In February 2009 Guido’s co-conspirators held a tax justice demo outside the Guardian’s spanking new HQ. Shouting “Scott Was a Tax Evader” and “GMG Fat Cats Pay No Tax”. We didn’t manage to get any support from multi-millionaire, three home-owning, anti-poverty campaigner Polly Toynbee. We would have dragged her out if we could…

The Guardian Media Group is one of the shrewdest corporate avoiders of tax in Britain, in 2008 it made a £300 million profit and yet managed to pay no corporation tax, the following year in 2009 it still paid no corporation tax, it uses the offshore Caymans tax haven to own assets, it uses tax efficient trusts and deploys all manner of perfectly legal tax shelter strategies to avoid paying tax. Polly seems silent about this tax dodging…

See also: Guardian’s Tax Hypocrisy is Ridiculous, Tax Justice Protest Against Guardian Tax Dodging

As the news emerges that The Telegraph is set to join the FT, News of the World and The Times behind the paywall, Guido is intrigued to why such a decision was made when all the evidence shows it’s not a winner. The Times has lost 95% of their online traffic, but the bad news doesn’t stop there. Since they introduced their pay-wall in June their paper sales have headed south as well:

Introducing a pay-wall was supposed to increase revenue by forcing people to buy the paper or subscribe online. Instead the decline of newspaper sales is unmitigated. There will be glum faces over in Victoria as it dawns on the hacks that soon nobody will be reading their work…

Polly “final solution for the poor” Toynbee has been slapped down by the Press Complaints Commission for her remarks comparing the government cuts to the murder of six million Jews:

“The Commission understood that readers may have found the use of the phrase “final solution” in the context of an article about benefits cuts unnecessary and offensive.”

Nice to see Polly’s exit from reality has been officially noted.

Labour Uncut have got a lot of attention today for revealing that Ed Miliband offered former Blairite MP James Purnell the job of his Chief of Staff. The only man brave enough to stand up to Gordon Brown, before being let down by David Miliband, seemingly refused to touch the job with a barge pole. The story has sent ripples of excitement through the Labour lot and the hacks. But was this as exclusive? No.

The Times apparently ran the story nine days ago, but because of their pay-wall no one saw it or took any notice. For their take Labour Uncut get all the credit and the traffic, leaving Wapping’s finest with nothing. Guido bets their political team are a happy bunch this afternoon given they managed to save Red Ed from humiliation.

Well not quite, but to a ranch in Texas in fact. Guido learns that Murdoch has secured the serialisation of George W. Bush’s long awaited “I was right all along and screw you all” book and The Times editor James Harding is flying out next week for cigars and non-alcoholic beer on the ranch. Shame no one will get to read the pay-walled interview though, just this week Harding was moaning it was a “tricky business”.

It was only a fortnight ago that Guido wrote to the Daily Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, asking him for a columnist’s job at the Mail. Some of you will have noticed that he has decided that Guido’s distinctive style and subject choices are worthy of a column. However due to an unfortunate mix-up at the printers the paper has run Guido’s stories with Andrew Pierce’s byline. What other explanation can there be?

The lead story in the Mail column was a piece on Tristram Hunt, which admittedly appeared here on the blog a full 7 days ago, but it was such a good take on the story – pointing out that Tristram’s alma mater was a member of the Eton group of schools – it was worth repeating. Quote of the Day this morning was Guido’s Quote of the Day on Friday and even the story about DfID hosting a “gender and climate change seminar” was recycled from Thursday’s blog.

Guido’s invoice is on the way…

In a rare move for the belligerent and hyperactive columnist, Polly Toynbee this morning apologised for the inflammatory language that Guido highlighted the other day, when she compared a slight tweak in government benefits policy to the slaughter of six million Jews. On her “final solution” comment she said:

“Yes, it was over the top, a slip of the pen, made worse by the fact that it was put in the headline. I regret it.”

Savour the moment, Guido doesn’t imagine we will get another half-apology any time soon…

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is looking for an exceptional individual to lead a strong and independent BBC. Or so the advert goes for the new Chairman of the BBC Trust.

The broad post is responsible for strategy and standards across the vast, over-burdening leviathan, and with a radical choice of candidate the BBC could finally begin to overhaul the bias and waste that so damages the organisation. So who could be brought in shake things up?

Rumour and whispers say that Paul Dacre isn’t long for the Daily Mail editor’s hot-seat. Rothermere was in the front row of Cameron’s conference speech and Guido hears that eyebrows have been raised at the increased attacks on the paper’s reputation. As one of the BBC’s fiercest critics, why not let Dacre put his money where his mouth is, and instead of merely shouting from the sidelines, see if he can do any better?

Kelvin MacKenzie has a wealth of broadcast experience, setting up L!veTV and the hugely successful TalkSport. He is a polished performer in public and could bring some much needed private sector efficiency to the Beeb. If anyone can put a bit of stick about it would be Kelvin.

It doesn’t look like Andy Coulson is being forced out anywhere fast, but after a third bottle at lunch the other day a former spinner in-the-know let slip that it is likely he will bow out next year in an “offer he can’t refuse” situation. Common sense would have him returning to News Corp at an extremely senior level, but perhaps after juggling the entire government comms strategy, one last public service could tempt him…

Guido is sure any of these candidates would be welcomed with open arms by the Beeboids, better than their nightmare scenario of TV reviewer Gary Bushell at the helm at any rate…

Polly Toynbee is taking the end of welfare-for-life badly, it has clearly pushed her over the edge, she spitefully told a fellow Guardian journalist recently that her breast cancer was exacerbated, deservedly, because she had worked for the Murdoch press.

Yesterday she claimed “the Tories have a final solution for the poor”. Yes, Polly thinks capping benefits at £26,000 a year is comparable to the genocide of 6 million Jews.

Polly has finally lost it.

Something is just a little bit too convenient about this photo of Beaker the Leaker:

Guido does find it rather amusing that in order to avoid being accused of “announcing to the press before announcing to the House” the government seems to have just accidentally happened to get photographed reading the chosen headline figure.

Dave got caught flashing photographers a document as well. Instead of briefing the press the new method seems to be to simply flash briefings to photographers so hacks know what to write about thus softening the blow. Despite the half a million jobs figure being the official forecast for months, every single newspaper splashed it this morning…

Could this be a plausibly deniable job well done? Though questions still remain about why the Telegraph had the entire Defence Review before it was announced yesterday…