New Statesman editor Jason Cowley took to the airwaves today on PoliticsLive to denounce Corbyn and stand by his paper’s decision to endorse no party during the election, encouraging tactical voting favouring female anti-Tory candidates instead. After flirting with Corbynism, the New Statesman is keen to reassert itself as a mainstream publication…

Nowhere is this more clear than in the case of Grace Blakeley – Corbyn outrider, television regular, and until recently the New Statesman’s economics commentator. Blakeley has, in the last few days, been appointed as a staff writer for the far left Tribune magazine instead. She was purged by Cowley…

Earlier this year, before he was demoted following a hatchet job on Roger Scruton, the then joint deputy editor of the New Statesman George Eaton hired Blakeley in a move Guido hears was designed to spite Cowley. Now it seems the tables have turned…

Sir Roger Scruton has now issued his own press statement after the New Statesman finally issued an apology to him yesterday over George Eaton’s hatchet job. However, while Scruton appears to have largely buried the hatchet with the New Statesman, he instead launches a searing broadside at the Conservative Party for the way they threw him under the bus. They didn’t even bother asking for his side of the story before hanging him out to dry…

Scruton say he was “astonished” by the comments issued by 10 Downing Street and “particularly distressed by the behaviour of the Minister who sacked me on the strength of the NS article, without asking me whether it accurately represented anything that I had said” – the minister being James Brokenshire. Scruton even says he is “grateful” to the New Statesman for awakening him to the “true moral crisis of the Party to which, despite everything, I still belong.” Ouch.

Read Scruton’s statement in full:

“I am pleased to have resolved my complaint against the New Statesman. They have apologised for how they misrepresented my interview on Twitter and accepted that their article in some fundamental ways did not accurately reflect what I had said. I am pleased that the words I actually spoke are now available. This experience was very unpleasant, not least on account of the rush to judgment by others in the media and in politics.

“I was particularly distressed by the behaviour of the Minister who sacked me on the strength of the NS article, without asking me whether it accurately represented anything that I had said. I was also astonished by the comments issued from Number Ten Downing Street, and by the fact that the Conservative Party made no collective effort to defend me. I am grateful to the New Statesman at least for this, that these distressing events have awoken me to the true moral crisis of the Party to which, despite everything, I still belong.”

The New Statesman has finally issued an apology to Roger Scruton after George Eaton’s hatchet-job interview which got Scruton fired after wilfully taking a number of his quotes out of context. They admit that his comments about China and Hungary were taken out of context and “acknowledge that the views of Professor Scruton were not accurately represented” in the series of tweets that Eaton subsequently fired out. They say “we apologise for this, and regret any distress that this has caused Sir Roger.”

Of course the “distress” caused to Scruton was losing his job, meanwhile Eaton is back at work, albeit after a demotion to ‘Assistant Editor’. Probably won’t be getting any high profile interviews for some time…

Readers of the New Statesman have found themselves mysteriously short-changed of ‘bombshell interview’ content in the six weeks since George Eaton’s blaze of champagne-fuelled glory over Roger Scruton. Since his article on 12 April defending his interview, Eaton has not had a single byline attached to his name at the magazine. It was reported a month ago that Eaton was taking a “temporary break” to let “stuff die down”. Long time for a “temporary break”…

Eaton was made joint Deputy Editor of the magazine in December last year to make way for Stephen Bush’s promotion to Political Editor. His Twitter bio and New Statesman profile now both display only the lowlier title of Assistant Editor. At least he didn’t lose his job altogether, unlike his interviewee…

The BBC has got its hands on the Scruton Tapes, a recording of the interview that ended his brief Government career. It has become clear that Scruton’s words were massively misrepresented by The New Statesman‘s George Eaton in his search for a scalp. Sections of Scruton’s unedited comments morning were played this morning on the Today Programme with the caveat that “we don’t know whether that recording was stolen or not.” Cut straight to the juicy bits with Guido…

Sir Roger’s China comments and his response to them:

Sir Roger’s Orban comments and his response to them:

Scruton went on in the interview to say that

“I am a conservative thinker, well known as such. Outspoken, but reasonable in my view. There has been throughout this country. and throughout Europe really, an attempt to silence the conservative voice. We get identified, caricatured, demonised, and made to look as though we are some kind of sinister fascist racist kind of people.

And as soon as the Conservative Party sees one of us being demonised in this way they rush to disassociate themselves from us.”

Listen to the full interview as broadcast here…

UPDATE: The Evening Standard is reporting that Eaton is taking a “temporary break” from the New Statesman. “To let stuff die down”…