Project Bake ‘n Tweet went well, spent my Friday afternoon trying to comprehend the nanny and extract her recipe for Romanian lasagna so I could put it on the Twitter. Hopefully the translation went well and I think I came across as a normal family man.

The campaign team is growing now the nominations are in the bag, was a little embarrassing when it was just the Speaker’s wife manning the phone lines. Not exactly sure what she does and the wine supplies at the London HQ were really eating into out budget. Alex has agreed to stay on and loyally spin, despite a pay-cut, or possibly just because he can’t find a job.  Alex says he has secured the support of left-wing nut-roots blogger Sunny Hoondal to back me, which just shows how popular this anti-immigrant thing is becoming on the left. The interwebs is mine, I will be leader.

Charlie reckons the immigrant bashing will play well with union members, if we can succeed in getting Diane Abbott nominated it will work even better. Spent the weekend bashing Poles and Turks – it’s almost as if I’m fighting my local campaign on a national scale. It will upset some of the Party but I’ve got to do something different though, the membership polls aren’t looking too good. How dare they rank me least popular politician in the country?  Even bloody Mandelson is more popular. It’s all Gordon’s fault, he keeps calling me but I just get Nicola to tell him my battery is dead.

Andy Burnham is looking likely to get his 33 nominations despite everything.  Not so easy to put the frighteners on nowadays. Sometimes I miss Damian.

*As leaked to Guido

Farmer’s Weekly is reporting that Mark Spelman, the husband of the Secretary of State for Defra has applied to Companies House to have the lobbying firm Cormack, Spelman and Associates closed down. The company was set up in 1989 by the couple and it continued to trade under Caroline Spelman’s married and maiden names while she was in the Shadow Cabinet and took over at Defra last month. Guido has been highlighting the obvious conflicts of interest, especially concerning subsidies and GM food. This is good progress, but forces the issue underground…

See Also: GM Lobbying Links Falling on Defra Ears, Spelman’s Agri-Business Bio-Tech Lobbying Past, Mr Spelman’s Tricky Contract and Spelman’s Blatant Bio-Tech Backing

For all the discussion about the death of New Labour, if ever proof was needed that the project has failed and Labour’s loony left is still alive and well, just look at what one leadership contender had to say when he was asked what he would do if he could travel back in time. John McDonnell told a GMB union crowd that he “would assassinate Thatcher“. There was a distinct lack of disapproval from the other candidates.

McDonnell is looking increasingly unlikely to make the ballot, though Guido understands Andy Burnham is set the scrape through before Wednesday’s deadline. Two days left for Abbot and McDonnell to liven up the race then.

UPDATE : McDonnell has previous, in 2003 he sparked outrage by saying IRA terrorists should be “honoured” for taking part in their “armed struggle”. He praised the provos at a commemoration for the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. It was, he said, the “bravery” of the IRA, whose “bombs and bullets” had resulted in the peace process in Northern Ireland. New Labour is only dead minutes and the loony left is back…

Touching to see that now Gordon has exited the stage his old slush fund / think-tank / charity is no more. Former Smith Institute boss Wilf Stevenson has at last got his peerage as a reward for being Brown’s long time toady. The charity which even provided a well paid berth for Balls when he first stood for election is now superfluous and has been wound up.

The name lives on as a limited company available as a think-tank-for-hire by big business; organising seminars for pharmaceutical lobbyists, government contractors, supermarket chains and other vested interests aiming to get their hands into taxpayers’ pockets. The glory days of hosting Al Gore meeting Chancellor Gordon a distant memory…

After Guido’s investigations into the lobbying ties that the Secretary of State of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has with the bio-tech and GM food industry, this morning’s Mail raises yet another conflict of interest of Caroline Spelman:

“Startling evidence emerged yesterday of how pro-GM lobbyists helped to draft a major report on the cultivation and sale of such crops. An email trail revealed close links between the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which represents GM food giants such as Monsanto, and the Food Standards Agency, which oversees the food industry. Members of the council succeeded in having controversial pro-GM paragraphs inserted into an FSA report published last year. They suggested changes including a claim that genetically modified foods could keep food prices down.”

Obviously the whole half a million pound report has now been drawn into question.  Whether or not to implement the report is Spelman’s decision, but how is the public meant to have faith in her choices given her connections to her husband’s bio-tech and GM food lobbying firm? A company that until a year ago, Mrs Spelman owned half of and was being run out of her constituency home. It is still trading under her married and maiden names. Apparently Defra don’t see any problems.

See Also: Spelman’s Agri-Business Bio-Tech Lobbying Past, Mr Spelman’s Tricky Contract and Spelman’s Blatant Bio-Tech Backing

Deborah Mattinson, Gordon Brown’s former pollster, tweets…

“A month on and when Radio 4 says ‘the PM’ I still have the wrong guy in mind. Help! I’m in denial…”