Some cracking entries for the sing-a-long song competition for the campaign to bar Alistair Darling from every pub in Britain.

Guido tried imagining a drunken bar singing the songs to make his judgement. Commendations to Alex, and Anon. Mitch is the runner-up with his re-working of Abba. The winner with appropriate new lyrics to the tune of the Wild Rover is Marquee Mark which the Washington Post also likes calling it a “catchy” ditty.

If Mark emails Guido his address a copy of John McCain’s new book Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People will be sent to him.

The Devil has a round-up of campaign news, with video clips from PMQs, Sky’s report on the campaign and pictures from pubs around the country.

The feedback on Guido’s headline to SMS text message service has been universally good. Particularly since it is totally free…
The service really comes into its own when there is fast breaking news. The free service texts a message containing the headline, followed by a clickable link which (on web-enabled phones) will take you directly to the full blog story. Subscribe here.

As panic starts to grip Ken and the London Labour Party things are getting pretty desperate. Gordon lies at PMQs regularly that Boris wants to cut police numbers – as if a Tory mayor would ever cut back on coppers. Now Ken is pulling whatever levers he can to hold on to power. London’s transport commissar, Peter Hendy, has ordered his spin team to counter the popular Boris message on killer bendy-buses. Transport for London has also told taxi drivers not to issue receipts with “Back Boris” logos. Guido understands that 50,000 books of these receipts have already been snapped up by cabbies. This is a mistake by Ken, cabbies are not ones to succumb to authority. Petty diktaks like this will only get their backs up and ensure they do back Boris.

More sinister are the implicit threats to police funding hinted at if police sources don’t stop telling the truth about the appalling safety record of Ken’s bendy-buses. Ken clearly favours his friend Castro’s policing methods, where the police follow the party line…

UPDATE : In the comments there was some dispute about whether Hendy threatened police funding. Here is the quote from an email: “The statements clearly come from the Met traffic officers involved in the investigation (and are manifestly incorrect). It makes me inclined to cut support for TOCU in future budgets as clearly their support for us is limited to taking money and is one way.”

TOCU is the Transport Operational Command Unit, the Met division charged with tackling road safety and bus crime. Funded by TfL, it has 1,200 police officers, community support officers and traffic wardens and is a key part of the Met’s anti-crime strategy.