In 2012 Harriet Harman was very clear about not letting old sex abuse issues rest:

“no one should be complacent and believe that sexual abuse by people in positions of power at the BBC happened then, but could not happen now? The BBC should proceed now to review all its policies and processes on the protection of children, sexual harassment and whistleblowing, in order to be sure that the right policies and processes are in place and are properly enforced.”

She told the Commons that “there are still countless young women and men who have been abused but have never complained because they bear a great burden of shame, guilt and disgust, and fear that they will not be believed.”

And what to do?

“Should not our strong and clear message to them today be “Come forward now, seek the support that you need to address the wrong that has been done to you, and, in doing so, not only secure the justice that you deserve but protect others in the future”?”

Suddenly, when the wolves are at her door, it’s all a smear to dredge up history.

It’s safe to say this morning’s ‘speech’ by Grant Shapps and the multi-millionaire wheeler dealer Sir John Major has been a bit of a clusterf**k. In fact there is zero evidence so far that it even took place. There are a couple of quotes in the Mail and on PA but why was no one invited?

This is the press release that went out. Did these mythical candidates even say anything?

As the Tories thought it fit to not invite any press to the event, we have to rely on a stream of verbal diarrhoea from @CCHQPress as evidence it ever happened. Surely they can’t be so worried about a few questions that they would go out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot like this? It’s going to be a long campaign at this rate.

With just a few days to go before Labour’s special conference, two Labour MPs have used interviews with Total Politics to hand Miliband a big public slap over his messaging. Simon Danczuk was victim to red on red revenge last time he criticised Ed, though that hasn’t deterred him:

“Some [slogans] have a shelf-life, others don’t… so ‘Cost of Living Crisis’ is probably coming to the end of its sell-by-date, isn’t it? People get turned off by it. I read the other day ‘One Nation Social Security’ – what the hell is that? Andrew Neil asked me on the Daily Politics about ‘One Nation Banking’. ‘One Nation Banking’? For goodness sake! If I went round talking like that on the doorstep, I’d get short shrift. You’d see doors being slammed in your face.”

Meanwhile head girl Stella Creasy wades in, deriding Ed’s ‘One Nation’:

“If you ever met people from Walthamstow you wouldn’t tell them anything like that because they’d quite quickly put you in your place.”

Which all bodes well for Saturday…

In a change from side-boob and upskirt shots, Mehdi Hasan is frothing about ‘corporate welfare’ (geddit) over at the Huffington Post. He’s attacking the media for being complicit with large companies and banks:

“They are aided by their friends, allies and outriders in the right-wing media echo chamber, who have never had to endure the indignity of turning to payday lenders or food banks in order to survive.”

Which is odd given that Mehdi is aiding his corporate paymasters by censoring comments about the tax status of the Huffington Post’s parent company directly below his rant. Guido has been trying to leave the following comment all day:

“AOL turned over £56,801,000 last year yet manage to pay only £9,000 in corporation tax. How so? Could it be because HuffPo is losing money or that its UK owner, AOL Limited, repatriates profits to escape paying its dues in the UK to the Luxembourg-registered AOL Europe Société à responsabilité limitée. If Mehdi cared about the millions in corporate profits being exported by multinational corporations he wouldn’t work for one of the worst exemplars”

Sadly that inconvenient truth does not fit Mehdi’s agenda.

Andy Burnham’s gaffe prone PPS Debbie Abrahams has a public profile of little note, readers will probably only remember her for the time she repeated loony ‘Dr’ Eoin Clarke’s fibs in the House and was forced to apologise for accusing Cameron of “genocide“. She barely got through last night’s painful Newsnight discussion on benefit sanctions either. You might say she could do with a comms guru to sort out her image.

Guido can reveal that Abrahams charges the taxpayer £2,099 on expenses for the “communications and media” services of “creative media and PR” consultant John Ramsden. Who, judging by the photos on his website, is clearly the real deal. Away from juggling lightbulbs, Ramsden boasts on his site that “I managed to get Debbie Abrahams on to the BBC Today programme yesterday”. So remember the next time you hear Debbie on the radio that you’re paying for the spinner who got her the gig…

When asked if their boss was planning on quitting, a spokesman for Maria Miller tells Guido:

“We have always been clear that Maria’s claims are entirely above board. The inquiry is still ongoing.” 

The Commons’ Standards Committee will be the judge of that one actually.