With text messages now released, the following communication from Jeremy Hunt to a NewsCorp lobbyist threatens to skewer the culture secretary:

Fred Michel: “You were great at commons today”.

Hunt: “Merci, large drink tonight”

We can also see that Fred Michel refers to NewsCorp and the Jeremy Hunt office collectively as “we”. Adam Smith agrees that they are “in a good place”.

FM: “Today went well Look at the coalition campaign’s statement: so weak!”

FM: “I think we re in a good place tonight no?”

Adam Smith: “I agree. Coverage looks ok. Let’s look again in the morning though!”

Adam Smith advises NewsCorp not to mention certain documents to the Office of Fair Trading:

FM: “Are you able to send me the Enders and Slaughter docs? Wd help me prepare for the public debate. Enjoy golf”

AS: “I haven’t actually got them at the moment. Officials just told me about them. Don’t mention them to anyone like oft etc. if we need them rll show you.”

How much longer can Hunt cling on?

With former News Corporation lobbyist Fred Michel on the stand at Leveson Inquiry, evidence reveals more than 1,000 text messages between Michel, Jeremy Hunt and his office. The exchanges comprise around 800 texts from Michel and 257 from Smith.

With Robert Jay QC calmly stalking his evasive witness, here is what we have learned:

• Hunt told Michel to liaise through “official channels” — after which Adam Smith handled communication
• Michel admits that Jeremy Hunt supported the bid for BSkyB
• NewsCorp briefed Hunt’s office with “helpful arguments”
• Smith was using a personal email account for government business

Smith is in the room watching proceedings in person.

Looks like it might be time for that Plan B, eh George?

Companies bidding for police privatisation contracts in the West Midlands and Surrey have been beset by allegations of tax avoidance, reckless safety breaches and human rights abuses. A new report by investigative journalist David Hencke lifts the lid on the corporations who want to run our crime investigation, forensics, 999 call handling and custody services.

• One bidder, Blue Star, has absolutely no experience of police work.
• G4S has 700 complaints against it over treatment of detainees and lost one contract for after the death of an Angolan deportee while being restrained.
• Reliance, owned by Eurosceptic Tory donor Brian Kingham, already holds a contract for the sexual examination of rape victims for Northumbria police.

Perhaps the most controversial candidate, however, is KBR, linked to former US vice president Dick Cheney. Looking to cut costs at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the company exposed workers to fumes from burning toxic rubbish in open pits. KBR was slapped with a series of class action lawsuits accusing the company of causing “symptoms ranging from respiratory problems to lymphoma and leukemia”.

Back in the US, meanwhile, the company avoided hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by employing its workers through a series of shell companies based in, err, the Cayman Islands.

The likes of KBR care more about the bottom line than the thin blue line.

A United States congressman fighting for re-election has been caught photoshopping his Jewish mother out of a picture on leaflets going to non-Jewish voters. Voters with Jewish surnames in California’s 27th congressional district would receive a leaflet with Brad Sherman’s smiling mother — but others received a version in which she had been digitally removed.

The cynical gaffe recalls an incident in 2007 in which the culture secretary James Purnell was (badly) edited into a photo call. Purnell turned up too late for the photoshoot outside Thameside hospital — so agreed to, erm, pose for a snap which would be merged with the original.

If only government ministers could be airbrushed away so easily.

At the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon, Jeremy Paxman described a lunch in 2002 at which Piers Morgan affected to recite hacked voicemail messages. Adopting a fake Swedish accent, Morgan addressed Ulrika Jonsson while supposedly quoting from her then lover Sven Goran Eriksson.

Morgan then went on to describe phone hacking to Paxman:

“It was clearly something he was familiar with.”

When Morgan was quizzed by Robert Jay about the lunch in question, when he appeared before the inquiry, he claimed not to remember the incidents.

“Q.  Did you listen to Ulrika Johnson’s voicemail messages in relation to Sven Goran Eriksson?”

“A.  No, I did not.”

“Q.  Do you recall a lunch at the Daily Mirror on 20 September 2002 when you advised Ulrika Johnson to change her PIN number and you started mimicking her Swedish accent?”

“A. No, I don’t remember the specifics.  I think I remember her coming to a lunch.”

“Q. Might you have advised her to change her PIN number?”

“A. I don’t recall anything like that.”

His treatment of Jonsson was described as “close to bullying”.

David Cameron was reprimanded by the Speaker during PMQs this afternoon — after calling Ed Balls a “muttering idiot”.

“… using our hard-won credibility, which we wouldn’t have if we listened to the muttering idiot sitting opposite me.”

Marking the return of his Flashman tendency, opprobrium heaped on Cameron has been greater as Ed Balls suffers from a stammer.

Naturally, the Chancellor led the boorish cries of “More, more!”

A report calling for slashed public services and massive tax cuts is funded by a charity thought to be receiving Gift Aid rebates from the taxpayer. The report from the TaxPayers’ Alliance and Institute of Directors — which claimed opponents of tax cuts suffered from “sexual jealousy” — received financial backing from the controversial Politics and Economics Research Trust (PERT):

“Financial support for the 2020 Tax Commission was provided by the Politics and  Economics Research Trust (charity number 1121849).”

Last year, we revealed that PERT had channelled 100% of its £325,000 funding into the TaxPayers’ Alliance, despite Charity Commission rules on political campaigning. The organisation have stonewalled Scrapbook’s queries on their use of Gift Aid — a charity vehicle the size of PERT would be able to claim tens of thousands of pounds from the taxpayer.

The direct link between PERT and the Commission report represents a step change from the dry “research notes” previously funded by the body. Whereas the notes would later be weaponised for campaigning by the TPA, the report and its attendant spin represents a direct link between the charity and political lobbying.

The Tax-Funded Alliance?

A government contractor sent a jobseeker to work in a lapdancing club, it has been revealed. Controversial workfare firm A4e, who trouser £200m of taxpayers’ money from workfare schemes, sent an unemployed man to work at X in the City in Liverpool.

Given their inclination for scandal — the firm has been hit with yet more allegations of fraud – Scrapbook is surprised to hear that staff spurned the opportunity to visit the club. Internal documents stated:

“It was not possible to conduct a visit to ‘X In The City’ to verify the documents for [name redacted]. This employer is a lap-dance bar and was not open during the hours of the audit.”

No doubt the firm wish more of their placements are at unauditable lapdancing clubs — given that one quarter of them are either fraudulent or could not be verified.

The club hit the headlines after Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli was pictured leaving the venue at 2:45am on the day of a Premier League fixture.

This certainly an original way to inventiveness completion of a placement.

Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude has landed the role of recruiting PR and advertising consultants for the coalition government – just months after his helpful advice led to a woman suffering 40% burns. 

Addressing a PR conference in London yesterday, Maude announced:

‘Suppliers should know that this Government is on the hunt for the best talent and the most innovative ideas, albeit keenly priced. I challenged my civil servants to come up with innovations that will make it easier for industry to do business with us; now we’ll be looking to industry to come forward with innovative ideas for us.’

Let’s hope he starts listening to some of their advice before he goes on air next time…