Defeated Tory councillors are already laying the blame firmly at Dave’s door this morning. Lifelong Tory and now former Hampshire councillor Alexis McEvoy has written a scathing attack for the Telegraph:

Expect more of the same throughout the day…

Good news reported in the Sun this morning: Dave is ditching the nannying plans for plain cigarette packaging. Like minimum pricing, it was probably doomed from the start; plain packs would have cost the Treasury billions, alienated the half a million who said “hands off our packs” and was opposed by MPs of all parties. March’s Guardian scoop on the subject, will remain an exclusive…

It takes something pretty special to unite the Tories and the Guardian, and then have UKIP and the New Statesman team up against them. UKIP candidate Dick Delingpole’s photoshop of himself with Hitler and subsequent Telegraph blog “confessing” to a non-existent Nazi past were so obviously a joke surely no one could fall for it. Step forward Simon Geraghty, Delingpole’s Tory opponent in Worcester, to bore us all with a cringeworthy sense of humour bypass:

“I find it absolutely sickening and abhorrent. I think the vast majority of British people will find this shocking – it’s not funny at all, it’s dreadful and I can’t believe he’s done it.”

The Guardian‘s Nick Watt even managed to bring himself to write the non-story up in full high-minded glory, apparently using the headline “Ukip in fresh Nazi row after candidate Photoshops Hitler image” without irony. You knew the whole thing had reached farcical proportions when the Staggers came out in defence of Delingpole this afternoon. CCHQ, a Tory candidate and the Guardian versus UKIP, the Staggers and a Delingpole – roll on Friday.

24 hours after Guido reported that Ken had blamed America for the Boston bombings on Iranian state television, and still he has escaped reprimand. Tory MP Brooks Newmark has now written to Ed demanding he be sacked from Labour’s NEC:

“I find it wholly reprehensible for Mr Livingstone to link the Boston bombings to Western intervention in the Middle East. In doing so, he suggests that the actions of the two Boston bombers were justified and excusable. I am sure that both you and the Labour Party agree that terrorism, which in this case killed three innocent people and injured many others, is never justified and never excusable.

He also intimates that America itself was responsible for the bombings. I am sure that you will also agree with me that the only two people responsible for the bombings were the terrorists themselves.

As a member of Labour’s NEC, Mr Livingstone has been placed in a position of responsibility and influence within your Party. As leader of the Labour Party, I call on you to condemn these disgusting remarks and remove Mr. Livingstone from your NEC. I know you will want to do so as soon as possible to make clear that neither you nor the Labour Party condones such beliefs.”

Your move, Ed…

Tory strategists could be forgiven for worrying that after three years of little or no growth and a £120 billion spending black hole this year alone, Dave and George’s reliance on blaming Britain’s economic slump on the last Labour government might be wearing thin with voters. Apparently not.

A study by media agency OMD of over 2,000 adults from across the UK has found that 53% still blame the previous Labour government for Britain’s ongoing economic problems, compared with just 39% blaming the coalition. 39% say Gordon is the main culprit, with just 27% fingering Cameron and 23% Osborne. Numbers Downing Street will be clinging onto…

Priti Patel's dad standing for Ukip, Farage announces—
James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) April 30, 2013

So Priti Patel’s father was publicly a candidate for UKIP for approximately an hour and a half today before it was announced he was standing down. So what happened?

Sushil Patel – dad of Tory MP Priti Patel – tells @Sun_Politics that he is standing down as a UKIP candidate….—
Sun Politics (@Sun_Politics) April 30, 2013

Needless to say that senior UKIP figures were rather excited about securing Mr Patel as a candidate, so much so that one of their senior comms people couldn’t help but cough it to a BBC journalist in the Marquis of Granby, Westminster last night. Unfortunately for the spinner he failed to check who said Beeboid was drinking with – a government special adviser – who promptly went round the corner and immediately called the story in to CCHQ. By the time it broke this afternoon, the Tories were well prepared to kill it and the rest they say is history…

UPDATE: He’s still a candidate say UKIP:

Mr. Patel remains the UKIP candidate for the Bushey South Division in the Hertfordshire County Council elections. He is currently convalescing from a recent serious operation and is unable to conduct any further interviews. Mr. Patel said,  “I am proud of being a UKIP candidate and very proud of the achievements of my daughter who represents the people of Witham in an exemplarily fashion.  My views are my own and I am astonished that there has been quite so much interest in my candidacy”.

