Starmer and his team touched down in Samoa this morning after flying for a ridiculous 27 hours (not including refuelling stops). Accompanied by the usual gaggle of lobby journalists looking forward to putting out all the same lines about the PM, just from a different location…

Broadcasters and print hacks paid about £4,750 to fly with Keir, or an eye-watering £10,000 if they were lucky enough to score business class. What do they get for their cash?

• Thunder and showers disrupting the official itinerary.
• A short CHOGM event being hijacked by campaigners demanding the UK pay reparations for slavery…while Starmer tries to talk about trade instead.
• Official snubs from Commonwealth leaders, including Modi and Ramaphosa who are at Putin’s BRICS summit in Russia. Hilariously even Trudeau didn’t bother to come, sending his high commissioner to London in his place. The Canadian PM did however send doughnuts when the plane stopped for fuel in Winnipeg, which were promptly eaten by the lobby, a big news moment…

Lobby hacks who stayed home are feeling smug as more interesting news ploughs on in dry London. One says: “You literally couldn’t have paid me to go on this one.” And they’ve got to fly all the way back…

Breaking news from the corridors of Westminster: the power’s out in the journalists’ offices in Parliament, and with it, the hacks’ ability to sit around in their usual haunts, drink coffee, check X and of course, find big scoops. The plugs have failed, the computers are dead. MailOnline cannot be browsed. Off to Old Queen Street Cafe they go…

As Guido predicted yesterday the pundits have poured as much praise as they can get away with on the disastrous implosion of Starmer’s Downing Street 93 days into government. Got to keep those new sources sweet…

Remember when Gray was the person be be cosied up to? Profiles flattered where they could: “One Labour figure said Gray had been a good listener“, “She’s pretty ruthless at timekeeping.” Now it’s Starmer and McSweeney’s turn to have the spinning done for them…

Lobby journalists pretend to be shocked by Starmer’s “ruthlessness” in getting rid of Gray. Guido doesn’t recall them spinning Cummings’ departure as Boris “bolstering his No 10 operation”…

Last night, the usual suspects in the Lobby assembled at the Speaker’s House for the bi-annual Press Gallery drinks—an affair once known for its fizz and flair, hosted by Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. Though this time was a far more humble gathering compared to last…

The Winter Press Reception saw champagne on ice and a selection of cocktails from French 75s to spritzers flowing freely. Instead,  hacks had to make do with the modest trio of Prosecco, beer, or cranberry juice. Hoyle himself made light of the downgrade in his address to the Lobby, blaming “whoever did that FOI” that revealed the Speaker ‘s office splashed £3,533 on food and booze for the last one. Unsurprisingly, tightening of the purse strings left the room notably emptier than before. As one hack put it: ‘life under Labour’…

Today, after 43 days of hiding from the media, Angela Rayner faces hacks at a press gallery lunch in Parliament. Lobby hacks should make the most of her facing the media for the first time since the revelations in Lord Ashcroft’s unauthorised biography Red Queen. These are some of the questions hacks should get fully answered by Angela:

• Do you really expect us to believe that you were living with your brother in Vicarage Road while your newly-wed husband and your children were living in a separate house in Lowndes Lane?
• You claim to have sought “advice” regarding capital gains tax. When and why was this sought? In the interests of transparency, can we see it?
• Why did your neighbour call you “a f**king liar?“

It’s an opportunity for her to clear things up…

When Boris Johnson’s peerage nominations were announced, there were months of negative media briefings and pearl-clutching Lobby exasperations over the whole list – particularly over the appointment of youngest peer, Charlotte Owen. As Guido said at the time, given that the average age of the Lords is 71, the appointment of some fresh faces hardly the biggest issue with the House of Lords (which no doubt needs reform)…

Last week, as is their occasional right, Plaid Cymru nominated 27-year-old Carmen Smith – also a former political staffer, with a basically identical CV to Johnson’s aides – to join the upper house for life. How did it go down with the righteous scribes of SW1?

Carmen was treated to a glowing write up in The Times, which subjected the lifelong lawmaker to scrutiny by noting she is ‘principled’ and ‘a good laugh’. It stands in contrast to The Times’ treatment of Johnson’s peers – the paper ran a number of stinking leaders railing against them, with the op-ed pages and Lobby team deployed to generate reams of outraged copy over every cough and spit of the process. The BBC decided to nose their piece on Tory donors instead. The Guardian, which twisted itself into paroxysms of apocalyptic outrage over Johnson’s nominations, has mentioned Carmen’s nomination in just one line of copy. Tortoise, which ran a highly personalised single issue campaign on the matter, has not even covered the development. This is all despite the fact that Plaid Cymru opposes the existence of the House of Lords and Carmen herself thinks it should be abolished. Guido has nothing against Carmen Smith – her age is not her fault. It simply proves for the lefty establishment media, it’s one rule about how to treat Boris, and another for everyone else…