Guido wandered into the Fabian’s Christmas party on the terrace of the Houses of Parliament. The booze, Guido noticed with some amusement, was sponsored by Serco, the private-sector outsourcing outfit.  That irony would see the Fabian’s founders, the Clause Four authoring Webbs, spinning in their graves.  Sunda Katawala told the assembled drinkers that Fabian Society membership was at an historic high, which is quite an achievement  by him given Labour Party membership is at an historic low.

Yvette Cooper was the star turn, Guido was mesmerised by her green leather boots so didn’t follow the thread of her argument closely, think it involved Etonians eating babies and David Cameron personally slaughtering first borns at Sure Start centres.  She did a lot of that head-nodding thing she does for emphasis.

The former Defence Minister Eric Joyce seemed demob happy and confirmed just how miffed Cathy Newman was when Guido beat her to getting his resignation story out.

When the booze ran out Guido slipped into the Stranger’s Bar for some subsidised Guinness (think of it as a tax-rebate) and chatted with blogging Labour MPs Greg Pope (also demob happy) and Tom Harris.  Late in the evening a tired and emotional Peter Kilfoyle exploded at the bar “You’re Guido Fawkes, you’re Guido Fawkes” ranting bitterly about a story exposing him for paying his daughter’s firm out of expenses.  He tried to have Guido thrown out of the bar, shouting to the patient barman about the injustices of this blog’s editorial policies.  Guido was a little worried that the red-in-the-face Kilfoyle was going to have a coronary…