Goody Saves Spinners From Sleaze

A scorching Sunday of New Labour sleaze left Downing Street spinners gasping for air. Then Goody pops her clogs and they could breath a sigh of relief. The timing could not have been better if it was all planned for the TV bulletins.

The Supreme Leader is "leading tributes to reality TV star Jade Goody ... praising her as a courageous woman", according to his pals at the BBC. The Orange Party thought his job was to lead the country not the mourning. But hey, this is celebrity politics folks.

You can feel the spinners' brains ticking over: "She was the People's ... "

"The whole country has admired her determination to provide a bright future for her children," Brown added, thoughtfully. Er, not quite the whole country. Just who is he trying to impress?

The poor woman died of cancer. So too have thousands of others. Many people know the agony and grief of coming to terms with someone close suffering from a terminal illness.

What isn't needed is some politician trying to jump on the celebrity bandwagon. Blair got away with it. Brown cannot.

Still that knocked employment minister, Tony McNulty, off the top sleaze spot of the TV bulletins.

Two homes McNulty joins two homes secretary Smith, saying he did nothing wrong, after the Mail on Sunday exposed his greed by claiming £60,000 second-home expenses on a London house where his parents live, just a few miles from his main home.

Yet another New Labour chancer in the fag-end of a government which is up its neck in the deep doo-doo of sleaze.

That's vividly illustrated in today's Sunday Times which has gone into overdrive, packed out with corruption, deceit and downright spin in high places.

There's a whole raft of former ministers eager to feather their own nest in the dying days of the government, advising firms who go on to grab fat public contracts.

The very guy who was put in by Brown to get to grips with the whole offshore tax scam, his goat Lord Myners, is accused of running a tax haven firm.

No-win, no-fee lawyers are ripping off the NHS and escaping with our cash, using the NHS as a compensation cash-cow. While Fred the Shred's taste for the high life is exposed in all its greedy glory.

There's more. Much more. But the Orange Party can feel a headache coming on.

To cap it all, deputy prime minister Mandy has been stuffing his place with a whole gaggle of spinners, as he 'spawns a new empire'. But who can blame him?

It's not just the Mail which is gunning for Brown. Murdoch's Times and the Sun have the scent of blood for hapless Brown and his gang of cronies. Downing Street needs all the spinning help it can muster.