While the Mirror and the Guardian try to breathe air into the phone hacking scandal, lets take a look at why it isn’t really only about evil Murdoch and his newspapers. A little evidence based research, with the help of the Information Commissioner’s Office, shows how all the papers were up to dirty tricks and “blagging” - pretending to be someone you are not in order to gain information you are not entitled to or worse still bribing phone company, HMRC and DVLC employees to obtain information. Who do you think had the most recorded offences?

So where is Watson’s call to have the Mirror and the Mail hauled up before Parliament to answer questions, or does that not fit the attack strategy?

Guido has reflected on the shared culture and worldview of the Guardian and the BBC in the past;

The BBC is viewed by many right-wingers as the broadcasting arm of the Guardianistas. The Beeboids argue that this is unfair, and that the BBC is an unbiased, objective, public service broadcaster.

Yesterday the regular Guardian contributor Tim Montgomerie described the BBC as “Guardian TV“. Is this the ranting of right-wing blow-hards? No. The evidence is clear, via the excellent Biased BBC blog we learn that the BBC deliberately focuses recruitment advertising on the ranks of the Guardianistas.

Look at how it allocates the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds on recruitment advertising:

When the BBC spends 86% of its recruitment advertising budget in the Guardian, we’re entitled to question the objectivity of the BBC’s editorial culture…

N.B. On a personal note, could BBC interviewers stop mistakenly introducing Guido as a “conservative”, if they do Guido will thank them for allowing him to appear on the left-wing BBC – as Nicky Campbell will tell you. Guido is a libertarian, not a conservative.

Last week John Redwood advanced the argument that we will not see any overall cut in government spending during this parliament, Guido would add that the government isn’t planning on paying down a single penny of the national debt by 2015 either. Nobody challenged the Redwood-Guido contention that in cash terms there is no overall spending cut – the fact is the coalition budgets over the next 5 years to raise expenditure 15% – from some £600 billion to nearly £700 billion.  Some counter that specific expenditure programmes are already being cut because in real-terms, inflation adjusted, there will be an overall cut in government expenditure.

Last week Peter Hoskin on the Speccie’s CoffeeHouse blog produced a chart* showing an inflation adjusted real-terms spending cut of 2.7% after 5 years. Even this thinnest of salami slices doesn’t ring true, Guido is under the impression that the Treasury aims to keep spending flat in real terms. Peter was kind enough to supply the spreadsheet showing his workings.

Peter used a combination of HM Treasury sources to calculate his deflator (red). If however we plug in the Bank of England’s inflation target of 2% things come out different (orange). Mervyn King was warning us only last year, when he was making the case for printing money (QE), that it was deflation that was the coming threat. Nevertheless if we ignore his previous scaremongering and accept that he will meet the Bank of England’s 2% average inflation target over the term of the parliament, the result is a real terms cut of 0.2%. That is a rounding error, not a significant real terms cut in government expenditure. Based on the Bank of England’s inflation target, government spending by 2015 compared to 2010 will be flat in real terms.

Contrary to the BBC-Guardian cuts narrative, the reality is that there is going to be a real terms spending freeze, the coalition is planning a spending hike of 15% in cash terms, it isn’t planning real terms cuts and it isn’t planning to pay down a penny of the national debt. The deficit unfortunately will still be with us come the next general election…

*Fraser Nelson has other 21st century modernisation plans besides charts for the Speccie under his kilt. Expect to see changes to the magazine’s cover, look and feel.

Guido is a little puzzled. Everytime he reads something about the Treasury Select Committee, it seems to be proceeded by the words “Tory dominated”:

Take this example from the Guardian, or this one from Progress, or from The Mail. Now take a look at the make up of the Treasury Select Committee:

Andrew Tyrie
(non-voting, chairman)

Michael Fallon
Andrea Leadsom
Jesse Norman
David Rutley
Mark Garnier

Andy Love
John Mann
George Mudie
Chuka Umunna
John Cryer

John Thurso

Stewart Hosie

Can the old hacks not add up, or are they deliberately not mentioning that far from dominating, the Tories are outnumbered?

Hidden subsidies cost the taxpayers millions of pounds in order to finance the lifestyles of MPs, yet the fearless political reporters of the Lobby don’t seem too keen on reporting this hidden subsidy. Could it be because they too enjoy the taxpayer subsidised bars of the Parliamentary Estate?

The Speaker says he wants to bring prices in to line with High Street prices. In another piece of evidence based blogging you won’t see in the newspapers Guido has been fearlessly investigating what exactly are the prevailing market conditions around Westminster.

As the chart below shows, the average price of a pint of a Guinness is £3.45.  MPs pay a mere £2.20 for a pint and the taxpayers make up the difference. Prices would have to rise 57% for them to match what the public pays in and around the Westminster area. They still know how to look after themselves don’t they?

MPs have no excuse for this subsidy and last Tuesday’s scenes of mass drunkeness hardly reflect well on Parliament. The first thing they should do to discourage that sort of behaviour is put the prices up to market rates, cheap drink has after all literally been their downfall. In these austere times of public sector cutbacks is it simply not justifiable for MPs to expect us to subsidise their drinking. Time please, drink up gentlemen, lets be having you…

There is no doubt that Cameron and Osborne have been greatly influenced by the Canadian deficit reduction plan of the 1990s. Canadian PM Stephen Harper was one of the first international leaders to be welcomed by Dave and there are no prizes for guessing what they talked about. Part of the success of the Canadian plan was the uniting of the country behind the need to slash public spending – the PR job the PM embarked on so subtly yesterday. Part of the uniting process was the removal of ideological zeal from the process – something made much easier by being in coalition.

So what are the simple solutions offered by Canada? For the benefit of newbie Chief Secretary Danny Alexander, Guido has made a helpful diagram. The advice seems to be set a target, ring-fence nothing and stick to the target. On top of cutting general waste and government bureaucracy, take each piece of government expenditure and ask three very simple questions:

Though they may be credited with saving the economy and the country, the Coalition shouldn’t expect much gratitude – it will hurt, and without the convincing the voters of the scale of the crisis they will won’t be thanked at the ballot box.

We haven’t had a bit of evidence-based blogging for a while so Guido has fired up the chart to to bring you this comparison of the Tory and Labour spending plans.

Alistair Darling said in the budget he was taking action to cut the deficit by £57 billion, the Tories say they will go £6 billion further, faster. This £6 billion is what they are boring on about when Gordon disingenuously claims Tories will cut core services and undermine the recovery. £6 billion is less than 1% of government spending and is equal to a mere two weeks of this government’s unfunded over-spending.

Spot the difference? £6 billion is a mere rounding error that still leaves both parties with plans for unfunded over-spending of more than £150 billion. Not much difference is there really?