Not content with claiming to have his honour all but restored, important to a man with such a long and distinguished military career, Andrew Mitchell is stepping up his fight and going directly after Met boss Bernard Hogan Howe. As Guido pointed out the other day, the heat is on the Commissioner after his very public backing of the officers involved, despite the fact that even the Police Federation are running for the hills now. Mitchell says he has ‘no confidence’ in Hogan Howe, but how he can totally clear his name still remains to be seen. Perhaps one of them should hire the services of Jon Gaunt, the former DJ, who did spin wonders for the Police Federation’s campaign back in the autumn…

Paul McKeever, the rent-a-rozzer head of the Police Federation has told the BBC this afternoon that he would be “first in queue to apologise” if Mitchell has “been done a calumny.” Which reminded Guido of what the very same police union were saying during the autumn:

“Members of the West Midlands Police Federation said Andrew Mitchell had “no option but to resign”, following a meeting with the chief whip. They said Mr Mitchell repeated a “profound apology with feeling” but continued to deny using the words attributed to him during an outburst at police officers outside Number 10. This meant his position had become “untenable”, they said.”

Apparently he now feels “we can all say we can do things better” when asked about his aggressive campaign to decapitate the former Chief Whip. Guido isn’t sure it’s going to be that easy for the militant union, if Mitchell does eventually vindicate himself…

Claire Perry and Paul Dacre’s plan to censor the internet by putting up mandatory firewalls is back on. Despite expert advice saying it is a waste of time and civil liberties groups hammering their keyboards, the numbers in the crucial mothers polling group must be telling No. 10 something. Taking to the Mail today, Dave says:

“…with our new system, every parent will be prompted to protect their child online. If they don’t make choices, protection will be automatically on. No other Government has taken such radical steps before. And once all this is in place, Britain will have the most robust internet child protection measures of any country in the world – bar none.

To get all this underway, I have appointed Claire Perry MP to be my adviser on preventing the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood. Claire is a passionate campaigner for internet safety and mother of three. Her job will be to see this through, to get internet companies on board, to do what it takes to protect children and young people online.All this comes back to something really important. It’s not just about the internet, or modern technology – it’s about childhood.”

She finally gets that long conveted promotion then. Presumably the new filter would block kids searching about Perry’s more passionate moments?

The LibDem strategy to distance themselves from their coalition partners rumbles on. It’s not subtle at the best of times, but it’s probably a good idea to check you don’t send out your notes in the subject line of a press release:

From: Rob Banks [mailto:Rob.Banks@local.gov.uk]
Sent: 19 December 2012 16:25
To: Rob Banks
Subject: FW: Sending this imminently….. Amended as requested – and toned down on Pickles (on Paul’s request)

LGA Liberal Democrat Group
News Release

Speaking on the Local Government Settlement, Cllr Paul Tilsley, Lib Dem Finance spokesperson at the LGA said:

“It would have been a lot worse if it hadn’t been for the Lib Dems in government.

Smooth…

Over the last few days the Hacked Off brigade have been desperate for it to emerge that the prank call nurse had been contacted by hacks before she took her own life. Evan Harris salivated on Saturday:

Good question. Anyone know? RT @ChristinaMaroc do we know if our press were hassling Jacintha Saldanha?—
Dr Evan Harris (@DrEvanHarris) December 08, 2012

Tom Watson even went as far as directly accusing journalists of “spooking” the woman, despite the fact they did not know her name:

Ask yourself how many reporters spooked that poor, poor woman? It wasn't irrelevant at all Jim Dowd: theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=201…—
  (@tom_watson) December 07, 2012

Now the Press Complaints Commission have poured water on the press-haters’ wet dream. Lord Hunt told MPs earlier:

MP: “Was nurse hounded by press before she took her life?”
LH: “I don’t think so”

Yet another one in the eye for Watson. He’s not having a good run of it lately…

It’s taken some time but it seems the Labour kickback machine is getting into gear. The dividing lines are being drawn over the whether or not Labour back the Welfare Uprating Bill that will apparently be published this side of Christmas. In the meantime a nice row is brewing over the so called “Mummy Tax”. After granny and pasties, hidden hits are de rigueur these days. A friend of Ed Balls tells Guido this morning:

“Osborne effectively branding mums, taking time out from work to be with their new baby, as work-shy benefit scroungers is a big political mistake.”

