Remember how much fun we had last time with Ed Miliband’s Twitter engagement plans? If you click above you’ll be able to ask Ed Miliband a direct question live on Twitter. Again.

Ask him about strikes, his brother, or what he said to Murdoch at the summer party. Why not ask him whether he agrees with his guru Maurice Glassman that we need a return to the Tudor social model? Perhaps ask why he is doing this again? Did he lose a bet with Balls?

Ask anything you like. Make it fun. Again.

Six hours later they change their mind…

Though he has often strayed, eco-toff George Monbiot (Stowe and Brasenose, Oxford) has finally exited the reality based community. Here was his orgasmic reaction to NewsCorp withdrawing the bid yesterday:

This is our Berlin Wall moment.—
  (@GeorgeMonbiot) July 13, 2011

Guido thinks a special order of the OTT and all round mocking is in order.

Though we should pause to remember the thousands of hacks shot dead trying to escape East Wapping.

In the summer of 1990 Boris Johnson was The Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent. In the now famous taped conversation between him and Darius Guppy, just months before the latter would be busted in a £1.8 million insurance scam, Boris conspired to have a News of the World journalist, Stuart Collier, beaten up on behalf of his old School chum. In the tape Boris says he’ll obtain Collier’s phone number and then get an address. As the UK has never published reverse directories how would Boris achieve this?

Dear John,

Thank you for your letter of 12 July, on behalf of the committee, inviting me to give evidence to you on 19 July.

Unfortunately, I am not available to attend the session you have planned next Tuesday. However, I am fully prepared to give evidence to the forthcoming judge-led public inquiry and I will be taking steps to notify those conducting the inquiry of my willingness to do so. Having done this, I would be happy to discuss with you how best to give evidence to your committee.

I hope this is of help.

Yours sincerely,

Rupert Murdoch

James won’t be there either, though said he is willing to give evidence in August. Brooks, however, will be put in front of the firing squad on Tuesday. Get your popcorn.

UPDATE: The Culture Media and Sport Select Committee have issued summons for the Dirty Digger and Jr.

It’s not just Clegg that is distancing himself from the decision to hire Andy Coulson. Former News of the World Political Editor Ian Kirby has an emotional diary for this week’s Speccie. Along with an insiders account of the paper being shut down, there was an intriguing snippet from last week’s Speccie party:

“The Mayor of London is having his photograph taken next to George Osborne. ‘I warned you about Coulson!’ Boris had shouted at him earlier. ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’ It was not clear he was joking.”

Boris has ability to smile as he kills, and it’s noticeable how quiet Osborne has been this week. The Chancellor brokered Coulson’s appointment in 2007 and pushed for him to be taken into Government. It’s the sort of thing that would come up in a future leadership election…

As Gordon left the Commons chamber yesterday Tory MPs quipped…

“Bye, bye, see you next year… Have a nice Christmas.”

Yesterday in his slightly bonkers and self serving speech in parliament Gordon Brown complained among other things that the Sun compared him to Dr Evil. Guido thinks it was completely legitimate to make that comparison. Gordon was trying to convince the British public that he had masterminded a plan to “save the world”, and in his deluded mind he possibly believed it. Never mind that Obama had his own plan, that the rest of the world’s large economies were going to do their own thing and that Sarkozy was claiming credit for his plan to save Europe. It was a bonkers obsession with Brown to fantasise about authorship of a global concerted recovery plan of his design. The rest of the world’s leaders just posed smiling for the G20 pictures and couldn’t wait to fly home. His messianic global plans are a big part of the reason why no one besides Bono wanted Gordon to head up the IMF.

The popular profitable press knows it has to entertain readers, Guido never forgets he is in the infotainment business. Is it really a big deal to be lampooned as like a movie baddie? Clearly Brown’s psychological flaws include taking himself far too seriously. Knowing he read this blog and it added to his torment gives Guido immense satisfaction…

A week or two after the G20 meeting Brown’s bunker friends Damian McBride and Charlie Whelan were exposed as being in on a plot to smear political opponents with what they knew to be lies. That was pretty evil…

With five MPs now raising concerns about CNN’s Piers Morgan, the story is gathering pace. The Times  are ready to turn the magnifying glass away from Wapping:

 ”…it has been more than a little ironic to see the inhabitants of the glasshouses of Fleet Street embarking on a collective exercise of stone throwing…”

Morgan’s hacking continues to gain traction on the other side of the pond.  The Telegraph picks up on the fact Morgan could be hauled in front of his TV executives to explain what he knows about the scandal.

Crucially when he was contacted directly by The Express last night, Morgan “declined to comment.”