Not only did Guido reveal that Owen Paterson has set up a swear jar for any Defra staffer brave enough to crack a horse pun in yesterday’s Sun column, but there could be more equine trouble ahead. Sources whisper that ‘bute’ may be the least of our worries; if the horse tranquilliser Ketamine – which doubles as a rave drug – has not been tested for, it won’t be a laughing matter. One to keep an eye on…

Meanwhile, the results of the House of Commons horsemeat tests are in:

“As a precautionary measure, on Monday 18 February the House of Commons Catering Service removed from its menus four beef items supplied by Brakes, as they carried out tests on their products containing beef.

The items were:

• beef and onion pie
• steak and kidney pie
• steak kidney suet pudding
• and beef Italian meatballs.

Tests on all four items have been completed and all have concluded negative for equine DNA.

The items are back on menus from today.”

It’s one mule for us…

The Sun is #1 for politics on Sundays. In Guido’s column today you can find out:

• Which LibDem has been defending Lord Rennard?
• Why should Jo Swinson know all about workplace cover-ups?
  
• Why ‘bute’ is the least of our equine worries.
• What MPs really think about the Civil Service.
• How Chris Huhne’s moment of truth has been memorialised forever.

The column isn’t online, so get down the newsagents and read it today for only 50p…

As Guido reported in his Sun column yesterday – and the Sunday Mirror “exclusively” revealed on page 2 – Dave has been on a secret no photo-op visit to a food bank. The PM was regularly coming under heavy fire for claiming the six-fold rise in food banks across the country was a sign of the Big Society in action and eventually promised to pop down to one. Last week he wrote to Luciana Berger, telling her he had “visited a local food bank on 9 February 2013”. For some reason he forgot to invite the usual camera crew along…

There are 27 political stories in The Sun today. In Guido’s column you can find out:

• About Cameron’s secret no photo-op visit.
• Why the computer says ‘NO’ to CCHQ.
• Why Prezza won’t be campaigning for the Labour candidate in Eastleigh.
• Why online campaigner Claire Perry MP isn’t so anti-porn.
• How a cancer charity cheered up parliamentary researchers.
• Why Eddie Izzard’s frocks are not enough for power dressing.
• If Downing Street is under-powered, we have figured out why…

The column isn’t online, so get down the newsagents and read it today for only 50p, or the follow-ups elsewhere next week…

One the day we learn Cait Reilly’s experience of working in Poundland helped her to get a job at Morrisons, readers will remember the Sun’s mocked-up naked Prince Harry pics, starring intern Sophie Henderson.

At the time self-appointed left-wing moral arbiters accused the paper of exploiting Sophie, but judging by her tweet this afternoon the internship was well worth it:

See @Guardian, that Sun internship was worth it RT ‏@hendysophie
Got a email from LinkedIn saying my profile was in top 1% viewed of 2012—
Alex Wickham (@WikiGuido) February 12, 2013

Yesterday almost 4,000 voted in Guido’s poll, with 55% choosing to save Page 3. The readers have spoken…

Lots of Guido gossip in The Sun column today:

Clegg’s isolation, big Tory donations, coppers and cappuccinos, Twitter abused MPs, cruel nicknames for SpAds, Boris pranking Clegg,Vicky Pryce’s men and more.

Worth the 50p alone… 

Britain’s favourite political blog can now be read in Britain’s biggest selling newspaper. Reaching 1 in 7 of the population, more people get their political news from The Sun than any other newspaper. We aim to make the same style of gossip and news as easily accessible in ink form as it is online. 

Iain Dale had it right, Guido has replaced Archbishop Sentamu’s Sunday column opposite the op-ed page. Unlike the ‘bish we will be bashing political sinners. The Guidoisation of politics has mainstreamed…

The Sun’s business editor Steve Hawkes is off to the Telegraph to become their consumer affairs editor. The Standard diary had prematurely reported he was off to the Times, but the Telegraph have got their man this morning.

Still a step down from the Bank of England job though…

click to enlarge

Loving the Brookes cartoon of the Twitter bird crapping on Leveson’s bonce that illustrates Guido’s critique of the Leveson Report in this morning’s Sun. With only one page devoted to the internet out of 2000 pages it really shows that the judge knows he can’t regulate the world wide web…

Leveson-defenders and tabloid-bashers alike have jumped at the opportunity to attack the tabloids over their failure to expose the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile. “Why didn’t the tabloids nail him?” moaned Sir Michael White, with Roy Greenslade on hand to kick the redtops for having the nerve to attack the BBC. Though one tabloid actually did come close to exposing Savile.

Back in 2008 Savile started legal proceedings against the Sun after they ran a photo of him visiting the Haut de la Garenne children’s home at the centre of the Jersey child abuse scandal. Over the following days the paper carried a series of allegations including that Savile had admitted visiting the home and was refusing to help the police with their inquiries. At the time Savile said:

“I feel as though I have been subjected to a long and drawn out mugging by the Sun newspaper. The only difference is that its journalists do not wear hoodies.”

So the tabloids did go after Savile, and they were only stopped from getting to the bottom of his crimes by the legal action he launched against them. Worth remembering…