UPDATE II: UKIP sources keen to stress no names mentioned in pub and pressure from CCHQ on Mr Patel only came this afternoon, after James Forsyth’s Tweet. Phone call came during photoshoot, there was a minor wobble but Sushil Patel is on ballot and is a candidate.

Lord Tebbit has accused the BBC and CCHQ of colluding to smear UKIP. While that is going a bit far, his words for Cameron are worth the box office treatment. Writing on his Telegraph blog, Norm has given Dave both barrels:

“The intentions of many one-time Tory voters will have been reinforced by Ken Clarke’s singularly ill-judged rant calling them “clowns”. That has to be as stupid a way of persuading defectors to return to the Conservative fold as Cameron’s rant about closet racists and fruitcakes. If Thursday is a bad day for Mr Cameron, he should have no doubt where the responsibility lies. Certainly, the rest of us will all know who to blame if  it is an even worse day for the Conservatives that it need have been.”

Tebbit points out that he will be voting Conservative on the basis of his local council’s record, but is very sympathetic to those without an excuse:

“Of course it may well be that many former Conservative voters are so fed up with the Cameron Coalition that they will turn to Ukip as the party which comes closest to a traditional Conservative agenda, and a reasoned position on the European issue. One can hardly blame them for that.”

You can tell the truth when you are above the law.

Regular readers will recall that last year Guido was leaked huge amounts of paperwork regarding a fraud carried out by Justine Greening’s agent in Putney between 2006 and 2010. Robert Morritt had since got himself elected on to Wandsworth Council and local Tories saw fit to put the report in the drawer and pretend £50,000 had not gone walkies. You can read the full story here.

In the wake of Guido’s exposé, that revealed the full extent of the theft and the cover up, an independent investigation was set up; apparently to dispel concerns that the author of the first report was in some way “biased”. Cllr Ray Puddifoot, the leader of Hillingdon Council, chartered accountant and all round upstanding citizen, has now produced that second report and, guess what? It confirms what Guido was saying. Hard copies of the report have been seen by council figures to avoid it leaking, but Guido has spoken to sources familiar with its content. Puddlefoot is said to have identified even more problems with Cllr Morritt’s time at the Wandsworth Conservative Group.

CCHQ are, as one might expect, having kittens and have made it known to officers of Wandsworth Conservatives that either they deal with Morritt or the Party Board will. Yet silence so far. The report was published over a week ago and meeting after meeting has been held to persuade Morritt to resign from Wandsworth Council and trigger a by-election. He is refusing. A source at the heart of all this tells Guido: “Morritt is clinging on for dear life, desperately hoping that a small clique of followers in Putney and a few unsubstantiated claims about how all of this is a conspiracy will save him. It will not. Nothing can save him and if he had the slightest interest in the good of the party, he would do the honourable thing.” What’s the one about honour and thieves?

“Super” Anna Soubry, as she is ironically known by embittered Tory colleagues, hasn’t fared too well in her ongoing spat with Ian Paisley Jr. Twice she has failed to answer his questions on the possibility of the Department of Health having to buy intellectual property rights from tobacco companies in order to pass plain packaging legislation. Apparently she has “an open mind” and is looking at the evidence, though for some reason is being coy about how much it would cost. Perhaps Guido can help her. Rewind back to the 2008 consultation and a Citigroup analyst warned that the government could end up having to give tobacco companies up to £5 billion in order for plain packaging legislation to be lawful. Soubry has the figures, for some reason she is keeping them quiet. She might want to mention this detail to the Chancellor…

This could be a Michael Fish moment for Bob Neill. The backbench MP declared that even if the Tories lost more than three hundred seats on Thursday then everything will be alright for Dave, the party totally love him and they would forgive such an horrendous punishment beating.

Neill has nailed his colours to his mast but Guido hears that not all of his parliamentary colleagues are so brazen/confident. A “what-if” contingency plan is being hatched by the men in grey suits, in the unlikely event of total wipe out north of 400+.