Short Honeymoon (a day?) Ends Suddenly

This week just gets better and better. Now Gorgeous George Foulkes (who seems to either be having a stream of senior moments or be going a bit Charles Kennedy) has been lashing out at his own comrades in the Scottish Labour Party (sic).

Lord Foulkes of Gorgie - a complete member for Lothians - has made a complaint about the party's head of communications, Brian Lironi, for allegedly briefing against him. Georgie Boy told the Sunday Herald: "Despite what that idiot Lironi said, Labour MSPs agree with me." (George wants more monet from Holyrood despote spending half his time at the House of Lords - Ed) Referring to Lironi's alleged "verbal briefing", he said: "I have complained about it."

He added: "Maybe it's difficult for someone who has been a journalist to change and move to being a press officer. If I was in his position, I would have said look, the group has not yet adopted a formal position on it', but to imply or even say that members do not share the view was wrong.

"It's just a matter of explaining to people that, if they work for the group, they have to be rather more careful."

He also claimed that the Labour group, far from disagreeing with his call for more expenses, "absolutely" backed him. Foulkes, a former MP, also turned his guns on McLeish, who has made a number of criticisms of Labour this year.

He said McLeish, who resigned as first minister in 2001 after an expenses scandal, should watch his words. "I find him a strange guy," he said. "He's got a certain ability in a political sense, but not to have been first minister.

"I would think that anyone with any degree of statesmanship and diplomacy and understanding of politics, who had left under the kind of circumstances Henry did, would have felt it was appropriate to keep quiet for a good few years. I think it is time for him to shut up."

Read George's latest gaff here.