There was some consternation and amusement when word went round Guardian towers that Ben Riley-Smith, The Telegraph’s political editor for the last year, had applied for the vacant political editor’s position at The Guardian. Audacious and unprecedented…

It is a tribute to the unhappiness at Telegraph towers that a senior hack would apply for a job transfer to their polar opposite rivals. Asking around colleagues as to whether he would fit in with the somewhat different editorial stance, the memorable line quipped to Guido was that Ben is an “Etonian shapeshifter” who would more than cope. The Guardian could certainly benefit from some journalistic political insight with more Eton-influenced sympathies…

A senior source said the “Telegraph is a horrible place and you’re always on death row” under editor Chris Evans’ reign of terror. A more junior source citing Riley-Smith’s “byline banditry” says he won’t be mourned if he moved. Guido wishes him luck…