The war of words between Emily Thornberry and Liz Truss has stepped up a notch today after Guido reported that the Shadow Trade Secretary had complained about letters making their way to the pixels of Guido. Thornberry is escalating her charge that Truss’s advisers helped draft the Department’s original reply to a complaint over declaration of meetings, and allegedly brief this website about it. Guido never reveals his sources.

Thornberry originally wrote to Truss (briefed by Labour to Reuters) over misclassifying meetings with a think tank. Truss replied asking why Labour has not published any transparency information on its meetings with senior media executives since May 2016, as it promised to do. Things escalated when Thornberry seised upon one of Truss’s “special adviser’s involvement in drafting the letter”…

Complaining to Truss about the letter ending up on Guido, Thornberry claimed that this may have breached the Special Advisers’ Code – a charge DIT firmly rejects. One Whitehall SpAd source tells Guido ”Of course, she’s never been a Government minister which may explain why she doesn’t understand these details”...

After yesterday’s retort from Truss championing a free press, Thornberry is taking things further. The Shadow Secretary claims she “had “no issue” with that happening, assuming that – as per the letter sent to me – no official resources had been used in the process.” Yet as a result of yesterday’s letter, Thornberry has told Truss that “something I was happy to see dealt with in a confidential and low-key manner will instead have to be escalated into a formal complaint to the Cabinet Office.”

Guido is looking forward to Trade Questions, when Truss and Thornberry will go at each other in real life not just on the pixels of this website. Read Thornberry’s letter here: