Without a shadow of a doubt Andrew Lansley is very talented and has contributed a huge about to the rebirth of the Conservative party, but is rather gaff prone.

Last month he nearly came a cropper by “revealing” the Conservative’s spending plans, a plan to ring-fence health spending while cutting departmental spending by 10 %.

While he escaped major condemnation by David Cameron, and ultimately started a debate that the Tories are now winning, Andrew’s latest gaff maybe a step too far.

In an interview with Health Services Journal, Lansley appears to have promised NHS workers a blank cheque when it comes to pay.

“Pay determination shouldn’t be set in line with financial allocations’, Lansley told the HSJ, ‘it should be set in line with what is necessary to recruit [and] retain the workforce that you require…..It’s a fallacy to say the amount of pay for 2012-13 depends on how much money the government has.”

If this is a freelance proclamation from the shadow health secretary not cleared by George Osborne and David Cameron, then it’s an own goal that will give Health Secretary Andy Burnham an opening to attack. If this is an announcement on a policy that has not yet been finalises, or authorised by the party leadership, then it could be time to cut Andrew loose.

The governments much vaunted £200m mortgage rescue scheme has only helped six families, who faced repossession, stay in their homes since its launch in January.

Defending the governments performance, housing minister Ian Austin said: “The impact of the scheme is accelerating,” adding that the number of families helped had risen from two to six during May. Well that’s OK then when 6,000 families are facing the prospect of repossession.

In his first statement to the House as Speaker, John Bercow said that he expected ministers to make policy statement to the Commons first and not to the media.

But within days Ed Balls had ridden roughshod over Speaker Bercow’s attempt to regain authority for the House of Commons. Finding it hard to break the habit of a life-time, the Education Secretary pre-announced the governments plans to scrap Labour’s longstanding literacy and numeracy strategy in the Guardian and on the BBC.

So what did Speaker Bercow do? absolutely nothing. Even after Conservative MP Christopher Chope accused Ed Balls of been “contemptuous of the Speaker’s ruling” in a point of order, there was no condemnation of Balls actions from the Chair.

Now, on the day the Education white paper is to be published, Balls is at it again.

He’s spent the morning giving interviews to every media outlet, making policy announcement after policy announcement ahead of his statement in the Commons this afternoon, and most newspapers have extensively trailed the bill this morning ahead of its publication.

As I pointed out last week, it’s in the political DNA of all politicians to try and control the news cycle, and the best tool a government has at their disposal to do this is by pre-announcing key policies. But if Speaker Bercow’s word are to mean anything he needs to stamp on all offenders, alas this is something I don’t see this Speaker doing…. Could it be that Speaker Bercow feel indebted to the Labour benchers for him been installed as the new Speaker.

On Saturday Norwich North Labour party held a selection meeting to pick a candidate to replace Ian Gibson and stand in the coming by-election. Local activists must have been hoping for a slightly larger attendance that that the 50 people who turned up, but by the end of the evening Chris Ostrowski had been crowned Labour’s perspective parliamentary candidate for the constituency.

But already there is controversy around his selection. For one think Mr Ostrowski is not local, as the Eastern Daily Press puts it, he is a “Labour party activist from London.” This could cause some problems for the local party, especially as he beat three very well respected local party activists, including front-runner Victoria MacDonald, the local party secretary.

Indeed, John Cowan, the vice chairman of the Norfolk Labour party has already come out and said the party should have picked someone more local:

“It’s very interesting that they’ve opted for a male candidate, my preference was always going to be for a female candidate.

“Chris is a fairly strong candidate. I worked with him during the Euro election campaign. He’s obviously spent some time in Norwich at the UEA but it would’ve been nice to have someone a bit more local.”

While on the subject of the Norwich North by-election, Ian Gibson who earlier this week said he may stand as a independent candidate has come out and endorsed Chris Ostrowski.

James Forsyth has been sniffing around Westminster and has picked up an interesting rumour. According to James the government will move the writ for the Norwhich North by-election tomorrow, with the poll itself on July 23rd.

Not satisfied with nearly toppling Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, James Purnell has now joined the think-tank Demos to develop an alternative Labour policy programme.

James Purnell will be working with, amongst others, Alan Milburn, George Osborne, David Willets, Vince Cable, Will Hutton and Graeme Cook.

Once seen as the bastion of New Labour thinking, the relationship between the think-tank and the government has soured over the last couple of years, culminating in the appointment of conservative academic Phillip Blond who was hired to help develop ideas of “progressive Conservatism”.

It’s clear that Demos is now going to be a melting-pot of anti-Brownite thinking for many years too come.

There is a rather excellent piece in the Sunday Times today about Peter Hain. The paper has uncovered that Hain, who rejoined the government in Brown’s chaotic reshuffle as Welsh Secretary, is still a partner in a firm that specialises in political communications. HaywoodHain LLP, set up by Hain and his second wife Elizabeth Haywood, boasts of having a “detailed understanding of the political landscape in the UK” on their website and about Hain’s political experience and connections.

For months Gordon Brown has denied that he’s been in contact with his disgraced spin doctor come enforcer, Damian McBride, dissipate numerous reports to the contrary. While Brown continues to say that he’s had no contact with McPoison since his fall from grace, Ed Balls has finally come clean and admitted being in touch with him.

Insisting his contact, with the architect of Labour’s unsuccessful Tory smear operation, was purely social Balls said:

“I certainly wished him a happy birthday. As I said [when he resigned], Damian did a very stupid thing, he’s paid a very heavy price, but we all get on with our jobs.”

The Education Secretary has denied the two of them discussed policy, but this is hard to believe. Both were key advisors to Brown at the Treasury, and when Balls became an MP in 2005, McBride remained a close friend and key political ally.

McBride also played a key role in briefing against senior members of the government, such as David Miliband and Alan Johnson, in a bid to build up Balls’s leadership credentials. After plotting and discussing policy together for nearly six years, it’s hard to see this coming to an end is such an abrupt manner.

Ian Gibson, who you may remember was deselected as a Labour candidate after selling an expenses-funded flat to his daughter below the market value, has told Michael Crick that he may stand as an independent candidate in Norwich North.

The embattled MP told Newsnight’s political editor that his decision will be based on the candidate members of the Norwich Labour Party pick.

If Gibson does stand as an independent it could ruin Labour’s chances of holding onto the seat, and could even result in Labour been beaten into third place.

When John Bercow told MPs on Wednesday that he expected ministers to make policy statements first to the Commons instead the media, many people – including me, said that this was wishful thinking. After all, a governments drive to control the news cycle will often outweigh the rules of the House.

And only two days after Speaker Bercow made his statement, it appears that his words have already been forgotten.

In a Point of Order, Conservative MP Christopher Chope accused Ed Balls of been “contemptuous of the Speaker’s ruling,” and called on the Education Secretary to apologise after announcing plans to scrap Labour’s national strategies for schools through the media.

Mr Chope said:

“On Wednesday Mr Speaker said when ministers have key policy statements to make the House must be the first to hear them.

“In clear breach of that ruling, today the Schools Secretary has announced through the Guardian and the BBC that the Government has abandoned its literacy and numeracy strategy.

“Either Mr Balls is himself illiterate or contemptuous of the Speaker’s ruling – or both.”

He asked Deputy Speaker Sylvia Heal what powers she had to press Mr Balls to come to the House and apologise.

No doubt this won’t be the last time the government rides ruff-shot roughshod over House rules.