In progressive circles the Mail is a dirty word. The likes of Mehdi Hasan describe the work of what he calls “the right-wing, Tory press” as “bilious and poisonous”. His NewStatesman advises progressive readers “Don’t click on the Daily Mail!“ warning there is “None deadlier than the Mail“, going so far as supporting a protest against the Daily Mail to ‘stop the lies’. His former Staggers colleague James Macintyre decried “Mail smears”.

Macintyre was sacked from the Staggers but has been re-united with Mehdi to work together on producing their biography of Ed Miliband, cunningly titled “Ed“. (Spoiler alert: born to intellectual socialists, sits at Wedgie Benn’s feet as a boy in North London, goes to Oxford, SpAds for Brown, goes to Harvard, becomes MP, has two kids, stabs brother in back to become Labour leader, gets married, fails and is ousted.) Guido had heard rumours that the manuscript was sent back by the publishers for being too much of a puff-piece, now he is hearing rumours of anxiety in the Miliband camp that the usually reliable pair have revealed a few warts. Anxieties heightened when Miliband learnt that the progressive pair sold the serialisation rights to the biography to be seen this Sunday. Sold to the Mail, for a sum not unadjacent to 30,000 pieces of silver…

UPDATE:
http://twitter.com/#!/GuidoFawkes/status/79242982812946432