If there was one type of professional the government is not short of it’s ‘Departmental Information Officers’.

In July it was revealed that the amount the government spends on advertising, marketing and communications had increased by a whopping 43%, to £540m, year on year in the 12 months to the end of March.

But it would appear that the Department for Children, Schools and Families needs a little helping hand when it comes to communication. Since 2004 the department, one of the biggest and most over staffed in the whole of Whitehall, spent £303,393 on freelance press officers.

The figure was reveal yesterday by Schools Minister Diana Johnson, but no other information, such as number of freelancers employed or period of employment was disclosed.

First came the news that at the next general election local councils, up and down the country, are considering counting votes the day after poll’s close instead of through the night.

Now the governments assault on the democratic process continues with the news that Ministry of Justice is considering slashing millions off the budget to run the next election.

The working paper, drawn up by Jack Straw’s “elections efficiency savings working group” for the Treasury, outlines plans to cut thousands of polling stations, restrict voting hours and and polling cards will be replaced by an e-mail or text alerts. All in a bid to save £65 million.

The shake-up of how elections are run will, of course, make it harder for people in rural areas to vote where there are fewer Labour supporters.

Shadow Justice Secretary, Dominic Grieve, has given this reaction to the proposals:

“There is no more fundamental right in a democracy than that people should have the ability to choose the people who represent them. We must ensure that this right is not jeopardised.”

An MoJ spokesman quoted by the Local Government Chronicle played down the document as an “internal working document” and said that Jack Straw viewed “the drama and excitement of general election night as a vital part of our political heritage, and we would not wish to see this tradition lost”.

Last Thursday Gordon Brown headed north to visit Wakefield to find out what the West Yorkshire city was doing to tackles anti-social behaviour.

While there he could not help going on a little walkabout in the city centre, as he pressed the flesh the following photo was snapped by a Press Association photographer:

Look carefully at the man in the top left of the image. Is that ex-Brown spin doctor Charlie Whelan? If so why’s he with Brown in Wakefield?

Not sure, then how about a close up:

Hat Tip: Henry Macrory

James Landale, the BBC political correspondant, is reporting that Sir Christopher Kelly is to recommend the scrapping of the MPs Communications Allowance.

Good old Tory Rascal was sniffing around Parliament last night and, it appears, one of the MPs he got talking to in the Strangers bar let slip a little to much, revealing that support for Gordon Brown is ebbing away and that even Peter Mandelson has begun briefing against him.

There are few people in the Cabinet that could single handily bring down the PM, but Mandelson is one of them. It is for this reason that Brown has worked so hard to keep him happy.

Speaking to Rascal, the high profile MP said:

“Peter has always said that he’d support Gordon in public, which always struck me as a bit arch.”

”Now he’s decided that the party’s only hope is the Milibands – which, frankly, is total bullshit,” the MP added.

According to Tory Rascal the MP went on to say that even Brown’s most ardent supporters are now resigned to him standing down, which could happen some time around Christmas:

”A few of us think there’s a good chance he’ll walk away, and now even some of his friends are nodding at the dissenters. It would break him, which would be a terrible shame – he feels that if he does walk away, his life to date will have been wasted. I’ve known Gordon for years, and I think it’s a shame it’s come to this – but the party has to get through.”

One of the arguments Labour use internally against removing Brown is the fact that the general public would not tolerate two unelected Prime Ministers in a row. If Brown was forced out around Christmas or New Year, as this MP sugests it is conceivable that Johnson or Miliband could get away with being installed as long as they immediately confirmed the May/June date.

Clearly Rascal’s contact is a firm member of the AJ4MP camp and believes that the Brothers Miliband don’t stand a chance.

“To be honest, no-one thinks either of the Milibands could win us the election at this point, and they’d be stupid to risk it. If one of them gets in, you’ll have Cameron, Clegg and another anodyne nobody, with nothing to tell between them. With Alan, we really do think we could scrape through the election. He has a story and a life before politics, unlike the Milibands. Apart from all that, he’s just a lovely bloke, which certainly isn’t something you could say of David.”

This I’m not so sure of, I have already written about the fact that any change in leader needs to be generational. This is something I think that Mandelson recognises, and will do all he can to make a reality. He backed the winner in 1994 and he will back the winner again.

What is most evident from Tory Rascal’s account though is that Brown’s time is rapidly running out and that his key allies are thinking of the future – a future without Brown.

Conservative Shadow Justice Minister Eleanor Laing has won her vote of no confidence.

The attempt to remove the Epping Forest MP came after a district council leader gathered 50 signatures calling for her to go. Ms Laing said she would payback £25.000 in expenses after a metro expose, despite being cleared by Sir Thomas Legg’s enquiry.

She said she did not owe any money but felt honour bound to do so, sa.

Ms Laing was heavily criticised this summer for avoiding a £180,000 capital gains tax bill on the sale of two Westminster flats in 2008. She told the tax authorities that they were her principal residence, despite designating them as her second home for expenses purposes.

According to Iain Dale Ms Laing won the deselection vote by 164 votes to a mere 32, indicating the motivation to remove her as the local MP was something other than her expenses claims.

The Treasuries Stephen Timms has confirmed that VAT will go back up to 17.5 percent on December 31st :

Timms said that it “will be confirmed in the pre-budget report in a few weeks time”

Tomorrow George Osborne will outline the Conservatives “emergency plan” to force the countries top banks from paying large cash bonuses, if they don’t they face the prospect of being barred from receiving state support.

The measures are specifically aimed at Britain’s five biggest banks – HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered – all of which operate retail arms and account for the majority of high-street transactions.

But it would exclude hedge funds and the global investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.

According to the Financial Times:

“Mr Osborne is expected to say that the bonus pot should then be “put onto banks’ balance sheets explicitly to support new lending”.

“We need this emergency plan to stop cash going this Christmas into the bank accounts of bankers and instead get that cash into the rest of the economy,” Mr Osborne will say. “Cash for the economy – not cash for the bonuses.”

The Shadow Chancoller has likened his plan to that of President Obama, who has dramatically cut the cash pay-outs to the top 25 executives at the seven US companies bailed out by the government. “America is acting,” Mr Osborne will say. “Britain is not.”

The government have come under increasing criticism for not using the position it occupies on the board of bailed out banks to control the bonuses paid to executives and traders.

Capitalising on public anger, Labour strategists see a crackdown on excessive bonuses as one of their last electoral lifelines. George Osborne is clearly moving quickly to deny them any such lifeline.

From a Conservative perspective Osborne’s “emergency plan” appears to be win win from a static point of view. For one thing, it will be extremely hard for the government to attack the shadow economic team over it.