Hats off to you, Tom.

Guido’s Senior Reporter, Adam Cherry, donned the famous chicken suit to crack a few gags alongside Tom Harwood on GB News last night. It makes for egg-celent viewing.

A fired-up Tom Harwood tilted at Britain’s failure to develop energy infrastructure on Question Time last night. The newly-appointed GB News Deputy Political-Editor – congratulations by the way – tilted at the “plague on all your houses” political failure to build electricity infrastructure. On each means of power generation, from nuclear and new oil, to fracking and solar, Tom generated examples of the anti-growth attitudes of all major political parties. He went on:

“I don’t think there’s a single form of energy production in this country that a politician, or across the board politicians, have supported. We live in a country now where every single politician, every single political party, from each direction, find reasons to say no. To stop development. To stop growth. To stop our own home-grown energy. Frankly, I don’t care if it’s shale gas, if it’s fracking, if it’s wind, if it’s solar, if it’s nuclear, if it’s oil, if it’s gas. I don’t care, just build it!”

Speaking truth to power.

The currently invisible on the channel Darren McCaffrey’s impending departure from GB News means the plum political editor’s job is up for grabs. Speculation is already rife over who will take over the leading role at the UK’s second-biggest dedicated news channel…

• Christopher Hope – Currently Associate Editor (Politics) at The Telegraph. A stalwart of the Lobby and podcaster extraordinaire, surely useful given GB News’ ambitions for their radio station. Chopper’s name is already doing the rounds in the GB Newsroom and would give the insurgent station a big boost. Has notably increased his appearances on the channel recently, even standing in for Andrew Doyle and presenting a full show.
• Tom Harwood – Political correspondent at GB News. Has been at the channel since its launch, has impeccable contacts, knows a story and has concerning levels of energy that would come in handy during the next general election. Might have to sacrifice his love of delivering early morning free market polemics on wonk issues to make time for more mainstream content, though. Shame.
• Camilla Tominey –  Another Telegraph bigwig, currently serving as their Associate Editor and columnist. Has presented the GB News Sunday morning offering for nearly a month now, and in Guido’s opinion is already on a par with Sophy Ridge and Laura Kuenssberg in terms of interview quality.
• Angus Walker – Former ITN political correspondent and Gavin Williamson SpAd. Good broadcaster and Tory-adjacent.
• Gloria de Piero – Former Labour MP with relatively sound Red Wall credentials. Her appointment would surely be a sign the channel is laying the ground for a prolonged period of Labour government. She has a long history of broadcasting, including the BBC and seven years at GMTV, during which time she was the political editor. Has already produced a series of very good interviews with top-level politicians for the channel.
• Kate McCann – Political editor at TalkTV. A very similar job opportunity to the one she’s currently doing, albeit with a guaranteed higher viewership.
• Dehenna Davison MP – Currently Tory MP for Bishop Auckland, though she took SW1 by surprise when announcing she’d be standing down at the next election. Has already presented a show on the channel, and has proved she’s more than willing to be a thorn in the side of the Tory government.
• Matt Chorley – The top choice for all those TimesRadio listeners who feel continually disappointed they only get to hear his lilting tones rather than see the face they’re coming from. Could even appear on the channel’s humorous paper review show to nick some jokes for his next ‘stand up’ tour.

Good luck…

Tom’s right, the only real solution to the housing crisis is to build more houses – “build back better” needs to be more than just a slogan. The rest is just tinkering around the edges…