GUIDO'S EXCLUSIVE: Alistair Darling Has Had Breakfast

Guido Fawkes, or Mr GuF to his friends has a fine exclusive stating that Alistair Darling had a working breakfast with some business folk on the premises of a bank in London this morning. A bit of a fundraiser, courtesy of Labour's London Business group. £80 a plate. Which is pretty rich. £3.99 for similar including an eternal mug of tea at The Chorlton Cafe. The Chancellor seldom visits. In fact I've never seen him there. Particularly after his sojurn at Transport cutting our tram just as his home constituency got one they didn't want. But all that's by the by.

The Bank is Deutsche Bank. Though this may be rather incidental. A bank that does rent rooms out to anyone with the wonga, doesn't generally speaking do politics, but does have some peripheral interest in the ongoing Northern Rock rescue. Don't we all?

Charging a ridiculous sum for a room? Mmmm, bang to rights.

When Mr GuF says "host" I don't think he means "host" at all. I think he means "book out a conference suite"? Did anyone of any seniority from DB even attend? And given that every bank in London has some interest or other in something or other that's going on does Silly Goat GuF want to stop the Chancellor leaving number 11 at all?

If we are going to consider the "apolitics" side of DB, wasn't Baroness Thatcher's "efficiency" advisor, the extremely Tory Lord Peter Levene of Portsoken a Vice Chair of DB 'til he got the Lloyds of London job? Doing a bit of Mayoring and quite a bit of politicking as he went?