Steerpike

Since Karen Danczuk announced her split from her husband Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP, she has been embroiled in a bitter row with him over the reasons for their parting of ways. Happily, in recent weeks this has cooled, as they try to put their differences aside for the sake of their children. Not that this means the 'selfie queen' is about to become a wallflower. The former Labour councillor has started a blog -- titled 'Selfie Made Woman' -- in which she offers readers an insight into her deepest thoughts. And while the Mirror reported earlier in the week that she faces bailiffs after ignoring a court order concerning rent, Danczuk has decided to focus on another issue at hand: her worries ahead of her first girls' night out: 'I feel like the new Bridget Jones.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, David Cameron's former election strategist Lynton Crosby has today offered his thoughts on the Prime Minister's rivals. Unsurprisingly, his conclusions are hardly flattering. However, the man who has taken the brunt of Crosby's ire is Nigel Farage. Crosby claims that Ukip does not have 'a long-term future'. Furthermore, instead of trying to win a Westminster seat again, Farage would be better advised to look for chat show work in Australia: 'They are very reliant on the performance of their leader Nigel Farage and even he couldn't win a seat. Sixth or seventh time he's tried to win a Westminster seat. I think he might be better coming to Australia and doing talkback radio than trying to run another seat in the UK.

Labour's verification process has been under a lot of scrutiny in recent weeks as more and more Tories have claimed they have successfully joined as a supporter of the party in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and 'condemn Labour to years in the political wilderness’. Labour insist that they have a crack team successfully weeding out non-Labour supporters from the genuine new joiners. This is a point that they seem rather keen to make known. Today the party's press office has tweeted the Tory MP Tim Loughton to tell him that his application has sadly been declined: https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/628912795862605824 While Loughton's actions have been criticised by members of Labour, former Tory MP Louise Mensch has also weighed in: https://twitter.

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership bid has so far managed to inspire a legion of new supporters to join the Labour party. Alas, his unexpected popularity is also causing a problem for some members of the media. After the Guardian launched an in-house investigation into whether their own Corbyn coverage was bias against him, Emily Maitlis, who has interviewed him for tonight's Newsnight, has written a gushing blog post titled 'Prepping to meet "the man of the moment"'.  In it, she says that his tendency to veer off from textbook politician answers caused her a problem when preparing for the interview: 'On the train to Leeds my producer Ed Brown and I are putting together a list of questions for Jeremy Corbyn.

It's only lunchtime but the Guardian may have already reached 'peak Guardian' for the day. The paper has published an article penned by Chris Elliott chronicling an in-house investigation into their coverage of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership bid. They decided to do this after a number of Corbynistas complained that the left-wing paper had shown bias against Corbyn, with one reader going so far as to claim that their reporting of his leadership bid was worse than the paper's coverage of the Vietnam war: 'I’ve been a regular reader of the Guardian (Manchester Guardian as was) since 1958. Despite the low point reached in the 60s when you supported the US war in Vietnam for a while, I still continued with it.

Although the Milifandom wasn't enough to lead Ed Miliband to victory at the polls, the cult movement did at least bring the former Labour leader's lagging campaign some momentum in the final weeks of the election campaign. So perhaps it's little surprise that the new Labour leadership hopefuls have been courting Milifandom founder Abby Tomlinson in a bid to win her endorsement ahead of the vote. After meeting with each contender, Tomlinson  has announced that she is backing Andy Burnham for leader. She says that she will give her second preference to Jeremy Corbyn -- who has won the most union endorsements as well as CLP endorsements.

Ahead of the election, Ed Miliband's senior advisor David Axelrod was asked if the Labour politician had as much potential to succeed as his former client Barack Obama. His reply? 'I think Obama’s a once-in-a-lifetime candidate.' However, could Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn be the candidate to make it two-in-a-lifetime? Mr S only asks after the independent radical left magazine Red Pepper have ran a cover with Corbyn pictured in the style of the famous 2008 Barack Obama 'Hope' poster: https://twitter.com/montie/status/627109986339028992 Still, unless by 'hope' they are referring to what Corbyn brings to the Tories, Mr S suspects he still has some way to go.

The Labour leadership candidates have been canvassing the yummy mummies on Mumsnet and today it was Andy Burnham’s turn. Steerpike was shocked to learn from the Q&A that he has never bought mascara, nor opened a bottle of jet black ‘Just for Men’. But there was a much more damaging revelation: Burnham revealed that he doesn’t eat biscuits: 'I’m told that I have to tell you what my favourite biscuit is. But I’m afraid I’m going to depress you all by saying that I don’t have a sweet tooth and don’t eat biscuits.

Although Ukip is said to have a 'women problem' thanks to low ratings from females in comparison to other parties, their leader does at least seem keen to reach out to the fairer sex. Nigel Farage reportedly gave a woman cause for concern today after she discovered him in the female toilet of a restaurant: https://twitter.com/tanyamTV/status/626380119540674560 While Farage was criticised by the woman for leaving the tap running, Mr S is just glad that he opted to wash his hands. A Ukip spokesman declines to comment on the incident.