Fraser Nelson

A big winner of donor-gate is Chris Huhne. He's been the face of the Lib Dems on this, as Vince Cable continues to hound Northern Rock. The ability to jump on a news issue is a key skill required for a Lib Dem leader, and he's demonstrating his credentials here. Where on earth is Nick Clegg? Where is his campaign? If he's not careful, winning the Spectator/Threadneedle newcomer of the year awards really will be the highlight of his year. Ps This is good news for Cameron. If Clegg pulled his finger out, he could be a very dangerous foe. But this looks like being a very big "if". Huhne far less of a Tory threat. Update: I've just come out of a Radio Scotland phone-in I agreed to do ages ago. It was a good laugh, sparring with taxi drivers and MSPs.

Given that the Metropolitan Police are probably more familiar with Labour Party financing than Gordon Brown himself, this shouldn't be a long investigation. It could be over in as little as there months. The starting point here is the end point which Yates could not get to: that a crime has been committed. All that's missing is the handcuffs (and another couple of villains). Brown will cooperate. He saw what happened when the last regime played silly buggers with the Met. The all important question is how far the police will investigate. Will they just nick Peter Watt, or ask who else used such circuitous donation routes. And does Watt look like the sort of chap who would allow himself to be demonised as the only villain?

What does Jon Mendelsohn know? Enough, it seems, to keep his job. There was muffled laughter in the house when Brown said a "former bishop of Oxford" would look into all this. Who else? Graham Norton? Cameron did well venting incredulity that Brown would use the old Blair-style inquiry device to kick this into the long grass. Good to see Brown had Harman beside him. Dumping on her seemed cowardly. Perhaps, he has finally decided that he needs to start standing up for his Cabinet rather than using them as human shields. Cameron was right about 155 days of incompetence and asking if Brown was simply not up for the job (today’s TV soundbite).

One of the least explored defects of this government is what Rabbi Lionel Blue calls “moral short-sightedness” – the ability to see problems on another continent, but not on one’s own doorstep. I was reminded of this when Brown announced £106 million of our money to open schools in Nigeria. It’s the latest example of what I’ve described as his neo-colonialism: his desire to rewire Africa along New Labour lines. Yet its not as if it’s “mission accomplished” with English education – some 40,000 kids leave primary school in Britain unable to read or write properly, setting them up for a lifetime of poverty.

Tomorrow's News of the World has a poll which gives the last rites to Brown's reputation for economic competence. It is truly devastating on many levels. 1. Two months ago Labour had a 12 point lead over the Tories on managing the economy. At the last election it was 30%. Now it is zero: they are neck and neck. 2. And among the under-25 Labour are a staggering 16 points behind (31% vs 47%). 3. The Tories are winning (or, should I say, Brown is fast losing) the intellectual battle. When asked who has the best policies and ideas', the Tory lead is 10%. Thus the effect of Black Tuesday becomes ever clearer in retrospect.

So where is the "junior official" who sent all the 25m record on two computer discs? What news of the British civil service's answer to Nick Leeson? Waiting for his Tory knighthood? In the Bahamas, collecting the £100m from the Hugo Drax of identity fraud? Or in a dungeon underneath No10 waiting for personal treatment from Mr Brown? He's being kept safe from wicked media in a hotel, apparently, hospitality of the Public and Commercial Services trade union (who may, who knows, flog him to the highest bidder this Sunday).   All this arouses suspicion from some quarters here in Westminster. The PCS is a little too active, it is being said - and are probably orchestrating the anonymous comments from people saying they are serving or former HMRC staff.