Reports suggest that Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce will enter their pleas to charges of perverting the course of justice on June 1.

Meanwhile Chris Huhne’s bisexual lover – who is suing over invasion of privacy – admitted giving newspapers tips about the sex lives of Hollywood stars and senior politicians. Carina Trimingham confessed in the High Court last week to being the source of an article describing the ‘sexual antics’ of Oscar winner Russell Crowe with a BBC researcher at a bar. She also sold a diary story about the current Deputy Prime Minister, which she described as ‘Nick Clegg’s 18 shags story’. Carina also admitted that she had sent the infamous ‘Calamity Clegg’ email mocking Nick Clegg’s political skills while Chris Huhne’s press officer during the 2007 Lib Dem leadership contest. A bit rich of her to complain about invasions of privacy…

The LibDems are continuing to claim that they are untainted by BSkyB bid revelations this week. While it is true that Cable’s SpAd Giles Wilkes set the example of how Adam Smith should have been dealing with News Corp spinmeister Fred Michel, the email chains are still damning for the party. When Wilkes rejected a meeting it seems that Michel went to other LibDem spinners and found success with Jonny Oates, the former Bell Pottinger director turned Clegg SpAd, who as Guido reported yesterday was happy to help and brief. But he didn’t stop there…

Paul Marshall, the founder hedge fund Marshall Wace, is a LibDem donor. Crucially he’s also an adviser to Nick Clegg.

Here not only does Marshall acknowledge a meeting with James Murdoch to discuss the bid, he also gives further advice, in writing, for Fred Michel to pass on to his boss:

He recommends BSkyB beef up their PR team and goes so far as to recommend his friend and Brunswick chief Alan Parker. All of this is so that BSkyB can get the “easy win” that Marshall clearly supports adding: ”I wish you luck. You have built a great business and it must be very frustrating to be penalised for your success.” It doesn’t sound like all the LibDems were at war with Murdoch…

The one time LibDem DCMS spokesman Don Foster said in the House earlier: “Politicians have been cosying up to the media for too long. Given press perception and actual impartiality, it is improper for politicians to make decisions about media ownership”. He would know:

Are the LibDem’s hands really clean here?

They have their own people in Murdoch’s world – take Sky’s Head of Policy David Wheeldon who was a former senior member of LibDem policy unit. Despite it being a matter for BIS and then Culture, the emails released yesterday are full of meetings with Jonny Oates – Clegg’s adviser who is a former director of Bell Pottinger and one of two controversial lobbyists at the heart of the Deputy Prime Minister’s team. Vince’s team were also calling Fred Michel unsolicited. There is no doubt that Vince hated Murdoch, but to suggest the LibDems are somehow saintly is a joke. They are trying to pretend they didn’t go to the News Intrnational party out of choice, when in reality they were not invited…

Brian Paddick’s campaign are denying any official connection to a pro-Paddick video doing the rounds. Despite the insistence that it was done by an activist, it features Paddick footage and has been pushed heavily by LibDem HQ. The ad was clearly inspired by US Republican presidential wannabe Tim Pawlenty’s “Courage to Stand” video, and has high production values that do not come cheap.

The ad featuring plenty of TV coverage from the riots, but Guido is wondering when this doctored shot of London burning is from? Certainly not August 2011…

Forced into a corner last night by Iain Dale on LBC, Brian Paddick did not deny that he had received at £387,239 taxpayer-funded pay-off from the Met when he retired in 2007, as revealed here yesterday. Instead he declared “to be honest with you, it’s none of your business” despite the public paying for it and the LibDem candidate cannily not releasing financial information for the year in question - “What is the point of publishing 2007/2008?”. Maybe he should avoid lecturing others on transparency while deliberately masking a huge source of income…

UPDATE:  We have just confirmed that Brian Paddick himself commented on the previous post last night:

We agreed to publish earnings and tax since the last election, that is:

2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12

There was no point in publishing 2007/08 because Ken Livingstone was mayor during that tax year, paying tax by PAYE, and had not yet set up his private company to avoid paying tax. Ken’s tax avoidance was the whole point of publishing our tax affairs.

No cover-up just bad journalism.

