We’ve already run some wild speculation on this blog about Mandelson eyeing up David Miliband’s seat in South Shields. But Westminster is a fast moving place and in the last 24 hours the plot has thickened significantly. Forget South Shields — does the First Lord have his eye on a more European career path?

On Friday he’s in Brussels to give a speech packed with advice on what the EU should do next, offering unsolicited advice on a range of issues including the need for “serious new thinking” on how to make Europe relevant in a G2 world of the US and China. “One of Europe’s key deficits is leadership,” he says. “It is personalities and policies that will make the difference.” Read more

A partial farewell to the spectacular Roger Helmer - at least from the (Brussels) Tory front bench. (Here is a reminder of his insightful contributions to the Conservative conference last month). The NHS-hating Dan Hannan has followed suit.

David Cameron promises to maintain a steel ring for Sun readers Read more

There was a report a few weeks ago that Alistair Darling was uncomfortable about having to repeat the claim that “up to 500,000 jobs” had been saved by government interventions since the credit crunch.

The Mail on Sunday claimed that Darling had argued against Gordon Brown’s entreaties to repeat the figure more often. Read more