Media Guido is hearing of big movements over at the Times. Witherow is, as expected, swinging the axe…

Roland Watson is out as Political Editor – he’s been told to apply for Foreign Editor apparently – a desk getting squeezed.

Cameron biographer Francis Elliot will replace him and Sam Coates is coming back  from the scaled-back business desk to the Lobby.

Guido is hearing conflicting reports of his job title, though it is expected to be along the lines of Deputy Political Editor or Associate Political Editor.

Some twenty newsroom sackings are said to be imminent.

In lighter news, the much missed Times Diary is set to return.

UPDATE: US sources suggest that Witherow has also axed the Times’ Wall Street correspondent with the expectation being that they will share content with the Wall Street Journal. The New York features writer has also been given the bullet. Developing…

UPDATE II: Guido understands no more cuts are hitting the business desk beyond Coates and the Wall Street correspondent. Apparently the brunt of the staff cuts are in sections with less affluent readers.

One of Miliband’s members of the reality based community has quit. In a ringing endorsement for Labour’s prospects at the next election, Shadow Environment minister and iPad aficionado Tom Harris says “I can’t stand the heat, so I’m leaving the kitchen”:

“The fact is, I can’t put in the necessary hours and give my family the time they deserve of me. That’s right: I am actually resigning to spend more time with my family… So I’m passing on my briefings and papers, my diary appointments and contacts, my facts and figures about wildlife cruelty, fishing quotas and bee action plans, and my badger costume (that last one was made up but it’s an idea) to my lucky successor. I genuinely hope he or she becomes a Defra minister. As for me, I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family. Serves them right, too.”

Not the first time Harris has walked. Voluntarily this time. 

Boom RT @lucymanning: Constance Briscoe has been charged with two counts of intending to pervert the course of public justice.—
Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) June 12, 2013

She is accused of providing Essex Police with two inaccurate statements and producing a copy of a witness statement that had been altered. Oh dear.

UPDATE: She speaks:

“I am deeply distressed at the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service to charge me today. I have not committed the offences alleged against me and I will fight the allegations in court. There is a great deal more I would like to say now but I have been advised that I should not do so at this stage. I ask only that no judgment is reached against me on the basis of this prosecution decision and before the full facts are heard.”

Brutal stuff from Dave on Labour’s tax avoiding donor:

“It is this government that is putting aggressive tax avoidance at the heart of the G8 agenda, and what do we hear this week from the Labour Party? They give tax avoidance advice to their donors.”

His bluster was the only highlight of a dull PMQs, though this is utterly dishonest from the PM. Miliband might be in hot water here, though the truth is that all parties offer tax avoidance advice to their donors, Labour, the LibDems and the Tories. As Guido reported last summer, Cameron’s own legacy scheme helps donors “reduce or even remove completely” the inheritance tax liability of rich Conservative backers.

All parties advise donors on how to avoid tax on their donations. Dave is in no position to take the moral high ground. 

Comments in the comments please…

No luck for the female MPs team at the annual Macmillan Lords V Commons Tug of War last night, but the boys won.

There was one casualty on the media team though as the Daily Politics’ Giles Dilnot put his back out.

Mentioned in dispatches:

Alec Shelbrook and the mysterious blonde female ringers. 

Sue Cameron, the civil service toady, is quick to attack anyone that has the temerity to question her darling mandarins. Last week she put the boot into Stephen Kelly, the former FTSE 100 exec turned UK Government Chief Operating Officer:

“Mr Kelly claimed this week that it took him seven minutes to boot up his PC – the equivalent of three days every year. He also complained that Whitehall’s desktop computers cost £6,000 a year to run – enough to buy 10 iPads. This, he said, was “government in the old world”. Again, such claims sound damning – but you have to ask if someone, somewhere is being economical with the truth.”

Not happy with being called a liar in the pages of the Telegraph, Mr Kelly has made a little video:

Kelly tweeted that he was “keen to be transparent”. Guido wonders whether Sue will apologise in her column tomorrow?

… Though not many. The baronetcy heir apparent tests the effects on the working man of his 1p cut to the price of beer, pulling a pint for Tom Watson in parliament’s Strangers bar last night. Sampling the latest from his local brewery, called Pennies from Eleven apparently. Must not make eye contact…

Via @michaeldughermp

• Employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 71.5%, down 0.1 percentage points from November 2012 to January 2013
• up 0.7 percentage points from a year earlier.
• 29.76 million people in employment aged 16 and over, up 24,000 from November 2012 to January 2013
• up 432,000 from a year earlier.
• unemployment rate was 7.8%, unchanged from November 2012 to January 2013
• down 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier
• 2.51 million unemployed people, down 5,000 from November 2012 to January 2013 and down 88,000 from a year earlier
• number employed in public sector at lowest level since 2001 at 5.7million
• number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance last month fell by 8,600 to 1.51 million

That last number one for the Tories to cling on to…

The Tories have finally realised that they need to bang on about Europe now UKIP have pushed it up the political agenda. The launch of the all-party Business for Britain campaign was the starting gun for the referendum campaign Cameron is promising for 2017.

Europe has changed. It’s 40 years since the British people had their say – we need to #LetBritainDecide in a referendum, by the end of 2017.—
Let Britain Decide (@BritainDecides) June 11, 2013

Though the LibDems will hate it, the ‘Let Britain Decide’ website will target MPs who are refusing to trust the public with a referendum. Finally we are seeing the Tories utilising their European policy as a strength, it could all have been so different for Ed Miliband…

UPDATE: Few teething problems, possibly CCHQ were a bit unwise to brief out the site before it was ready: