In the wake of Smeargate Gordon Brown said that there was “no place in politics” for the likes of Damian McBride and Derek Draper. They were rightly cast out of the fold. However as Guido has been reporting, Dolly’s slow political rehabilitation has begun. He was strutting round conference, head held high, pouring the champagne and pressing the flesh as if he hadn’t triggered one of the darkest moments in the Labour Party’s history. It wasn’t just activists and lefty bloggers willing to turn a blind eye, and in some cases greet him with open arms, look who was he was spotted hobnobbing with:

Yes that’s right, Miliband’s most senior adviser Tom Baldwin was happily chatting away with Dolly. The above picture was grabbed during Ed Miliband’s speech. We all know what happened last time Dolly got chatting with a Labour spindoctor…

Guido was greatly amused to be semi-threatened by a tanked up James Macintyre in the conference bar. Apparently Make-it-up-Macintyre was “surprised in the current climate” that we would be regurgitating those emails between him and Draper. What’s he going to do, get us sacked?

The one good thing Ed has got out of this conference is an end to the Shadow Cabinet elections. He can now clear out the rot and he has more than his fair share of underwhelming baggage. Hilary Benn, Meg Hillier, the Eagles, Caroline Flint, Ann McKechin and Ivan Lewis are all names being bandied around for the chop…

On Monday’s Newsnight Prezza accused many of the Shadow Cabinet of not pulling their weight in the planning row, explicitly suggesting that a reshuffle is required after it was left to the National Trust and charities to fight the government. This could only be a direct attack on the shadow local government minister Caroline Flint. During the riots she was nowhere to be seen and the Tories smell blood here. The problem for Ed is the majority of the under-performers around him are wimmin and yet the Shadow Cabinet must be at least 31% female. This could save Flint, but is also good news for those ladies looking to work their way up the ladder – Rachel Reeves (Oxon. PPE) is tipped for promotion, though she better keep quiet about her years in the banking sector. Labour insiders are also tipping Emma Reynolds (Oxon, PPE) and honorary sister Chuka… 

Except his own private and grammar school one presumably… 

Intriguingly the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds is running this:

“Diplomatic sources revealed today that the Quartet Committee intends to appoint a new peace envoy in the Middle East after receiving a Palestinian request to change the current envoy Tony Blair; the Palestinian request threatened that the Palestinian side will not accept any sponsorship by the Quartet Committee in the negotiations with Israel in case Blair remains in his position because of his ‘clear bias towards the Israeli side at the expense of the Palestinians’…”

Anyone seen Gordon recently? 

Sixteen-year-old conference darling Rory Weal had barely sat down before Guido’s inbox started to fill up. His schoolmates were particularly unimpressed with their rebranded chum:

“I attend Rory’s school and know full well that he does not speak in the way he did… the dropped letters all added to his persona..”

There was also some surprise from his classmates that while tear jerking in his speech that since the withdrawal of EMA-dole for students he can’t afford pencils for school, it seems he can in fact afford a £499 iPad to tweet his tales of poverty from:

Did he buy that with his EMA?

The Mail have details of the privately educated Rory’s privileged upbringing. When his property developer father’s firm went bust he had estates worth £2.25million and Rory experienced some social mobility, moving from his private school to a grammar school. Did nobody at Labour HQ take a moment to do a background check, or were they too busy tweaking the speech they wrote for him?

Whilst Rory has been compared to Tory Boy Hague, Guido thinks young Rory is more of a Blair in the making. Remember Tony’s mockney Estuary English. As with Rory the preferred narrative of that public school boy who went on to be PM was a bit more proletarian than the reality. As Rory’s grandma says, like Blair, “he’s a brilliant actor”…

In these austere times we can always rely on Derek Draper to show solidarity with the workers:

http://twitter.com/#!/eyespymp/status/118944059736866817

His close friend Gloria was showing a bit of leg:

http://twitter.com/#!/eyespymp/status/118799840200241152

Love is in the air according to a co-conspirator propping up the conference bar in the Jury’s Inn Hotel.

“Luciana and Chuka arrived hand in hand at the bar at Jury’s very late last night and were all over each other. It maybe back on.”

The beautiful people back together, Guido loves a happy ending…