The image Craig Oliver was complaining about at length was perhaps a bit more Hammer House of Horror than BBC News, no worse however than anything produced on this blog. ‘Mad’ Frankie Maude’s people told us he was actually quite pleased with his sinister image. Gordon Brown’s fans bitterly hated the Prime Mentalist image, megawatts of pixels were wasted decrying that hugely successful meme.  The Treasury once balked a bit at one of Guido’s portraits of George Osborne. Though admittedly, unlike the BBC, we don’t pretend to be impartial. On balance Guido thinks we saw Craig Oliver and Norman Smith doing their respective jobs…

UPDATE:

Here is the full clip that caused all the trouble:

Video via ConservativeHome

With a u-turn announced last night on the Pasty Tax and the watering down of caravan taxes and secret courts, Guido thought he’d put together the comprehensive one stop guide to Coalition u-turns:

• Rape anonymity
• Selling off the forests
• Vanity photographer on the public payroll
• Scrapping school milk for under-5s
• Scrapping Bookstart
• Scrapping  the Financial Inclusion Fund
• Cutting Housing Benefit for long-term jobseekers
• Immigration target policy reduced to an “ambition”
• Coastguard cuts
• Circus animals ban
• Reduction in BBC World Service cuts
• Cutting support for disabled people in care homes
• Scrapping the Office of the Chief Coroner
• Automatic prison sentences for carrying a knife
• 50% sentence reductions for an early guilty plea
• Scrapping the Youth Justice Board
• Scrapping Domestic Violence Protection Orders
• Plans to introduce unannounced Ofsted inspections
• Watering down of Child Benefit cuts
• Video games tax relief kept after all
• Scrapping NHS targets
• Joint Strike Fighter mess
• Watering down plans to recall MPs
• Rowing back on Secret Courts
• Pasty Tax scrapped
• Caravan Tax watered down

No Plan B though…

Lord Lamont told ITV News…

“I think the PM is just human and Ed Balls is a pretty irritating person”

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