Who's running Britain: the annual non-story

Okay, so it's a great story, all the more so at a time of year when good political stories are in very short supply. Fat old working-class fool who can't speak the language properly and mispronounces the names of foreign leaders is left to run the country for a fortnight, opening up the prospect of a whole series of disasters along the way.

Or, at least, it would be a great story, if there was any truth in it. Because the truth is that, whether he is a fat old fool or not, John Prescott has never actually been left in charge of anything in Tony Blair's absense.

There seems to be an assumption on the part of the people writing this stuff that Mr Blair somehow ceases to be Prime Minister when he is on holiday. That might have been the case had we still been living in the era of carrier-pigeons, or when ocean liners were the only form of foreign travel, but not in an era of modern communications and transport.

Doutbless it won't stop the stories being written though, even if Mr Blair's decision to postpone his holiday means they have to be shelved for a few days.

Walter Wolfgang joins Labour's NEC

Possibly the greatest victory against NuLab control freakery since Peter Mandelson failed to be elected to the NEC in 1997! Read the full story HERE.

I was however genuinely surprised by this result as, from her Loughborough Uni days onwards, Lorna Fitzsimons has always been good at getting elected to things, occasionally employing some innovative techniques in order to do so.

So what was it all about, Dave?

He doesn't want to make a big song and dance about it, apparently, but fellow blogger Iain Dale is today quietly celebrating his elevation to the Tories' "A-list" of Parliamentary candidates.

Whether or not you agree with him, Iain is clearly a highly effective advocate for the Conservative Party and I'm sure will go on to play a significant role in national politics in years to come.

But now that this glaring injustice has been righted, it is perhaps timely to ask what on earth was achieved by leaving Dale off the list in the first place, other than to make the debate over the introduction of the A-list much more rancourous than it otherwise would have been?

All it did was foster a doubtless wrong impression among grassroots Tories that supporters of David Davis, or outspoken bloggers, or middle-aged men - or possibly even all three - were being victimised.