Darkness has fallen over Downing Street
The Supreme Leader is plunged into more gloom. Brown's attempt to reinvent himself as Green Gordon, the enviro-friendly premier, isn't going to plan. Low-energy light bulbs fitted to the chandeliers hanging in the Cabinet Room leave ministers in the dark, being noticeably dimmer than the old planet destroyers. The melancholy mood captures the atmosphere pervading Downing Street as plotters seek to oust the Supreme Leader. A minister suggested all would change should a coup put David Miliband in the big chair, the room lit up by the sun that Miliboy's disciples believe shines from a part of his anatomy. The Talibrown counter that new light bulbs will do the trick.
To the lengthening list of those who believe it may be their personal burden to inform the Prime Minister the game's up can be added the name of Paul Dacre. The Daily Mail tyrant is to the right of Attila the Hun yet he and Brown rub along infamously well, sharing a 24/7 work ethic and a dislike of Bullingdon Club loafers. I hear of a wind-up, with the Hate Mail's hitman Peter McKay advising his boss to put an arm around the PM, telling him it's time to go and leaving a bottle of whisky and revolver on the table. Dacre, I'm assured, is quite taken by the idea that he, editor of a Tory newspaper, could play Labour kingmaker.
Spied in a motley huddle in the first floor bar of Westminster's City Inn was Hattie Harperson's bag carrier Chris Bryant. My radar-lugged informant eavesdropped sufficient snippets to deduce that the gathering was compiling the Daily Torygraph's annual list of influential lefties. I await publication with interest to discover how high Bryant placed himself and his mistress. This column's snout is still struggling with the idea that Bryant, a former vicar, is considered a lefty.
To the Lib Dem sandalfest in Bournemouth, where Nick Clegg proved he can't keep a secret. The yellow peril's leader boasted he knew the sex of his impending third child from the scan but wouldn't be telling. Fair enough. Then, asked again about the looming birth, he gushed: "I'm really looking forward to having another boy." Ping! The penny dropped and his lights came on dimly, too.
The Grauniad's flirtation with Druggie Dave is infuriating the Talibrown. Memories, however, are short. Blairites regularly denounced the rag as the Gordian when it relentlessly championed the chancellor over the premier. The paper's line isn't personal, giggled a staffer, because in Farringdon Road the tradition is to turn on whoever is in No 10.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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