Guido went back to his sources yesterday after some denials about Dave’s angry words to one Tory rebel. This morning Downing Street have all but confirmed it. According to the Times:

“No 10 conceded that Mr Cameron may have confronted one of the Tory rebels, Andrew Bingham, the MP for High Peak, at a drinks reception in Downing Street the previous evening about his support for the rebel amendment.”

Apparently the “this is not a sixth-form debating society” line is one of Dave’s favourites for admonishing unruly rebels. The 53 would agree: the EU and it’s budget matters to their voters.

The Lobby will be losing one of their more familiar faces after conference season. Though nothing has been confirmed Media Guido understands that the Times politics desk will be shaken up with Sam Coates moving to become Banking Editor. Some will see that as a sideways move. Though it’s a higher profile beat these days and the Times business desk will perhaps benefit from having someone with Treasury contacts.

If Coates is thinking beyond a career in journalism, knowledge of the financial sector never did highly paid lobbyists any harm…

Former Times hack Patrick Foster has we understand been nicked this morning by Operation Tuleta cops investigating the outing the previously anonymous Nightjack blogger in 2009. Earlier this year it was revealed that Foster had discovered the identity of the blogger through computer hacking. The media editor at The Times at the time was the Guardian’s current head of media, Dan Sabbagh.

Even after the Nightjack scandal broke Sabbagh continued to commission him with work for the Media Guardian  pages and judging by his tweet appears to still be in the loop with Foster:

…police came to his home this morning (unexpectedly) I understand…—
Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) August 29, 2012

What did Sabbagh know and when?

UPDATE:

- @MediaGuido @guidofawkes My knowledge of arrests consists of my tweets. Knew about it about 3 mins before tweeting. More on MG shortly.—
Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) August 29, 2012

News International has today written to the Leveson Inquiry asking them to seek further evidence from Gordon Brown over his claim that the Sun illegally accessed his son’s medical records. Gordon Brown is getting his lawyers on to The Times…

Read all about it… over on MediaGuido…

The Times‘ paywall has finally been breached this afternoon as the paper’s bosses decided to allow some of its opinion writers to be read online for free. The move appears to be a first step towards a Wall Street Journal-style semi-permeable website. Could editor James Harding be set to usher in a new age of glasnost?

This is the digital opinion equivalent of 1989…

UPDATE:

@hugorifkind That's what Erich Honecker said in 1989—
Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) June 12, 2012

It is not too pedantic to say self-evidently that is not completely true…

Former Tory spinner Ed Staite looks set on trying to ruin the Sunday Times’ Saturday. Having smelt a rat when he met with the “Global Zenith” he has put an unedited version of events on his own website. His fisk of their email allegations is pretty pithy:

Dear Mr Staite,

We are preparing an article for publication in this weekend’s edition of The Sunday Times which will describe advice you gave to undercover reporters posing as wealth fund executives at a meeting in February.

They lied to meet me, took up at least a day of my time and, I assume filmed the whole thing while lying further as a way to attempt entrapment. I outlined a way to make a positive contribution to the political process instead of paying for influence as the journalists continually advocated.

The party will soon begin setting up new groups to form policy ahead of the next General Election, you said.

They will as is the natural process of politics.

This process will go on “behind Chinese Walls” in order to exclude Liberal Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are not the same party so naturally they have different policies. This is attempting to make me, and what I advocated, look underhand.

The groups can be bankrolled either with cash sponsorship or by paying for a secretariat. Funders are allowed to “join in the conversation” and “communicate their priorities” in order to influence the outcome.

As bankrolled is not in inverted commas and it is not something I’d say I assume I didn’t say it. Bankrolled is a word used by journalists to make a payment of any kind seem seedy. A policy making process should be a conversation and communicating priorities does not mean they are accepted.

You told the reporters they could even come up with their own idea for a policy group for the party in exchange for funding and suggested Government efficiencies as a good area.

A policy group would have to meet the aims of the Conservative Party only then would it be set up and a secretariat appointed. Government efficiencies are indeed a good idea as we face a massive structural deficit.

You said they could use their influence over such a group to benefit their business strategy by pushing for the sale of the Royal Mail and other assets.

Again I haven’t been quoted here and using the word “pushing” is suggesting something underhand.

Please respond by email with any comments that you wish to make on the above points by 6pm on Friday.

No, thank you. I have responded here on my blog.

Yours sincerely,

Really?

Heidi Blake

I thought your name was Hayley.

Access denied!

UPDATE 1800: The Sunday Times have got in touch to dispute Staite’s version of events.

The Standard got the scoop:

He never liked newspapers anyway. Big test will be whether he survives the BSkyB vote on Tuesday.

And lo it has come to pass as Guido predicted. Back in June (“The Times’ Paywall of Death”) this blog offered a wager that within 12 months no Times political columnist will have more measurable readers online than Guido. We now have authoritative confirmation of the prediction having come true.

According to industry analysts Experian Hitwise their research suggests that approximately 54,000 people access The Times, with as few as 28,000 being paying customers. On Monday this blog served 75,233 pages, the average weekday readership is circa 60,000.

Last week The Times revealed snidely that Guido has paying advertisers. Have a look at The Times front-page online today (you can see it for free) and you will see not one single paying advertisement. It is no longer a commercial proposition. Print advertising is in long term decline, online advertising is growing at some 10% per annum. This blog has been more profitable than Times Online for years, now it also has more readers and more advertisers. Murdoch is making a strategic error on a grand scale…

There is no denying that the Sunday Times Political Editor’s job is much coveted. Since the news that Jonathon Oliver was heading to spin-land, there have been all sorts of rumours flying around of hats in rings and silent campaigns. Names that have come across Guido’s desk include The Guardian’s Nick Watt (denied from the beach) The Times’s Sam Coates, the Standard’s senior and junior, Joe Murphy and Paul Waugh (denied flatly, though Waugh said it was “nice to be thought worthy of such a plum job”) Guido wasn’t expecting any other response…

Word is that current Deputy Political Editor Isabel Oakeshott is digging in and has her heart set on the job. She’s had a successful run of scoops and ghosted former Labour Party General Secretary Peter Watt’s grenade of a book before the election. An insider says she is greatly respected Wapping way….

The wall is up at The Times even if payment isn’t required yet. It started on May 24 and traffic has more than halved in the month since. It will probably halve again and then some when the cash register opens…

I’ll wager Danny Finkelstein, who is overseeing the Wapping paywall project, that within 12 months no Times political columnist will have more measurable readers online than Guido. Lunch at the restaurant of his choice…