Is this really good news for Labour?

Labour are cock-a-hoop about the Davis resignation, thinking that it will get them out of trouble.

Minutes before DD's announcement, I took a call from a Labour person who has been involved in his party's strategising over terror laws, asking if the rumours were true. Told that yes, the Shadow Home Secretary was going, this Labour type simply dissolved into laughter, gasping words like "idiot" and "bloody brilliant."

Listen carefully and you can hear champagne corks popping in Downing Street.

If they really are opening the champagne in Downing Street then they are idiots. They have two options for the forthcoming election: put up a candidate, who will get absolutely slaughtered - quite possibly losing their deposit; or not put up a candidate and try and portray the event as a vanity project.

But if they do this - fail even to bother to represent the Government in an election it would be indicative of both a crashing contempt for the electorate, and of real cowardice - not even being prepared to defend themselves in a public forum on an issue that the opposition feel strongly about.

On one thing though, the Labour boys are completely wrong.

Uncontained glee too at the appointment of Dominic Grieve, who, he predicts, will be made into "mince meat" by Jacqui Smith.

No. He won't. Jacqui Smith couldn't make mince meat out of meat, with a mincing machine.