Brian Paddick is making a few quid out of the Daily Mail by dishing the dirt from his campaign diary. Worth reading for some light entertainment, though he does himself no credit in one or two places by stepping beyond the acceptable in releasing private conversations - I guess the money being offered was too good. Perhaps he was hoping to regain some self-esteem for a lamentable campaign by criticising the LibDem party machine. Safe to say, Paddick won't be a LibDem candidate again, from both sides' point of view.

Tribune has been following the Labour Party refinancing saga closely - seemingly the only good source of info for ordinary members on how the £21 million debt, largely from the 2005 election campaign, will be handled. The saga moves on another notch today.

Boris Johnson has not declared his 33% shareholding in a TV production company he jointly set up about 20 months ago. The MPs code of conduct requires any shareholding greater than 15% to be declared in the MPs' Register of Interests.

A report is out saying Labour want trade unions to stop giving funds direct to CLPs, and send all funds to the national party - but the unions are resisting this. Anyone know anything about this?

Harriet Harman performed well at both jokes and content at PMQs today, standing in for Gordon who is at a NATO summit trying to figure out what can still be done in Afghanistan. Both Iain Dale and Kevin Maguire thought Harriet won the occasion.

Two great videos from the Daily Mirror in recent days. One of Gordon Brown giving a great short speech to open the Black Britannia exhibition. And another of David Cameron cycling wrong-way up a one way street and thru red traffic lights on his way to the House!

Just heard on the BBC radio 4 11am news that the "Bank of England has injected £5 billion into the financial markets in a bid to restore stability ... dealers fear that the banking crisis in the USA will spread around the world". Looks like a whole new economic world might be starting today!

My local, very busy, city suburb sub Post Office is down for closure as part of the Post Office "Network Change Programme". Already the anti-closure petition has been signed by 750, probably more people than usually vote in local elections in the post-office's locality. The LibDems are making the most of this. Surely electorally this is a bad news nationally?

I've reported that the BBC misunderstand and misreported Alistair Darling's commons answer on Northern Rock nationalisation, and had to make an apology of sorts on Today. It now turns out a Tory press release with this truncated Hansard quote was issued 2.5 hours before Nick Robinson used a similar quote on Sunday night on Radio 5. The following morning Today ran with it heavily as well, as did The Daily Politics. Could Nick Robinson have followed the Tory press release without proper independent research?

The BBC is claiming on Nick Robinson's blog, Today and The Daily Politics that back in November Alistair Darling agreed in the commons with Jim Cousins that the nationalisation of Northern Rock would bring terrible effects. Jim Cousins made a complex two part question, and I think the BBC has misunderstood Darling's two part answer. Listen to the question - what do you think?

Goldman Sachs has recommended that it was not in the taxpayers' interests for Northern Rock to be sold now.  Legislation will be introduced tomorrow to acquire the bank's shares and assets for "a period of temporary public ownership". Alistair Darling's statement appears to say the legislation will be a general power for twelve months to acquire institutions "in certain tightly defined circumstances", so is not limited to Northern Rock.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested that Muslims in the UK should have a limited Sharia court system for family/civil law arbitration, much like the UK Jewish courts (eg London Beth Din). Entirely predictably this is an ongoing PR disaster, and the tabloid editors are salivating. Gordon Brown has already rejected the suggestion.

Sadiq Khan, now Assistant Government Whip with responsibility toward Ministry of Justice legislation, has allegedly been deliberately bugged twice when visiting a constituent, Babar Ahmad, in prison during 2005 and 2006.

Tribune today has a dramatic article about Labour Party attempts to reschedule up to £14 million of loans, and that NEC members could be personally liable for the debts if legal action is taken. Apparently a last resort of converting the party into a limited company is being considered by some, to protect the NEC members from liability!

As it is the season of peace and goodwill, you may perhaps want to consider who deserves to be 2007 Arms Control Person of the Year. There are two UK contenders:

The Electoral Calculus website has just been updated with the September opinion polls, giving an immediate general election prediction of a 118 Labour majority. It is based on published national opinion polls, and the occasional Scottish poll, so is nothing like as accurate as private predictions based on swing constituency polls, but it's all we public can get to see. The website also has a nifty summary of recent opinion polls:

 

16 MPs (and 1 candidate) have produced short Google videos entitled "Someplace's Labour MP talking about Gordon Brown". All shot in parliament, by the same camera team no doubt. A good idea by some bright spark, but more originality is perhaps called for.

Ever wanted a glimpse of a PLP meeting? A short video of Tony's final PLP ovation is available on myspace courtesy of former Whip Ian Cawsey. Also Cawsey's last Whip's breakfast meeting, and a peek into the Whip's office. Also a bit from Tony's leaving do in Westminster Hall.

The Electoral Commission has produced its report on the May 2007 electoral pilot schemes: e-voting, electronic counting, advance voting. For e-voting the main recommendation is that "no further piloting should take place in the absence of a robust, publicly available strategy that has been subject to extensive consultation"; we need to "debate a robust electoral modernisation strategy". My take on it is that we've learnt all we can from rushed and somewhat amateurish trials (e.g. an untested wireless electronic polling station network being used on the big day). E-voting does not seem to boost turnout in the pilots.

Iain Dale, Tory wonder-blogger, has let slip his general view on public spending: "extra tax revenues for the Treasury to squander". A relief in a way to see a solid heartfelt Tory view on public spending, rather than the warm-fuzzy Cameron spin.