Last week Guido promised to watch Celebrity Big Brother “so that you don’t have to”. It turns out it’s unwatchable rubbish.

In the couple of times he has managed to tune in, he’s caught Sally discussing the impact that the show would have on the authority of the Speaker’s office with a gypsy, as well as being offered a “vajazzle” by the cute one off of The Only Way is Essex. There is no word on whether John would approve of that…

With an eye for the headline, the producers set Sally the task of making everyone in the house dress in bed sheets. The tabloids wrote themselves the next day…

Yes it’s all go and utterly riveting. Though it could all be over soon. Sally is up for eviction on Friday along with Kerry Katona. It looks like the fight to stay in the house is getting dirty…

Tom Harris explains why he wants to be the leader of the Scottish Labour Party:

“I have a masochistic streak in me” 

In an effort to be helpful, Guido has today written to the Mirror Group’s Legal Director, Paul Vickers, who is conducting an internal investigation into allegations of Mirror Group hacking and blagging. So far Vickers has discovered nothing, not a single bit of wrongdoing. Mirror Group CEO Sly Bailey will be so disappointed. Maybe this will help him:

How much hush-money did the Mirror Group pay David Brown to buy his silence about widespread hacking of celebrities and politicians done from within the Mirror’s newsroom? Tom Watson and the DCMS Select Committee don’t seem very interested in hacking when it was done by Mirror journalists under Piers Morgan. Perhaps Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry will take a harder look…

UPDATE: Trinity Media’s press office confirm that David Brown left the business on April 5, 2006. So it would be more precise to say in the above letter that the settlement, rather than the sacking, was in 2007. The Press Gazette covered the story and the threat of an imminent industrial tribunal immediately after the sacking.

The April to June party funding figures are out today and providing something to do during recess for Whitehall correspondents:

http://twitter.com/#!/pollycurtis/status/106320716319821824

Nothing like a little donation to keep the local MP happy with all the noise and drugs around Elephant and Castle… isn’t that right Mr Hughes?

UPDATE: Guido revealed back in 2006 that Simon Hughes ran his leadership bid from the club and is good mates with the owner.

At the beginning of the Libyan uprising back in February, the BBC’s esteemed Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen was nowhere to be seen. He had snuck off to the slopes…

When he did finally get back to the action, his soft-stance on Gaddafi raised eyebrows, particularly back in June when he said:

“More questions now seem likely about what Nato is doing in Libya and what it is achieving – not least by Nato members who never agreed with the operation” 

Well it seems that the fearless and impartial Bowen hasn’t bothered to stick around to find answers to those questions. Guido’s Beeboid co-conspirators are strongly hinting that Bowen has jetted off for another holiday during the finale. Given that even Sky’s most vehement critics concede that they have thrashed the BBC in terms of Libya coverage, on a fraction of the budget, perhaps it’s time for a revolution on the Middle East desk…

Now Saif Gaddafi is beyond his help, Mandy has turned back to domestic affairs to dispense advice. And it’s not good news for Ed.

Pitching his stall behind the pay wall over at The Times, the Dark Lord declares that there isn’t much that Labour can do about the riots, given how recently they were in power. Instead of working out a strategy around this, Mandy instead dissects the problems barring the coalition from being a “joined up government”. Looking at the inter, and internal, party problems. Many in Labour will be upset that he looks to be offering the government, not Ed, help to get out of their problems:

“The coalition’s programme will hardly be advanced if every time a Tory minister floats ideas of reform it draws an indignant riposte from a Lib Dem colleague who feels left out of the discussion.

Since May, Mr Clegg has succeeded in looking less meek and hard done-by. He has found a stronger voice and has benefited from this. But if he and his colleagues forget their collective responsibility to make the coalition work, and that government by hissy fit is not the way to make good policy, they will be as much the losers as everyone else.”

Telling Team Ed that they can do nothing but attack cracks in the government is just what the Labour leader needs in the run up to increasingly difficult looking conference…