Don't forget your lifejacket Gordon.

There's a rumour going round that Gordon Brown is preparing to jump ship ahead of the general election.

This is quite an 'about-face' for Brown who has always maintained that he "wasn't going anywhere" and was recently telling people that he'd have to be "carried out feet first". Naturally there is a long list of people who would be only too willing to help him achieve the latter ambition sooner rather than later.

However it's very unlikely to be true as it would also mean he would have to accept the reality of the forthcoming election defeat. Something he has clearly demonstrated over and over again he is incapable of doing.

I suspect what actually happened is that the blackshirts are so desperately trying to find bolt-holes for themselves to hide in, they forgot to keep an eye on whoever is making post-defeat arrangements for Brown and the rest of the cabinet.

Please keep your hands where I can see them Mr. Brown

I can't say I was surprised to hear that U.S. president Barak Obama had become the latest in a long line of foreign politicians who want nothing more to do with Gordon Brown.

I suspect that Obama, like most of the others, is concerned about the damage to his reputation and his own chances of re-election should he be perceived as being too closely associated with Brown.

Of course, the U.S. Secret Service expressing concerns about the state of Gordon Brown's mental health and his increasingly erratic behaviour may have also have been taken into consideration.

Of oars and feet

The CBI has stuck it's oar into the university funding debate - or it's foot in it's mouth depending on your point of view - by saying that students should pay higher tuition fees and more interest on their loans.

Naturally this has drawn a storm of protest from a wide range of sources including the National Union of Students which criticised the report as "gross hypocrisy" from the "fat cats of the CBI", very few of whom ever paid a penny towards their own state funded university education.

This view is supported by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers which referred to the proposals as "arrogant and elitist".

However the report does have some support from groups which want to see further restrictions on access to higher education, particularly at university level. And while the report itself doesn't specifically call for this, it does call for the government's aim of having 50% of young people attend university to be abandoned, along with other measures which would have the same effect.

Also contained within the report is the 'suggestion' that universities should focus more on 'economically valuable' subjects such as science, technology, engineering, maths and languages.

The very areas which most of the CBI's membership steadfastly refuse to invest in, claiming they are "not economically viable".

With CBI's constant complaints about how difficult it is for companies to keep graduate staff once they've got enough experience to make their skills marketable, it's not difficult to see why the CBI would want to see students pushed deeper into debt.

As for the students themselves. Someone more cynical than myself might suggest that for many of them, their primary concern would be that higher costs will mean less money for beer and drugs.

Turn left at next junction...

I see from the Times that the idiot who slavishly followed his sat-nav's instructions right to the very edge of a cliff in West Yorkshire has been convicted of driving without due care and attention.

He was fined £370, had 6 penalty points added to his license and was ordered to pay £500 costs. With the recovery bill for his car this piece of stupidity has cost him nearly £1900.

Yet despite this he is still insisting he did nothing wrong and is quoted as being "extremely disappointed" with the verdict. He also insists that he was using the sat-nav properly and that it was at fault, not him.

This is complete nonsense of course. Had he been paying proper attention to the footpath he was following he would have realised that something was seriously wrong before he hit the fence at the edge of the cliff.

Why can't we have it in Sterling?

Here's something which could explain the mystery behind LabourList's much disputed financing.

The US Special Operations Command has awarded General Dynamics a $10 million contract to set up a network of psychological warfare "influence websites" to support the Global War On Terror with France and Britain specifically included as "targeted regions".

Of course it's no secret that the U.S. maintains intelligence 'assets' in supposedly friendly countries. They've been caught at it often enough. So it's not that big a step from there to "influence websites" which provide,

"dissemination of truthful information to foreign audiences in support of US policy"

Hmm... Perhaps that's where Gordo and his chums get their ideas about what constitutes the truth. The U.S. has certainly been the source of many of their more questionable ideas.

However it's the following quote from the original article which puts me in mind of LabourList.

"It would appear that any UK media site or channel which appears to be functioning without any visible means of support appropriate to its expenses may in fact be a tentacle of US Special Ops psywar command."

Given the U.S. government's past record, there may be more 'truth' in that than the author intended.

US Spec Ops operates psywar websites targeted at UK

Who did you say you were?

I had a phone call this morning from someone who wanted to know how I thought Harriet Harmon compared with Gordon Brown.

A rather risky question under the current circumstances and having never heard of this individual I naturally attempted to determine precisely who he was before answering it.

He wouldn't say and eventually gave up when I persisted.

Obviously this was someone 'testing the water' to see how much support Harman might have amongst the CLPs in advance of the party conference later this month.

The question is, was this one of Harman's supporters or Gordo's blackshirts?

But she NEEDS her bonus

It's been pointed out to me that the 'real' reason the W.H.Smiths area manager got rid of the cleaners was to preserve her bonus.

Well... Yes. I had sort of figured that out for myself.

With falling revenue the only way to maintain the illusion of increasing profits is drastic cost cutting regardless of consequences.

However that wasn't her stated reason was it?