, while sources close to her have been pointing out her long media career.
• David Morris – The Tory MP has thrown his hat in to the ring, and even has the backing of the Hoff. Rick Astley’s former keyboardist certainly used to sport a cultured mullet back in the day.
• Jason McCartney – MP for Coln Valley, defected from LibDems in 2007. Former journalist and broadcaster for Radio Leeds.
• Tracy Crouch – female ref and footy fan would certainly have the sport aspect sorted.
• Mike Weatherly – The MP for Hove used to be Pete Waterman’s money man – another music industry expert.

Being the most famous select committee, CMS provides a major opportunity for some grandstanding. Guido hears there are eight Tories in the running to fill their three spaces, but CCHQ don’t have a complete list and nor do DCMS…

Who are they? Email Guido…

Sometimes Guido likes to do his bit as a public service by bringing matters of interest to the attention of the relevant authorities. Yesterday Labour councillor Chris Vobe was suspended after a police investigation was launched into the alleged hacking of his colleagues’ email accounts. Vobe is the son of Labour MP Helen Jones, he’s very much a mummy’s boy. Of course hacking crusader Tom Watson will want to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible…

Seems Billy spotted this one too.

Tom Watson has had a busy afternoon. Instead of coordinating Labour’s by-election in Corby, or listening to his Deputy Leader address conference, or playing on his beloved X-box, he has been phoning editors of esteemed British periodicals.

Both Gareth Morgan of the Daily Star Sunday and Fraser Nelson of the Spectator were contacted this afternoon by a whining Watson, complaining about a deliberately misconstrued Tweet from one of their contributors.

When it was pointed out that perhaps it would be more appropriate to talk to the Tweeter in question directly, Watson declared that he would not, preferring to try have him silenced by higher powers.

Tom should spend less time worrying about Neo-Guido’s job and more time about his own…

Guido has noted with interest how campaigning hero Tom Watson has yet to call an inquiry into the BBC over Jimmy Savile. To be fair to Tommo, he has been busy enjoying Manchester’s nightlife over the last few days. Last night he was spinning the discs in the Sandinistas bar, treating party-goers to some Jackson Five. Looks like the whole Labour campaign chief thing is as easy as ABC…

Tom Watson managed to escape his own gate-gate moment when he tried to bust a young blonde into Labour’s conference hotel without credentials late last night. Although there is is no official police control around the Midland Hotel, stewards were having none of it, not even for the Party’s Deputy Chairman. Managing to show some restraint in light of recent pleb-related outbursts, Watson was left apologising to his young friend and promptly abandoning her. At least he can’t blame how this one ended on the Murdochs…

Fresh from moaning about the Ofcom/BSkyB ruling on the Today programme in his underpants, Tom Watson has tried to take his frustrations out on another Murdoch man. Tommo’s ire this morning is focused on Tom Newton Dunn, The Sun’s political editor. Neither man is known for timidity. Seconds out…

Feel the love:

@tom_watson again, utterly untrue Tom. But when has that stopped you in the past either.—
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) September 20, 2012

@tom_watson I just did – but I'm not going to engage with your sad little smear attempts any more. You're supposed to be an MP.—
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) September 20, 2012

Ouch…

After rehabilitating himself from a Blair-stabbing, expenses-hoarding Brownite boot-boy to the scourge of the Murdochs, Tom Watson has quit the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee.

Leading the way on phone-hacking, and getting a nice book deal out the it too, Watson was promoted to deputy party chairman of the Labour Party in October 2011. Controversially Watson has spent a year breaking the convention that Select Committees are made up of backbenchers.

As Guido covered at the time Watson over-reached on more than one occasion on the job and there were sighs of relief from those around the committee that Guido has been talking with today. Though a Labour source says:

“I am tempted to say it’s not the same since Louise Mensch left, but in reality he said when he joined shadow cabinet he would leave at suitable point when hacking inquiries are finished and with Leveson evidence finished and report a few weeks away he thought it was suitable time.”

With Therese Coffey and Damien Collins being promoted, and Mrs Mensh departing these shores, it’s all change at CMS.