The art of ruining careers

By BBC News Online's political correspondent Nick Assinder

The prime minister's official spokesman, Alastair Campbell, is said to have the power to ruin political careers - particularly those of wayward ministers.

So it was no surprise that he used his appearance at a lunch for political journalists in the Commons to do his best to destroy Henley's would-be Tory MP Boris Johnson.

He regaled the hacks with a story of how mop-haired Johnson, who is currently the editor of the Spectator magazine, keeps pestering him to write a column for his journal.

According to Ali, he was offered a big cheque, freebies to virtually anywhere in the world he fancied and complete editorial control over his own copy. None of it tempted him.

Campbell: no Spectator column then

In desperation, Boris allegedly rang him up to offer him the most tempting deal yet.

"Look, I am a Tory candidate right. I know we are not going to win.

"Look - Hague, Hague, can you imagine Hague as prime minister. You've just got to think about it, it's a joke.

"Widdecombe, Portillo - you write about these people and just say what a bunch of complete losers we are."

That should go down well in Tory Central Office and give Boris's electoral hopes a real boost.

Diary clash

The Campbell appearance was without doubt the highlight of everybody's week - with one exception.

Chancellor Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Charlie Whelan still blames Ali for getting him the sack, and clearly bears a grudge to this day.

When one of the journalists invited him to the lunch, Charlie carefully took out his diary, opened it to the relevant day and slowly declared: "Oh dear, I can't make it. I find I have a subsequent engagement."

Feeling the chill

Former Tory MP John Carlisle popped up in Strangers' Bar in the Commons the other day. And he had some bad news for Tony Blair.

Carlisle's new economic indicator

Apparently one of his mates is a double glazing salesman and had been complaining to him that he has never had a worse year.

According to Carlisle, this is a sure-fire sign that punters can feel a bit of a chill in the economic air and just aren't spending any money.

He deduced from this that an economic downturn was imminent. I wonder if the Treasury knows about this new economic indicator.

Election fever

Tory party frontbencher Bernard Jenkin clearly hasn't grasped the full scale of the American election shambles.

He recently told the party's war room staff that the whole thing reminded him of the Welsh referendum.

It's hard to know who will be most insulted by that remark, the Yanks or the Welsh.

No content

Bit of a cock up on the Downing Street web site the other day.

It was offering surfers the chance to chat with armed forces minister John Spellar and employment minister Margaret Hodge.

Unfortunately when anyone clicked on the site all they got was a message saying: "There is no content for this page."

As one delighted Tory quipped; "no change there then."

Diplomatic incident

The downhearted fuel protesters may not have managed to bring the country to a halt with their second protest the other day, but they did inadvertently manage to throw a spanner into the works of one major diplomatic event.

Truckers stopped Mid East talks

The day then descended on London, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was set to meet Tony Blair for top level talks on the Middle East crisis.

He was to fly into Heathrow on his way back from Washington then be whisked to Downing Street for the meeting with Mr Blair.

On the day, however Mr Barak abandoned the meeting and instead phoned Mr Blair from the tarmac at Heathrow.

Why the sudden change of plan? Because the route from Heathrow to London was blocked by lorries.

Not as part of the demonstration, but because the Metropolitan police, in an attempt to avert disruption to London traffic, had turned it into a giant lorry park for the day.

Gossip

If you have any political gossip or information on what our MPs are up to, e-mail Nick Assinder (all mails will be treated as confidential).