Shadow Minister for DCMS, Lord Howard of Rising said…

“… this new duty will extend Ofcom’s duty to promote investment to specific web services meeting specific public service definitions only. However, Section 264(6) in the Communications Act defines public service as content that covers: education and entertainment; cultural activity; civic understanding; sporting and other leisure interests; science, religion and other beliefs… These are broad categories and are difficult to reconcile with the Government’s statement that they will apply to specific web services only. Will Ofcom have a duty to promote investment in political blogs such as ConservativeHome or Guido Fawkes..?

The only person to have a worse day than Gordon yesterday was the BBC’s Nick Robinson. First he humiliated himself on the Daily Politics making an ill-judged attacked on the madness of nameless bloggers and tweeters for reporting rumours of another push against Gordon.  It was the political equivalent of Michael Fish’s “no hurricanes” broadcast.

Within half an hour he had to eat his words, Guido texted him for an apology, he was less gracious off air (see picture) than he was on air  where he invited mockery.

This morning he was lambasted by Jack Straw for his shoddy reporting; “a very substandard piece of journalism”, “I was named by Mr Nick Robinson of the BBC – he sent me an apology” – which is more than Guido got.  Guido (and more neutral academic observers) thought he deserved an apology too.

So Guido took him up on his invitation and the Guy News video of Robinson’s on-screen reversal has gone viral around BBC TV Centre…

Fresh from calling for an immediate general election last night on Sky News because the “government is in disarray”, LabourList editor Alex Smith has set up an email petition calling for party unity. In just under twenty-four hours they have managed to get a devastating 129 people to take part.  Guido set up a Facebook group called “Save Our Gordon” a couple of hours ago and already it has 214 supporters.  Labour have been eclipsed in a fraction of the time span:

Guido thinks the co-conspirators can muster up a lot more support for Gordon than the Labour Party can manage nowadays, the last thing we want is for him to avoid the ballot box fate he so richly deserves.  Show your support for giving Brown the electoral humiliation he deserves here…

UPDATE 16:55 : Over seven hundred members and counting, LabourList reporting a measly 152 for their campaign…

David Miliband has previous at pulling almost Gordon-esque disappearing acts when the Prime Mentalist has come under trouble. It took him a mere seven hours to give a lukewarm statement in support of Gordon last night, and he did not repeat it when he was door-stepped last night.  His SpAd was reportedly calling around cabinet ministers yesterday afternoon asking them to delay giving their support.  A feeble way to undermine the Prime Mentalist.

Only once the coup was well and truly dead, after Mandelson passed his judgement on Newsnight last night, did he come out this morning and endorse Brown’s leadership. How he thinks anyone wouldn’t notice such cowardice and dithering beggars belief.  He messed up his own coup attempt in 2007, let his old friend Purnell down badly by not following his resignation, as agreed, in June and now he is under fire from his own side about his silence yesterday. Even Darling reportedly had the balls to confront Brown face-to-face about the prospect of him standing down for the good of the party, instead Miliband just cowered in the Foreign Office, just as Brown used to in the Treasury.

Why would the Labour Party want to replace one dithering coward with another?

UPDATE : Dizzy has spotted some activity on miliband.org.