Guido is not sure how a reduction in hand-outs is a “tax”, but the issue is certainly potent. Mumsnet will be unbearable today…

Ed Balls blamed his stammer for getting his script wrong yesterday but he still did not have anything to say this morning:

“I’m not going to come on the Today programme within 24 hours and start making ex cathedra statements without taking a proper judgement”

That didn’t stop his boss doing just that when he recommended implementing Leveson in full, just five hours after receiving the 2,000 page document.

The Liberal Democrats are claiming that their vicious briefing against their coalition partners was sent out “in error”. Apparently it was an update to an old briefing. Guido is calling bullsh*t. Firstly the briefing was deliberately sent from a party branded account, separately from a coalition friendly briefing moments before. When the LibDems slag off the Tories they do it with the bird logo. When they are behaving they do it, rather splendidly, with a blue version of their logo:

Secondly it went out on their website. Hardly a case of bad trigger finger. They have quietly deleted it online now, but have not corrected their original email. They tell Guido ”we may feel the need to issue a print retraction” in due course, but for the time being they are only telling anyone who asks. When it was put it to the masters of spin that their explanation did not “have the ring of truth to it” they promptly and swiftly cleared the whole matter up: “well… [PAUSE] that’s what we are saying.” Not just Balls that is having a bad day…

Today Mehdi Hasan writes on the Huffington Post UK:

“And consider the newspapers’ treatment of women and minorities, which Leveson also – and rightly – highlighted in his report. On women, he wrote that the tabloid press often fail to show “consistent respect for the dignity and equality of women” and have a “tendency to sexualise and demean” women.”"

Apparently Mehdi feels it is right to criticise tabloids that sexualise and demean women. Got that?

Today the Huffington Post UK has run a piece with the following headline: “Carine Felizardo Crowned Top Buttocks Of Brazil In Miss BumBum Pageant (PICTURES)”. Recently Mehdi’s boss, HuffPoUK’s editor, Carla Buzasi lamented:

“The fascination with bodies, celebrity or otherwise, isn’t exactly something new, of course, and shows no sign of abating. But here’s a thought: why don’t we just stop?”

Do as we say not as we do…

It could not be a great matter of state without the LibDems sitting on the fence. Yesterday they briefed the FT:

“In spite of the party’s liberal heritage, Mr Clegg’s team say the vast majority of Lib Dem MPs would support Leveson if he says that independent regulation must be underpinned by law to make it fully effective.”

However this morning team Clegg is in full reverse ferret mode:

I understand Nick Clegg believes State/statutory regulation of the press is "not necessarily the answer" #leveson—
norman smith (@BBCNormanS) November 28, 2012

Overnight it emerged that the Burns/Blunkett letter had cross party support, also Ming and Hughes have been making plenty of noise on the issue. Interestingly the party’s leader in waiting, who is not a man adverse to regulating, has been rather quiet. The last time Vince Cable said anything interesting about press regulation was when he had been at the sharp end of a sting. After his complaint about the secret ‘war on Murdoch’ recording by Heidi Blake, then of the Telegraph, was upheld by the PCC, Vince said:

“I’m delighted with the findings which fully vindicates the complaints I and my colleagues made to the PCC. It’s very rare the commission comes down so clearly and we are very pleased with the outcome. It was important this was established by an independent, respected and reputable body.”

Will Cable and the rest of the LibDems be voting to keep regulation “independent” or will their Murdoch phobia overcome their liberal anti-statist, pro-freedom traditions?