Guidogram Going Out Shortly

Hague Rattled | Sun
Snake Story Poisonous for Hague | Mail
Foreign Office Slither Their Way Out | Guardian
Taxpayers’ Ten Grand on Hague’s Anaconda | BBC
Union Faces Financial Collapse | The Commentator
Nuclear Ambitions | ConHome
Helen Ghosh’s Cupcakes | Speccie
Hacking Goes Global | Dvice
Leveson Inquiry Has Intimidated Truth | Press Gazette
What the Papers Won’t Say | Kirsty Walker
The Case for Mitt Romney | Time

Guidogram Going Out Shortly

The Guidogram round-up of the week is going out shortly.
Thousands of Westminster insiders read the Guidogram, everyone from Downing Street insiders to Fleet Street never miss it. Don’t miss out on Dave’s euro-nightmare, Guido forcing Tony Blair to pay his interns and a Westminster sexism scandal.
Join the conspiracy and become a subscriber to the Guidogram, free, to keep in the loop. You’re either in front of Guido, or behind…

Oh My Ghosh

After various rows at the Home Office and UK Border Agency Dame Helen Ghosh departed the Civil Service for the National Trust. In a great scoop by the Standard, it seems she’s been letting off some steam with her new found freedom:

“Women are being frozen out of an “Old Etonian clique” around David Cameron, one of Whitehall’s most senior figures has explosively claimed. Dame Helen Ghosh said the Prime Minister surrounded himself with a male-dominated “network of friends”, including members of the notorious Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, that was “difficult” for women politicians to penetrate.”

Nothing to do with the fact that she was blocked from promotion to the most senior level of the civil service, pipped to the post by Sir Bob Kerslake of course. Revenge is better served subtly…

No.10 Do Not Deny Dave’s Debating Comments

Guido went back to his sources yesterday after some denials about Dave’s angry words to one Tory rebel. This morning Downing Street have all but confirmed it. According to the Times:

“No 10 conceded that Mr Cameron may have confronted one of the Tory rebels, Andrew Bingham, the MP for High Peak, at a drinks reception in Downing Street the previous evening about his support for the rebel amendment.”

Apparently the “this is not a sixth-form debating society” line is one of Dave’s favourites for admonishing unruly rebels. The 53 would agree: the EU and it’s budget matters to their voters.

Lobby Wars: Throw Winnett Out of the Lobby

On Wednesday both the Mail and Telegraph splashed with the story of Energy Minister John Hayes declaring “enough is enough” over wind farms. The Mail’s report was labelled as an exclusive and their political editor James Chapman noted in his piece that Hayes’ remarks came from a private interview. Yet mysteriously the Telegraph had the same story with quotations in its first edition. How come?
It seems the Telegraph got sight of Chapman’s raw, unsubbed copy – Hayes had only spoken to him. Mail sources point out that their version said:

‘Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target,’ he said. ‘I’m saying enough is enough.’

The quote is mysteriously longer in the Telegraph version:

‘If you look at what has been built, what has consent and what is in the planning system, much of it will not get through and will be rejected. Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target,’ Mr Hayes said. ‘I’m saying enough is enough.’

One disgruntled Mail hack points out that “It’s common practice in the lobby to get wind of things and seek to do a spoiler or cobble something together with source quotes but to actually barefacedly steal the copy and use the quotes as your own is unprecedented in my experience.”

So what happened? Did the Telegraph’s Political Editor Robert Winnett find a copy of Chapman’s story on a Commons printer? Nope. Guido understands that Chapman did print out his story but took it home in his briefcase.
Did a Telegraph spy at the Mail leak the story to Winnett? Possibly. Mail HQ is now in a state of high security. Or was the Telegraph tipped off by veteran eco-sceptic Christopher Booker, who wrote a feature linked to the Hayes story in Wednesday’s Mail? Booker, though a long-time columnist for the Telegraph, is surely too experienced a hack to hand an exclusive to theMail’s arch rival in that way.
Some argue that Winnett is in breach of the first rule of the Lobby – by shamelessly lifting the story he has breached his “duty to the Lobby as a whole, in that he should do nothing to prejudice the communal life of the Lobby..” and should be thrown out. Angry phone-calls were exchanged between executives at both papers yesterday with Ben Brogan – the formerMail man and now Telegraph deputy editor – being accused of “theft”.Brogan is said to be claiming it was “serendipity” and is not taking Guido’s calls this morning…

Victory: Blair Backs Down and Agrees to Pay Interns

Less than a week after Guido ramped up the pressure on £20 million-a-year Tony Blair over his unpaid interns, the former PM has conceded defeat andagreed to give them the minimum wage.

“Over the past 5 years the Office of Tony Blair has had a small number of voluntary interns gaining work experience in the organisation. The vast majority came to us at their request, unadvertised, for voluntary work. Of those, a number have since become full-time paid employees with us. We have also always acted on legal advice in respect of any intern. 
Nonetheless from now on, if we do have interns for an extended period, i.e. around 3 months, we will pay them the National Minimum Wage.”

Credit should also be given to Graduate Fog, who first uncovered Tony’s minimum wage hypocrisy. HMRC sniffing around might also have had something to do with it…

Ed’s Wife and Her Cushy Labour Job

Guido would hardly have thought £250,000-a-year* Justine Thornton would have needed the money, but Millionaire Miliband’s wife has landed a cushy new job nonetheless.
Justine has just been named on a roster of lawyers providing taxpayer-funded work for the Labour-controlled Welsh government.
She must have passed the interview with flying colours…
*Guido sources say that someone of her experience and seniority at her chambers would be on £500,000. She doesn’t work full-time so we have halved her estimated income. Leveson famed Robert Jay heads her chambers.
UPDATE: Milipeople are grumpy about this. According to a Labour spokesman:
“This is a nasty little story which the Conservative Party has attempted to spread around for almost a week. It is both desperate and beneath contempt. Justine Thornton is a specialist environmental lawyer who was appointed in her own right in open competition. To suggest she got this work for any other reasons is an insult not only to her but to every working woman across the UK. What century are these people living in?”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012

Government Line on EU Humilation

This was just sent to Tory MPs:

We hear and we take notice, as always, of what Parliament has said.
MPs on both sides of the vote want to see EU spending kept down as effectively as possible at a time of restraint and reductions at home. The only difference is about the tactics of doing so.
The Prime Minister has taken the toughest position of any Prime Minister in history – a freeze has never been achieved before – and when you realise 17 out 26 other countries are net gainers from the budget these will obviously be difficult negotiations.
The Prime Minister will continue to do everything possible to achieve the best deal we can deliver for the British taxpayer.This is all in contrast to a Labour Party who never achieved a freeze, never even asked for freeze and allowed vast increases to British contributions to the EU budget. For them this has been about cheap politics rather than taking responsibility for how we get the best deal for Britain.

Licking the wounds…