We will let the readers decide if the revelation was news to Londoners or bad journalism. Other candidates did reveal their 2007/08 figures…

While most of the focus has been on Ken and his lack of transparency recently, Guido did wonder why the LibDem candidate Brian Paddick only released the last three years of his financials, unlike the four years from the others. Guido has worked out why…

In the missing fourth back year (2007/8) Brian Paddick received a large lump sum as part of his leaving package from the Met. Whilst the debate about public sector pensions can be saved for another day and Guido can’t have a go at Paddick for accepting what was rightfully his, however absurdly generous it was, it was a little rum to deliberately try to hide the evidence. Guido and his bean counting co-conspirators have worked out that this pay off would have been just shy of £400,000. Tax free…

His campaign initially refused to comment on the figures. However we know that Brian Paddick earned £125,667 as Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met and he is on the 1987 Police Pension Scheme. His healthy pension is two thirds of his final salary (£83,778). The key figure is how much he commuted from an annual income into a lump sum and what commutation factor was applied…

Paddick retired at age 49 years and 1 month, so his commutation factor is 19. (Whilst the commutation factors are said to be from 1 October 2007, these were later backdated to 1 December 2006 following a judicial review.) From the figures that Paddick did release, we know that he receives an annual income from his pension of £63,397. Therefore he commuted the following amount (in terms of annual income forfeited) £83,778 – £63,397 = £20,381. So multiply that £20,381 by 19 and we get £387,239. And in a perk of the job this is tax free...

Guido suspects that in 2007/8 Paddick’s effective rate of income tax was even less than Livingstone’s 14.5%. In response to this figure a spokesman for Brian Paddick said: “All Mayoral candidates agreed to publish their tax details from the last Mayoral election in 2008. Brian has fulfilled this commitment, unlike certain other candidates.” The agreement was four years if we are going to be picky…

Given he’s polling at less than double figures, Guido was surprised to learn that Paddick even had policies, but apparently it’s ridiculous for LBC to ask how much his pointless promises would cost. The LibDems haven’t got a hope in hell, but they could at least have picked a candidate who would bring them some attention. Come back Lembit…

UPDATE: Meanwhile Ken is in new tax/donation trouble.

The Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine are actually trying to suggest that Jenny Tonge’s views were taken out of context. If anything, the context they were in made them worse…

In a press release, they fully endorse her views and criticise Clegg’s action:

“This partial quotation would seem very possibly to be deliberate, and has had the effect of fostering a misinterpretation of her views.”

As they note, in the video we put up showed, Tonge did say:

“Israel is not going to be there forever on its present performance”.

This is the only quote that the LibDem group choose to use though. Somehow they miss out the fact that thirty seconds later Tonge said:

“It will not go on forever, it will not go on forever. Israel will lose it’s support will lose its support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

This is the section we were quoting, but there’s not a peep out of them about it, despite them having the cheek to accuse others of misquoting. As Nick Cohen says in Standpoint today, there is a dark core within the LibDems, and they seem to have broken cover again today…

Nick Clegg has finally woken up to today’s mess and apparently told Baroness Tonge that she has “a few hours” to apologise or resign. The comments that have caused Jihad Jenny trouble today were made over a week ago, but it is clear they were not a one off, nor was her willingness to share a platform with unsavoury characters. Just two days ago Tonge popped  up at the Queen Mary’s University’s Palestine Solidarity Society.

Guido hears that all known Jews and critics were evicted before the start, including the man who filmed Tonge’s outburst last week, as well as Jewish Chronicle journalists. On the stage, Azzam Tamimi, a controversial activist, declared that he was ready to become a martyr for his cause. Tamimi went on to say that he wished he was in Hamas and that the banned terror group were the only “true representative of the Palestinian people.” And Jihad Jenny just sat there. Is that official LibDem policy?

And it gets worse, the reason Tonge was silent was because she agrees with loonies like Tamimi. Last year she gave an interview to Iranian state television that stated:

“It is necessary for the international community to include Hamas in the Middle East peace process, as it is the only trusted faction [in the occupied territories] in which the Palestinian could rely upon”

The LibDems weak holding statement this afternoon said:

“The Liberal Democrats are wholehearted supporters of a peaceful two-state solution to the Israel / Palestine issue.”

Not all of them it seems…

*The above image is of Jenny Tonge sharing a platform with Hamas, via Harry’s Place

It may be a leap year but this one was out of the blue:

No place in politics for those who question existence of the state of Israel. Nick Clegg must condemn Jenny Tonge's remark & demand apology—
Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) February 29, 2012

Over to you Nick…