All the gossip from the Westminster Village

Watch out Rupert Murdoch, take note Lord Rothermere - there's a new media mogul in town. Lord Ashcroft of Belize, Tory bogeyman, is secretly bankrolling the new monthly freebie Total Politics, to be launched by the Con blogger and master of self-publicity Iain Dale. Your correspondent discovered Dale squatting in Ashcroft's 7 Cowley Street basement lair when I paid an uninvited call to the Westminster block. Dale insisted the company was his, with Ashcroft a wealthy investor who'll play no editorial role. Yet I suspect the involvement of the moneybags right-winger, whose tax status remains an international mystery, will hinder Dale's attempt to present Total Ashcroft as "politically neutral".

Another name emerges to be added to the already lengthy list of those who rejected the Great Helmsman's overtures to run the Labour Party. The Green Queen, Baroness Young of Old Scone, I hear, was fancied by Uncle Gordie but wisely declined. As predicted, David Pitt-Watson, a City slicker fondly nicknamed Pitt-Pony by Geordie MPs, was selected to fill the cursed post of general secretary. My snout thought "Sticky Micky" Griffiths, a Unite official, made the better presentation to the party's NEC but, as customary, the votes were stitched up in advance.

Evidence surfaces that Druggie Dave's bit of rough, the ex-Screws of the World hack Andy Coulson, is losing his grip on reality. The Essex boy has taken to collaring incredulous scribblers and declaring that Cameron, a plummy-voiced Old Etonian, a direct descendant of King William IV and distant relative of the Queen, is neither posh nor a toff. Of course he's not, Andy. Coulson will soon be spinning we got that Bullingdon Club picture wrong, as tailcoated Cameron was off to his part-time job as a waiter instead of going Hooray Henrying in Oxford.

Spied hobbling in a Westminster charity stumble was the foot-in-mouth minister, Digby Jones. Comrade Moans staggered over the finishing line and then, observed my snout, jumped into a ministerial car waiting to whisk him a few hundred yards to the office. The ex-CBI fat cat clearly learned to run before he could walk.

The Labour lefty Ronnie Campbell has opened a Northern Rock account to celebrate nationalisation, his grandkids writing "The People Bank" on the passbook's front. I sneaked a peek inside when Campbell proudly flourished it, the former miner's reputation as a bruiser preventing me reporting how much he's deposited. He isn't, however, short of a few bob.

Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website