Polls are la-la and mood music in the papers is pointless. When we want to know which way political sentiment is running, we turn to Mike Smithson's Political Betting, and today he's got a doozy. He reckons the predicted number of Tory seats in an election, according to Sporting Index,… read more…

Perhaps one of the less bright ideas of the Conservatives was the debate yesterday on party funding as it gave the hitherto ignored questions ("they're just trying to smear us, you know," CCHQ had previously claimed, flouncily, when the words "Lord" and "Ashcroft" were put to them in any sort… read more…

More grim news for the Gord came with the Telegraph's YouGov poll, which put the Tories on 43 (up two) with the comrades on 32 and the LibDems on 14 (both no change). The UK Polling Report sounds a note of caution about getting too Private Fraser ("we're all doomed.… read more…

Imagine the scene. You're a Prime Minister who has to leave the country to partake of tea, cucumber sandwiches, and pointless diplomacy with Brenda in Africa for a week. You leave a "to do" list pinned to the fridge, a list of emergency numbers by the phone, and stress to Alan Johnson… read more…

As the end nears in the interminable Liberal Democrat leadership contest and voting for the Parliamentary equivalent of Head of Year 7 continues, the Guardian releases a poll that shows Huhne catching up: Forty per cent of just over 200 Lib Dems questioned by the Guardian after a hustings in Cambridge… read more…

Military blokes use the opportunity of the Gord's absence (he's in Uganda) to aim some bitchslapping at the Government. Classy work, boys. More damning, perhaps, is the National Audit Office report regarding the undreamed of wealth made by ten civil servants at the public expense. At the end of… read more…

Nick Robinson on Alistair Darling's Northern Rock-related predicament: "His job is on the line". So said the Tory shadow chancellor, George Osborne, with menace today. Whilst struggling to imagine quite how Boy George does "menace," the stakes (poll-wise) for the comrades are high, according to Mike Smithson.… read more…

There's no consistent "top story" this morning but, frankly, we never tire of this picture. Anyway, a couple of the papers are reporting that the Tories' are planning to unveil a policy that ensures that all children can read by age six. Cool. Less happy news for the comrades comes… read more…

BONG! Home Secretary Jacqui Smith appears to have done a Houdini with her statement to the House regarding the latest immigration scandal the Tories are getting Outraged and Saddened about. Daniel Finkelstein notes that the scale of the Gord's knowledge on this one might yet become an issue. BONG! If… read more…

BONG! A bird flu outbreak has been identified on the Norfolk-Suffolk border and, as we speak, half the hacks in London are decamping to the shires in order to hunt out errant poultry, interview the local populace about who in DEFRA should resign (correct answer: all of them), and speculate on… read more…