After the Scrapbook lot spotted a section of the TPA/IoD’s report, that deals with the entirely correct assertion that lefties are just jealous of the wealth and sexual prowess of the right, it was only a matter of time before #TPAChatUpLines was trending:
https://twitter.com/#!/christopherward/statuses/204551693445238785
https://twitter.com/#!/Lefty_Lisa/status/204549516484030464
https://twitter.com/#!/Markfergusonuk/status/204547363472281602
https://twitter.com/#!/MrHarryCole/status/204549130306060288
https://twitter.com/#!/a_y_alex/statuses/204563855173623809
I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2005. Are you free next Saturday? #TPAchatuplines
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 21, 2012
https://twitter.com/#!/Scarletstand/status/204552467319488512
Even the report’s spinners were getting involved:
https://twitter.com/#!/wallaceme/status/204550536589094912
Harder, Faster, Deeper…
UPDATE: The report’s authors cracked in the end:
Keynes said "In the long run we are all dead". What are you doing tonight? #TPAchatuplines
— Allister Heath (@AllisterHeath) May 21, 2012
Your dress is like my ideal tax system. Cut low and with lots of transparency #TPAchatuplines
— Matthew Elliott (@matthew_elliott) May 21, 2012
Coalition disquiet is growing:
https://twitter.com/#!/chhcalling/statuses/204557697985675264
He has a point…
Guido has read Bruce Anderson’s Steve Hilton take down a couple of times now and has come to the conclusion that is worthy of an Order of the OTT. Anyone who has ever drunk in a bar in Westminster will know that Anderson takes personal credit for “discovering” Cameron and tipping him for great things when he was a mere backbencher. Since then he has been his avuncular defender in the press, though just as when he declared Dave to be “our Charles De Gaulle”, sometimes he over plays his hand. Is Steve Hilton feeding a few titbits on his way out of the door really “one of the most despicable instances of disloyalty in political history.” Probably not. And this one was filed before lunch…
UPDATE:
Well connected Bruce Anderson lunching solo in Bank Westminster. Just a bottle of red and a selection of broadsheets for company.
— Eye Spy MP (@eyespymp) May 21, 2012
If you had got your Daily Star Sunday yesterday you would already be gossiping about Osborne’s dodgy growth, “green” government and Jeremy Hunt’s new SpAd. Caledonian co-conspirators will also enjoy this week’s offering…
Guido’s Sunday column is now online here.
Ed Miliband just revealed that he’d met with David Davis, saying that they agreed on an increasing number of subjects – an In/Out referendum is creeping up that list. Labour backing the plebiscite would be opportunistic, calculated and brilliant. It would drive the Tories round the bend and no effort has been made to shut down the speculation this weekend. Cameron has reaffirmed his position against the idea, putting the ball firmly in Miliband’s court. Ed also coughed that they both had some harsh words for the Prime Minister: “but, that is perhaps, another story”…
UPDATE: Liar Politicians got the video:
In January 2010 Guido gave a presentation at Microsoft’s HQ to the Online Journalism Association, the thesis was that newspapers as we know them will die and journalism would thrive. Guido’s pitch was that the old deadline based “news cycle” is being replaced by “news streams” and that newspapers as we know them will be replaced by “news brands”.
Today the industry trade body for the dead tree press, the Newspaper Marketing Association, accepted the thesis and announced it is renaming itself “Newsworks”, dropping dead entirely the word “newspaper”. CEO Rufus Olins says “We need to start thinking differently… It’s all about newsbrands, about delivering content through a range of platforms.” Guido thinks we can only measure the strength of news brands in terms of their mindshare. The broadsheets – Guardian, Times, Indy – all lose money and are more akin to vanity publishing than profit motivated businesses. It is about who they reach and how much they influence their consumers.
As the news industry and more importantly – from a financial perspective – the advertising industry comes to realise that online and print consumers are fungible, reality starts to hit home. In under a decade this blog has become as strong a news brand in our field in terms of readership and mindshare as the New Statesman, hell we’re part way through a reverse-takeover of The Spectator. The great thing for consumers is that because of low barriers to entry, we have an ever more competitive, pluralist, thriving free market in news. Without slaughtering trees…
