Half hearted one from Madonna’s ex Sean Penn and another very public declaration from John Edwards. The latter is what the world’s been waiting for since January (to paraphrse the Stone Roses) and comes in spite of Hillary’s repeated wooing of the ex VP candidate.

Is the end in sight yet? Given the protracted nature of the Demnocratic nominatoin contest let’s hope that the infighting hasn’t ended of their chances of wining the White House.

The scores on the doors are here from Labourhome’s survey of grassroots activists on what they think of party direction. David Milliband comes out as top minister in the satisfaction ratings while Alistair Darling brings up the rear. Fascinating stuff and interesting to read in conjunction with this thoughtful post from Greater Manchester Fabians up this morning. As Graham from GMFs points out when people start saying “a spell in opposition would do us good” things are really bad. That was the end of Major.

However while we are on the subject of parallels between Brown and Major  as seems to be popular these days, never let it be forgotten that Major actually won a General Election against the odds. There is still time, if we act now, for Brown to replicate the feat when we next go to the polls. The legislative programme outlined today has already had the Tories on the defensive. Way to go.

People may have clicked before on the link on the left here to the wacky funster who maintains a parallel blog to Luke Akehurst’s excellent site. Whoever he/she is they are sometimes really witty but other times totally tasteless. It seems that Luke is not alone in inspring such dedication. Chris Paul now also has a spoofster, notwithstanding the fact that Iain Dale recently called the real CP “Comical Ali”. Stumbling through cyberspace recently I discovered that Harriet Harman’s blog too has inspired this. I’m unaware of any right-wing equivalents but there must be some out there.

The Economist recently bigged up the blogosphere in claiming “web gurus insist that British politics could be doing much more with the internet”. They report that the slowest of all modern politicians to cotton on to the dawning of the new era was the “comically technophobic” Tony Blair who apparently set up a secret stalker squad as one of his last acts in office.

Crikey Sundays follow a pattern at the moment don’t they? Andrew Marr, Adam Boulton and the papers chock-full of lurid revelations from usually ghost-written tomes of sometimes bitter and twisted attention-seeking people connected to New Labour. These organs are being used, on the slowest news day of the week, for self-publicity in a way worse than Wogan (80s chat show that was blatantly a vehicle for the guests’ new products to plug).

So first it was John Prescott’s admission of bulima, widely seen as courageous. Then Lord Levy’s outburst, then Cherie Blair then Lord Levy (again not to be outdone). Isn’t all the stuff about Leo Blair’s conception at Balmoral because Cherie was too embarrassed to bring contraception for fear it would be unpacked by royal bum-wipers just a bit too much information? Doesn’t Lord Levy look just a bit publicity obsessed at the moment ?

More to the point will anyone want to buy any of these books now that the juicy bits have been distilled in yesterday’s chip paper? I forsee the remainder bookshops being full of ‘em before long. Worse still (for the publishers who have lavished advances on them) they could end up being pulped which happens more and more to surplus printed material these days.

Interesting debate here at Labourhome, hot on the heels of a post by Will Parbury the day after the mayoral results, ponders on who the next Labour mayoral candidate should be. Iain Dale has even linked to it (although he doesn’t recognise the suggestion he picks was a joke). It was sad to see a picture of Ken forlornly carrying a plastic Thomas the Tank Engine trainset out of his office in the Mail on Sunday last week but a suggestion from Alex Hilton (all round affable guy and PPC for Kensington) is that should be Kon not Ken next time ie Konnie Huq. All this speculation less than a week after Livingstone’s electoral demise. Indecent haste?

The full list of candidates is yet to be announced but you may have seen Channel 4 news showing stump action from the Crewe and Nantwich by-election yesterday. More here and here. Tamsin Dundwoody, the late Gwyneth’s daughter and star of this Facebook group, is Labour candidate. The Tories have picked an Edward Timpson, heir to  Timpson’s heel-bar empire.

Among what will be the also-rans at the end of the day is this 26 year old northern Irish glamour model and Former Miss Great Britian, Gemma Garrett, from the “Beauties for Britain Party” who are hoping to inject some glamour into the proceedings. Strange things happen in by-elections but the likelihood of a British Cicciolina (Italian porn model turned MP who had a Pop Will Will Eat Itself single named after her) is unlikely I reckon. Screaming Lord Sutch was never like this.

Have had this up today on Comment is Free. Various commentators have fingered the blame for Boris’ win on outer London yet as Luke Akehurst points out here suburbs that bucked the trend by swinging to Labour include Brent and Harrow now represented by Navin Shan and further out in Slough in the Thames Valley. In Bromley and Bexley the Tories romped home with James Cleverley a candidate who smashes Conservative stereotypes as their first black Assembly Member. The suburbs cannot be subjected to blanket treatment then; outer London boroughs also helped the BNP to their first Assembly Member - an alarming fact that seems to have been conveniently overlooked by the media who are punch drunk on the Boris victory.

Comments are welcome, as all this is background to what will be my next book on the changing face of twenty-first century suburbia. They seem to be, for some reason, flooding into this curio which I can’t really account for.

Iain Dale has been having a pop at a clutch of Labour bloggers for not covering Gordon Brown’s Sunday round of interviews. In a typical hissyfit he decrees that none of the bloggers listed, which include the mighty collaborative efforts Harry’s Place and PIckled Politics, will be deemed worthy of a link from the Dale-ster.

Well this blog has never really been into tv reviews, particularly of programmes that I’ve never seen - Paul Burgin does that stuff much better. Some of us have stuff to do, kids to play with etc etc on a long weekend. I ended up turning on the box for the first time of the day late on Sunday night when I caught Headcases for the first time. As with earlier attempts 2-D Tv and Spitting Image, it inevitably felt too short. The Amy W(h)inehouse and Al-Fayed-baiting bits were mildly diverting. The portrayal of Boris Johnson as a St Bernard in a dog-basket was probably penned before Friday night’s result. Good to see some new satire on our screens. You can never have enoughin my book. Interesting to note also that ITV is replicating the i-player with this lil’ thing.

Now Iain, toys back in the pram pleasse.  

I’m not in the mood for post-mortems right now so have just had this on an entirely unrelated subject (schools as it happens) up at the spanking new Harry’s Place instead. Let’s hope Ken can still pull it off this evening. Gordon Brown’s famous fingernails must be under extreme pressure.

Recieved here via the new look Harry’s place who nicked them from Socialist Unity. I didn’t realise Gorgeous George was on the ballot paper so I shall be putting Ken first and Sian Berry 2nd. Hopefuly no distribution of Ken’s second places will be needed so it’ll be irrelevant anyway. But that’ll only happen if Labour people get off their arses to turn out.

Remember to urge everyone you know who has a London vote to use it - specially for the London-wide top up list member as a low turnout will make the BNP’s job of the measely percentage they need for an assembly member and potentially holding the balance of power in our great city an easy one. I shall try to slip it into what I say to the 170 first years in the exam I am invigilating in a bit.