Guido has spoken to people in a position to know and it is clear that the Maurice Glasman writing a column for the Sun on Sunday story going round needs comprehensive debunking. Glasman was originally supposed to write a piece for The Sun, the article had been in the offing for a couple of weeks. Stewart Wood, the Shadow Minister without Portfolio who serves as consigliere to Ed Miliband, was aware that it was in the offing and merely asked Maurice to not be negative about Ed.

After this blog reported that Toby Young was going to be the Sun on Sunday’s political columnist the Sunday Mirror’s Vincent Moss tweeted

http://twitter.com/#!/vincentmoss/status/172382036215083008

This led to Tom Watson sending a menacing tweet

http://twitter.com/#!/tom_watson/status/172390758937137152

Which as Dan Hodges pointed out, meant

http://twitter.com/#!/DPJHodges/status/172396726190215170

Lo and behold Stewart Wood then called Glasman and told him it would not go down well if the article appeared. Glasman then called The Sun and spiked his own article which by now was due to appear in the Sun on Sunday rather than the daily. Guido sources say the article was mildly critical of Ed’s direction but not that disloyal, certainly nowhere near as cutting as his infamous New Statesman article. Guido’s source says money was never discussed, it was always a one off article and not a regular column offer. Something tells Guido that the Sun on Sunday will cope without the author of “Managing Market Utopia” and the “Politics of Paradox”.  It seems bizarrely self-defeating for Labour to block themselves from connecting with 7 million key swing voters.