The Guardian is very excited about a leaked email from some LibDem local council sandalistas who seem rather scared of Eric Pickles. As sound as he is round, when asked to find 25% cuts, Pickles ended up mapping out 51% in his department. No wonder they have “little enthusiasm” for the local government bill – it’s hovering over many of their heads.

They go on to bleat that Pickles is “happy to bypass elected local government and give power direct to local residents.” No wonder they are so upset, their power is draining away to, errm, the people. “The situation has been likened to having a republican in charge of the monarchy.” Good.

UPDATE: The Guardian are having a really bad day. Take the headline “Most Liberal Democrat MPs oppose coalition’s NHS reforms, poll reveals“. It’s not until two thirds of the way in that we find:

“MPs – 49 Tories, 81 Labour, 13 Lib Dem and eight others – were quizzed by the polling agency ComRes on behalf of the lobbying firm Westminster Advisers.”

13 Lib Dem MPs is not “most”

As the Tories prepare for their annual fund-raising Black and White Ball in Battersea Park tonight, Guido is hearing there might be a few little unwelcome visitors from UK Uncut. Either way he will be chatting about this so called “clicktivism” on tomorrow’s Daily Politics. Given the price tag of the tickets (£4,000-a-table), you can see why the party might be targeted - the headlines will write themselves.

Guido presumes that at £10,000-a-table the lefties will be trying to crash Labour’s equivalent ‘Celebration of Equality‘ fundraiser next month…

There is no denying that Sally Bercow makes for hugely entertaining copy, but the odds against a challenge to her husband in the next year tightened last night. This morning’s papers were full of anonymous quotes from ministers In the Times there was one saying “There are limits but this goes too far. This is a fierce challenge to the dignity of Parliament. The sooner we are rid of the both of them, the better”. In the Mail another said the photo yesterday “brought Parliament into disrepute and was likely to hasten efforts to remove her husband as Speaker.”

The discontent is growing and coming from higher up the Tory ladder.

UPDATE: Another Tory backbencher comes forward describing the Bercow’s the “Marcoses of British politics.” Sally wasn’t too happy with on Radio 5 earlier.

On the day it is revealed by Wikileaks that a government minister gave the Libyans advice on how to secure Al-Megrahi’s release and Gus O’Donnell announces he is opening up the files, it seems the the Guidoisation of politics is continuing.

Tory backbencher Pauline Latham asked the House earlier whether the government had any plans to start sending British cancer patients for treatment in Libya “given their higher survival rate”. Clearly a fan of Guy New’s Al Megrahi Watch. Fifteen months and counting since the beaks said he would die.

Sir Ronnie “PFI” Cohen donated £1.8 million to Labour in the past and bankrolled Gordon’s ascendency to the top. Regular readers will remember that at one time the venture capitalist had a direct debit paying £20,000 a month to the party. He pretty much owned Gordon Brown.

Bad news for Ed Miliband then, as it seems this once loyal party donor has drifted away. Guido was most surprised to see Ronnie pop up on BBC 4′s “Justice: Fairness and the Big Society” as an audience member, quick to spin for Cameron:

“The gap between rich and poor is getting bigger. Those left behind find it extremely difficult to rise out of poverty. The government hasn’t been able to do anything much about that even though it’s cost an absolute fortune for decades… I think what the Big Society really means is that space between government and the private sector, which needs to deal with social issues in a professional way. And Cameron has said that every penny out of the hundreds of millions of pounds that are unclaimed assets in bank accounts will got to create a Big Society bank, who’s role will be to empower those who want to help others.”

Watch here from exactly 40 minutes in.

If the Tories hadn’t made enough of a mess from dodgy non-domiciled donors it would be worth trying to turn Ronnie…

Their tension in the House has been noted previously. First it was those passionate gazes held for an extra second across the despatch box in hot and heavy Culture Media and Sport sessions, but it seems Gloria just can’t get enough of Ed Vaizey. While Ed was busy chatting up/to the somewhat hostile MumsNet crowd for their lunchtime web interview, his shadow just couldn’t stay away, wading in with her own questions:

Ed’s reply was short and firm.

Guido hears that CCHQ are bracing themselves for more revelations about the amorous Lord Strathclyde in this weekend’s newspapers. As Leader of the Tories in the Lords, Tommy is responsible for fixing the AV mess that could well see the referendum delayed, if he were to be forced out this weekend it could be very messy. The punters over at Smarkets have Strathride at 2/1 favourite to be the next cabinet minister to walk…

After last night’s documentary Guido has been doing some digging around the Oxford days of our ruling elite. With a little help from a studious co-conspirator, some of the clippings from the 80s editions of the Cherwell make for a fascinating read. There is no doubt that the star of last night’s Posh and Posher had to be “man of the people” Jacob Rees Mogg. It seems he hasn’t changed much from his dreamy spires days:

(click to enlarge)

Guido will save the notorious tales of a certain “Eight minute Eddie” for another day.

According to Dan Hodges Ed Miliband’s interesting questioning of David Cameron’s judgement, less than 24 hours after losing his disastrous Shadow Chancellor, has gone down like a cup of sick in Tory circles. In revenge for the scalping apparently a mysterious and shadowy unofficial figure is funding private detectives to dig around at Tom Baldwin’s past:

“Although the investigators were initially recruited prior to the announcement of Coulson’s departure, the events of the past week have added to the determination to gather information that could embarrass Ed Miliband and senior members of his staff. “Before Coulson resigned it was business. Now it’s personal,” said another informed source.”

Tom might want to change his answer phone PIN and lose Charlie’s number.

Those No. 10 sources have been whispering about Sayeeda Warsi to James Forsyth again:

“…there was a ‘general awareness’ that Baroness Warsi was to give a speech on faith, they did not know the specifics of what she was going to say. They say that no text was cleared by Downing Street. They claim that the first they knew of the controversial lines in the speech was when they were informed that Warsi’s team had briefed them out to the Telegraph.”

Given it was Forsyth that got the “disaster waiting to happen line”, there is a clear pattern emerging here. Perhaps if Warsi had thought to get her speech checked out then someone might have spotted the huge wedge she has driven through the middle of her party. The speech criticises those that frame the debate about Islam into moderates and extremists:

“It’s not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of ‘moderate’ Muslims leads; in the factory, where they’ve just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: ‘Not to worry, he’s only fairly Muslim’. In the school, the kids say: ‘The family next door are Muslim but they’re not too bad’.

People like Michael Gove? Look what he said in 2007:

“…we cannot effectively champion the interests of moderate Muslims and of our pluralist, tolerant and liberal society, unless we show a determination to tackle extremism. It is the extremists who, in the past, have crowded out from the debate the moderate voices in the Muslim world.”

Despite a reshuffle on the horizon, Cameron is going to find it hard to be able sack the first female muslim in the cabinet, but that isn’t stopping the negative briefing. At the end of the day her competence should be the only deciding factor on whether she keeps her job.