The Wardman Wire

With the Parliamentary spectacle of the Budget behind us, this week politics descended into navel gazing and - occasionally - farce. An outbreak of jealous bitchslapping at Downing Street in the wake of the departure of former Brown aide Spencer Livermore coincided with a sharp dip in the polls for the comrades. Smooth. Meanwhile, details of the Liberal Democrats preparedness for Government leaked out causing speculation on the blogosphere of an alternative SNP-Conservative Unholy Alliance after the next general election, the Gord got down with Doctor Who, and a Conservative Opposition Day Motion on Post Office closures came close to causing red faces on the Labour benches.

LEAVE IT SPENCER! HE AIN’T WORF IT!

There’s no spectacle quite as edifying as the sight of fully grown men indulging in a public display of bra twanging and pigtail pulling, especially when the individuals concerned are the close advisors to the Supreme Leader. The trouble all began with the January arrival of big-hitter Stephen Carter at Number 10 who was tasked with sorting out the operation after the election that wasn’t fiasco, and the fallout from the Seven Plagues of the Gord period (Northern Rock, missing data disks …etc) last autumn. Spencer Livermore, Brown’s longest serving aide, was promptly moved from his nice big office in Downing Street into a broom cupboard in Rotherhithe or something, was always left out of the tea round, and if all THIS wasn’t enough, last weekend “sources close to Mr Carter” started briefing journos that Livermore was a bit crap really. Much drama ensued culminating in Livermore flouncing off to work for Saatchi & Saatchi. Nice work if you can get it, mate.

POLL DANCING

Didja hear it? That massive exploding sound emanating from the SW1 area on Sunday? Nope it wasn’t terrorists, it was the Gord catching sight of the Sunday Times YouGov poll that put the Tories sixteen points ahead of the comrades. Although the UK Polling Report concluded that this one was probably an outrider, a subsequent ICM poll confirmed the (albeit smaller) Tory lead, placing them thirteen points ahead of Labour who had sunk to nadir of 29. Is this the beginning of the end for the Government?

ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE?

Blogger Iain Dale managed to get his mits on a Power Point presentation from a Liberal Democrat away-day last March, which seems to demonstrate the Liberals were planning to hop into bed with Labour in the event of a hung Parliament. However, what they think now given the Tories way ahead in the polls is anyone’s guess. Incidentally, my personal favourite is this snippet from the “Conclusions and Actions” slide: “there is a deeper strategic debate to be had.” Brilliant: urgent action is called for, people! We need to, uh, have a meeting! Yes, that’ll do it. Anyway, on a different but related topic, Dale went on to speculate that the SNP’s resident Judge John Deed (he don’t care what those Whitehall suits say, he’s gonna do politics HIS way!) could well turn out to be Davy Cameron’s king maker in a hung Parliament. If this does come to pass, it’ll probably be the first (political) marriage that has happened in order to facilitate the break-up of a historic union. Where’s the love, guys?

GETTING CLOSURE

Yesterday’s Conservative Opposition Day Debate on Post Office closures saw the largest Government rebellion on an Opposition motion since 1997, as Labour’s majority was slashed to a mere twenty (hat tip as always in these cases to the God-like Phil Cowley). Ben Brogan raises the point that nearly 100 MPs didn’t bother to vote at all, including one D. Cameron Esq. Had he managed to persuade a couple of his mates to traipse down the aye lobby instead of buggering off early for Easter, it could have all been very different.

…AND FINALLY

Timelord David Tennant gave Brown an excellent feeder line who duly cracked a funny relating to people from other planets and mayoral candidate Boris “BoJo” Johnson. Give that gag-writer a payrise! In news from the press gallery, the Mirror team scored an important victory by winning the lobby pub quiz, with the Independent coming in last. The thought of what questions would be required for the Independent to come first quite simply boggles the mind.