Guido hears it hasn’t been the happiest of weeks in Downing Street with the mother of all Hilton/Coulson rows taking place early this week after rehab-refugee Hilton* briefed the Sunday papers about big changes to how cigarettes are to be packaged and sold. Steve’s wacky brown paper-packaging ideas went way beyond what Lansley had planned and Coulson apparently wasn’t consulted on the headline front.

With tensions often boiling over are these “SHAC Attacks” going to be the new TB/GBs?

UPDATE : The non-reporting of SHAC Attacks by the gentlemen reporters of the Lobby is the latest example of them behaving exactly as Peter Oborne describes in his book the Triumph of the Political Class. The Lobby is quite simply the tame “client media” of the political class. They’re reluctant to write about the Hilton / Coulson clashes for fear of being frozen out from having stories spoon-fed to them. Just as they were reluctant to write about another Downing Street adviser until the day after he resigned.

*Hilton is a smoker.