Things must be bad for the increasingly troubled Department for Culture Media and Sport when a loathed Chairman of the BBC has to ride to your defence. Chris Patten told a Press Gallery lunch that the department must not be scrapped, despite the Olympics being over. Since then Maria Miller has driven press regulation into a brick wall and their only other significant project – broadband – is being rolled out at dial-up speed. Patten’s hand wringing will do little to convince Tories that scrapping the department is a bad idea.

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.

Poor little Chris Leslie. He’s getting all the tough gigs for Labour’s Shadow Treasury team this week. Yesterday he was forced onto the airwaves to not answer on whether Labour would cut departmental budgets and today he has the pleasure of trying to respond to OECD’s spring report. Why would Balls want to avoid this?

Leslie, forced to play Ed Balls’ Chloe Smith, says:

“The OECD has once again cut its growth forecasts for the UK economy, warning that youth unemployment is too high and that weak growth means wages are not keeping up with price rises. And the OECD is just the latest organisation to say that the Government needs to increase the number of homes being built and that investing in infrastructure now will improve our economy for the future.”

Sure. But are you not forgetting something Chris? Turn to page 95 of the report. Leaving aside the bit where the independent experts say “employment performance has been good”, what do you say to their call for further fiscal consolidation?

Are you just going to ignore that? Is that really the plan? They are saying further cuts are needed to sustain our economy. You’re arguing for fewer cuts, but how’s that going to work? And no, taxing bankers bonuses is not the answer this time.

Phillip Hammond popped up for a passive aggressive performance on the Today programme:

“We can look for efficiency savings which everyone should be seeking all the time. If we need to go beyond our efficiency savings, we would need to have a discussion over how and where these would be achieved.”

It sounds like defence secretary would make sure that conversation happened in public. He might not want to cut more troops, but there are still savings to be made. The MoD has 400 press officers and communications staff, for example. There is a battalion of cuts there Mr Hammond.

UPDATE According to data obtained by Think Defence

The latest figures for the numbers involved in specialist communications roles are for financial year 2009-10 and were produced in support of a Cabinet Office led exercise to capture such information across Government. They are as follows:

Presumably these numbers have been reduced over the last three years.697 spin-doctors of one kind or another is 600 too many…

See latest update: Latest MoD Figures: 604 Spinners

Rejoice, comrades! This lunchtime Guido infiltrated the Unite headquarters to run the rule over the People’s Assembly, Owen Jones’ new sinister sounding union-funded anti-cuts campaign. Under the watchful eye of Keir Hardie in a rather austere room, a panel of NUT “Enemies of Promise”, PCS strike-mongers, loony left MPs and a bad comedian bleated about “the cuts”. Former SWP luvvie Mark Steel’s awkward jokes fell flat and Labour foghorn Katy Clark did her best to contain herself over Liam Byrne consorting with the enemy. Ironic that as the panel discussed the need for a united left to stand together, Blairite refusenik Dan Hodges pointed out two different hard left factions have launched on the same day. The workers, united, will never be defeated…

Faced with Guido’s austerity facts at today’s presser, Owen refreshingly slammed the government for borrowing too much:

“To quote that bastion of socialism, the Standard and Poor credit agency… fiscal ‘austerity’ risks being self-defeating. You’re quite correct. This government risks borrowing over £200 billion more than projected, the underlying deficit is 11% higher than a year ago.”

When even Owen Jones thinks you’re borrowing too much, you know you have a problem…

Uproar in Victoria in the run up to today’s mass redundancy announcements. Staff have been particularly put out by the eager camera crew drifting around the newsroom filming a slick info-mericial about the new “Digital First” plans before the eighty editorial staff getting the chop to fund it are even out of the door.

If these emails obtained by Media Guido are anything to go by, the sackings have been handled with all the tact of David Brent:

“Following the Townhall meetings on 12^th March and our letter of 11^th March, you will know that the Company is required to make a number of redundancies and it has been necessary to apply the selection criteria referred to in my letter of 12^th March. We would like to arrange an individual meeting with you to discuss the provisional selection for redundancy exercise. You may, if you wish, bring a colleague or trade union representative along with you to the meeting.”

Followed by:

“Please note that my previous email was sent to all those who last week received a letter saying that they were at risk of redundancy. It did not mean that you have been selected for redundancy. Only those who are provisionally selected for redundancy will be communicated with later this week and will receive an appointment within the timeslots advised on the previous email. Apologies for any confusion or distress caused by the last email.”

The cheery tone adopted last night has not helped:

Hi everyone,

Ahead of a couple of very difficult days I want to let you know that Laurie in Services has very kindly offered to help staff with removing their personal belongings from the building. If you are made redundant you can go to the post room and get a cardboard box which you can then fill with your belongings and leave at your desk. Services will then contact you to arrange delivery of your belongings to your home address. Please label all boxes with your name, address and phone number.

It’s going to be a long day. Staff at the soon to be merged Sunday Telegraph seem most worried.

The end of an era. Public sector efficiency savings are taking their toll in the corridors of power; the latest victims are four parliamentary lift porters. Guido hears the charming quartet were given the axe this week after pushing the buttons of bosses. Two have retired and two have been given other jobs in the Palace.

Working in Westminster has its ups and downs…

Well how is this for devotion to the cause of efficiency? In order to help his department achieve 20% budget cuts, London Fire Brigade comms chief Richard Stokoe has given himself the sack. Stokoe says that when he was looking at how to make savings he found that his own job was the one that should face the chop:

“When I looked at it, any other staff leaving would have had a direct impact. I set the strategy, which is now in place, so strategists are not needed.”

Though the PR Week spin fails to neglect that this isn’t the first time Stokoe’s original management style has raised eyebrows. Back in January 2010, when he was at the LGA, 13 PR staff were made redundant. Stokoe simply changed his job title from Head of News to Head of Media to delay his departure. Guido will be watching to make sure he does not pull a similar wheeze this time…

UPDATE: Stokoe gets in touch to say that he did not delay his departure from the LGA, but merely had a three month notice period and wanted to take a small break. He describes the move as “jiggery pokery”. Guido is happy to clarify.

Apparently Alan Rusbridger has had a change of heart and is getting ready to declare that cuts are “essential”. No, not to the size of the state or the spending budget, but to the ailing Guardian Media Group. Guido hears that this year’s publishing losses will be up on the £38m lost last year with a £40m figure being banded about. A staff meeting is scheduled for tomorrow with managers set to beg more editorial staff to take voluntary redundancy before the axe comes out…

After growth flat-lining and Labour going ten points ahead in one poll there is a distinct wobble being felt around Westminster about the cuts. The usually unflappable Speccie have today drawn in their breath about the NHS:

“Barack Obama may have been right to push healthcare reforms, but may nonetheless suffer for the timing and way he did it. The same may be the case for David Cameron.”

While Ben Brogan is quick to point out that Ed Balls is hurting Osborne and:

“…just because Mr Balls is wrong does not guarantee that Mr Osborne is right”

The keep calm and carry on coming from Downing Street is falling on increasingly deaf ears. The coalition are losing their lead in the blame game too. Guido is a little confused at how a £100m sale of some trees has become such a big story in comparison to the much larger swings Osborne has taken with his axe. Maybe it’s the imagery of literally cutting trees, or perhaps this is being allowed to flare up as a distraction for the more radical measures.