You could hardly imagine a busier first day in the office for Tim Montgomerie as the Times‘ new comment editor. It must also have been some baptism of fire for his replacement over at ConHome, Paul Goodman. Meanwhile not only did the prolific Peter Oborne tell us to marvel at Maggie in the Telegraph, he also managed to pen an obituary for the Mail as well. At least they were both consistent…

Ed weirdly confessed this lunchtime that he had kept an article by Peter Oborne in his pocket for three months, but Rainman refused to say which one. The Labour leader was hardly spoilt for choice for favourable Oborne articles, however. Was it Oborne’s “Ed Miliband can’t score even when he has an open goal”? Or his view that “Ed Miliband is the Labour Party’s invisible man” or the claim that “in every area of our public life the left is losing the argument”? It probably wasn’t Oborne’s review of Miliband’s biography, which apparently “cast Ed in the murderous role of Cain and David as his innocent victim”.

Far more likely is Oborne’s post-riots suggestion that Miliband was right about moral decay at the top of society, in which he laid into the likes of Sir Philip Green and attacked the culture of greed amongst the rich. Oborne should send an invoice for the conference speech…

Guido has been most amused by the frantic changes made to the Sunday Telegraph’s Baroness Warsi story on their website today. The original photo of the Conservative Friends of Pakistan lunch has been replaced by a four-year-old picture of Dave and Sayeeda with a completely unrelated caption. Guido wonders if that could possibly be because someone at Telegraph towers realised the first photo they published on a piece that slammed the guests at a Warsi event made one guest in particular really stand out. Who was this shady figure given unchecked access to the PM?

Step forward the Telegraph’s very own Peter Oborne…

Peter Oborne writing on the pinkos at the Pink ‘Un…

Yesterday Peter Oborne in The Telegraph blasted Cameron for being in the sewer with Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and James Murdoch. It was a terrific piece that Guido and everyone in the Westminster politico-media Village enjoyed immensely. Tim Montgomerie reminded us that it was just over a month ago that Oborne thought Cameron was on the verge of attaining “heroic status”.  Guido is second to none in admiration for Oborne, his books The Triumph of the Political Class and The Rise of Political Lying are the most compelling analyses of the failings of the British political class and client media. If he has a failing it is that he is a man who hopes for better and expects better of our political class, it is this that leads him to lavish praise on politicians whom he has high hopes for, thus he lauded praise on Cameron and then when Cameron, inevitably, disappointed him he turned and lashed him. When it comes to this hope and disappointment cycle he has previous.

At the begining of the Brown premiership when David Miliband mulled over a coup he wrote an article explaining Why none of them are fit to fill Gordon Brown’s shoes, in which he argued that “The Labour Party’s only hope is to rally behind the man it idolised for so long when he was Chancellor”. Within a year he was warning of Brown’s “Hubris, hoopla and claims that were false, cynical and very, very dangerous“, calling Gordon Brown a cynical, dishonest liar. Quite a volte face.

Oborne gets into this situation because he wants to think the best of men, Guido on the other hand starts with the view that politicians are probably lying or crooked, or at least venal. This policy towards politicians makes for fewer about turns.