Starmer and his team touched down in Samoa this morning after flying for a ridiculous 27 hours (not including refuelling stops). Accompanied by the usual gaggle of lobby journalists looking forward to putting out all the same lines about the PM, just from a different location…

Broadcasters and print hacks paid about £4,750 to fly with Keir, or an eye-watering £10,000 if they were lucky enough to score business class. What do they get for their cash?

• Thunder and showers disrupting the official itinerary.
• A short CHOGM event being hijacked by campaigners demanding the UK pay reparations for slavery…while Starmer tries to talk about trade instead.
• Official snubs from Commonwealth leaders, including Modi and Ramaphosa who are at Putin’s BRICS summit in Russia. Hilariously even Trudeau didn’t bother to come, sending his high commissioner to London in his place. The Canadian PM did however send doughnuts when the plane stopped for fuel in Winnipeg, which were promptly eaten by the lobby, a big news moment…

Lobby hacks who stayed home are feeling smug as more interesting news ploughs on in dry London. One says: “You literally couldn’t have paid me to go on this one.” And they’ve got to fly all the way back…

According to Labour sources a new SpAd is about to enter Downing Street – John Stevens, the current Mirror political editor, is leaving the Lobby to spin for the government. Stevens is going to work for Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Labour heavyweight Pat McFadden…

No stranger to a scoop, Stevens will have to fend off his Lobby colleagues from inside government. From memory the last Mirror political editor to make the jump to Downing Street was Bad Al Campbell, the jury is out on how well that went.  Guido has approached Stevens for comment…

UPDATE: Move confirmed.

The dust has settled since Thursday’s election and everyone can now see exposed the sheer bliss of liberal journalists at the new government. Beth “Praise the Supreme Leader” Rigby obviously seizes the award for her breathless high-impact coverage…

Ian Dunt’s usually incisive analysis is that politicians like being in power. Maitlis, meanwhile, is stuck in 2016…

Channel 4′s Krishnan Guru-Murthy has essentially declared that all journalism was terrible under the Tories because hacks were forced to talk about politicians. With the policy-focussed earnestness of a serious, professional Labour Party, journos will have the time to have refreshing fireside chats about policy. Pass the sick jar…

BONUS: Guido couldn’t help adding this extra Rigby stormer:

‘I’ve never seen a Deputy Prime Minister with a phone strap, that signifies to me a new era’ says @BethRigby as @AngelaRayner arrives for the first cabinet meeting at No 10.
#GeneralElection2024 https://t.co/xItZsH7tea

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/4ZVWs6d3n0

— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 6, 2024

Keir’s making Britain serious again, you say?

Media accreditation applications have just opened for Tory conference in October, with the application fee now at £137 per hack just to attend. Last year it was £125, the year before that it was completely free. £137 to drink warm wine and sing karaoke with Thérèse Coffey…

In protest, lobbyists for the big media groups are trying to organise a Press Gallery boycott, having already contacted the editors of large organisations to persuade their hacks against applying for passes. A round robin message within the Lobby was sent out over WhatsApp yesterday:

“Afternoon all – as I mentioned in the main Press Gallery group, the big media lobbying orgs are pushing the Conservatives to remove the application fee for conference passes this year. I’m told they have been in touch with most editors and/or managing editors of large outlets already; but they wished me to convey that it would be helpful to their cause if correspondents could hold off applying for passes for the time being, so that the Tories cannot begin to present the process as a fait accompli.

The first application deadline is not until the end of July so there is little time pressure at this point. It would also be helpful if we could keep the above request between ourselves for now. Thank you”

The Guido team are going to hold off on their applications and see what happens. Guido is not sure how this will play out, given it is a case of a movable object meeting a resistible force….

There was an odd mood in this morning’s No. 10 briefing awaiting Guido, with a much-depleted turnout. A conference call had been set up to allow Lobby correspondents to dial into the briefing, with around 19 choosing to do so. There’s a simple solution to Coronavirus forcing members of the Lobby into self-isolation: televise the briefings…

Entirely uniquely, however, was a pre-briefing talk given by Lee Cain, who formally called for a pause to the fractured relations between the Government and media that have arisen since January. Boris’s Director of Communications told attendees that this is an “unprecedented time” and “a difficult period for us all”, saying that the Government wants to “wipe the slate clean” and it “doesn’t matter who you work for/where you are on the political spectrum, praising the media for their responsible reporting of the virus.

Cain also said further conversations are needed, suggesting that No. 10 may ask a single representative from the Lobby to visit and chat with him and the PM’s spokesman on a semi-regular basis to “talk about how things may be done better, what is working” etc. There were lots of approvingly nodding heads…

Separate to the frank and seemingly friendly chat, Cain also indicated No. 10 are wanting to reduce footfall through the heart of Government to reduce the chance of Coronavirus spreading inside Downing Street. This may also mean the newly-instituted daily Coronavirus briefings see limited attendance from news outlets, with the Government having to look at the press being able to phone in questions. Guido notes the daily press briefings will be detailed, frank and televised – all without the sky falling in…

At tonight’s Women’s Lobby celebration of the centenary of women journalists in parliament there were audible gasps when Caroline Wheeler, the Sunday Times deputy political editor, lamented that there are “more one-eyed male journalists in the Sunday Lobby than there are women”. Stunned ministers and MPs among the two hundred strong crowd looked at their feet. Whilst factually correct, it seemed a bit of a tone-deaf note to strike at the celebration of women. It is hardly inclusive to make a mockery of blameless male hacks’ disability. One onlooker described it as “needlessly crass”.