Celeb scourge of the Murdochs Steve Coogan has not been shy of launching scathing attacks on the media mogul over phone hacking:

“This is Rupert Murdoch’s toxic legacy.”

“The closure of the News of the World is a small victory for decency and humanity.”

“I will do everything in my power to keep [phone-hacking] in the popular imagination.”

“News International’s behaviour is not unlike a protection racket”.

In other news the first episode of Coogan’s hilarious new series Places of my Life airs on Sky Atlantic at 9pm tonight.

Guido wonders whether he’ll tell the one about the time he took a huge cheque from Uncle Rupe…

A Kensington based newsroom reader writes:

“For your amusement, Laurie Penny is in the Associated building today. Despite working for the Independent it seems no-one has seen fit to give her a desk. She has been sitting typing on her laptop in the atrium all day. She tweeted this morning that she was here for a series of meetings but doesn’t look that in demand from where I’m sitting. “

She seems to have spent most of the day re-writing history on Twitter.

Full vid at the Sunday Times. Behind the pay-wall…

Guido was pleased to see The Sun had jumped on board his campaign against the MPs’ food and drinks subsidy yesterday. David Wooding informed his readers: “a typical meal — rib-eye steak with hand-cut chips and Béarnaise sauce — costs two quid — £7.80, less a taxpayers’ subsidy of £5.92“. Now where on earth could have got those convenient figures?

Invoice is in the post…

Following the Jimmy Carr crash last week Danny Alexander took to our screens to attack tax avoiders. That’s the very same Danny Alexander who conned the Treasury out of over £100,000 by flipping his home back during the expenses scandal. Beaker shamelessly registered the property as his second home when he became an MP in 2005, despite admitting to Revenue and Customs that it was in fact his main residence. The trick allowed him to claim over £37,000 of taxpayers’ money doing up the London pad over the following two years. In 2007 Danny then sold up for £300,000, using a tax loophole to avoid paying the then 40% capital gains tax. His accountant certainly earned his – or should that be our – money. 

Now Alexander is laying into the likes of Carr and Gary Barlow, lambasting tax avoiders as the moral equivalent of benefits cheats. People in flipped houses…

If you had picked up your Daily Star Sunday yesterday you would already know all about Brian Leveson’s boozy birthday with the boys, Danny Alexander’s Britain in Europe shindig, Burnham’s ‘knob job’ and much more. Including sex, poetry and football. What more could you want?

Yesterday’s column is now online here… 

Last week Guido brought you the report claiming that left-wing think tanks are more transparent than their right-wing counterparts. One of the think tanks awarded the top A-rating by Who Funds You was the New Economics Foundation, who state on their website: “the NEF believes that organisations advocating political change should be open about how they are funded.”

Funny then that a £200k per annum donor to the NEF, the Network for Social Policy, says on its own website that: “the Network for Social Change is a group of individuals providing anonymous funding for progressive social change“.

Guido isn’t sure how a think tank with donors seeking to remain anonymous can be described as transparent…

Apparently we are allowed to hold opinions and say them out loud! Who knew? 

Guido couldn’t help but laugh at the news that Tim Farron has invited enemies-of-the-people Progress to the LibDem party conference. Farron has written Andrew Adonis, cc’ing the nations media:

“I have noted the moves from the GMB and others within the Labour Party to sideline Progress and force its members out of the party. This is a great shame. I do not mean to patronise you or your members by suggesting your response should be to join the Liberal Democrats… (but) we are also a party that is prepared to work with others for the good of the country…You and your members are welcome to join us and I’m sure the debate will be all the richer for it.”

Given that Progress are a bunch of right-wingers it’s hardly likely they would want to break bread with an old lefty like Farron. Maybe if he promised not to tell any jokes…

David Starkey tells Laurie Penny:

“I will not be lectured to by a jumped-up public school girl like you, I will not have it!”