Bibles commissioned by Michael Gove and distributed to every state school in the country have a direct reference to him on the spine, Political Scrapbook can exclusively reveal. In an act of breathtaking hubris, the tomes bear the prominent wording “Presented by the Secretary of State for Education”.

The year head of a state-funded Christian high school told this blog:

“We all had a good laugh when it arrived. The only person referenced on the spine of a King James Bible should be King James I.”

Having been informed that the use of public funds for his vanity project was unacceptable, the 400th anniversary King James Bibles were finally freed from their warehouse imprisonment at a cost of £370,000 by numerous Tory donors — including sponsorship from, erm, CarpetRight magnate Lord Harris.

While the web page to which Gove directs educators in a covering letter contains none of the promised classroom materials, teachers have been left scratching their heads as to the educational value of the initiative, with one telling the Guardian:

“I work in an inner-city primary school and there’s no way that our children are going to be reading and understanding the kind of English this Bible is written in.”

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18.

A cabinet minister has been banned from using an office microwave to heat his dog’s cushion — after disgusted staff complained over food hygiene fears. Climate change minister Greg Barker was using the device to spoil his pet dachshund Otto.

Back in March, Political Scrapbook revealed that Barker had carried Otto into a meeting on a cushion to the astonishment of senior executives from power companies. But his willingness to pamper the dog has reached hitherto unknown lengths.

An anonymous civil servant told the Mirror:

“When he first arrived we had to watch our step as the dog wandered around the office, but we put up with that. But when he started using our microwave to keep the dog nice and snug with a heated cushion, it proved he thinks more of the dog than us.”

The dog — who has also been known to defecate on DECC carpets — has now been confined to Barker’s office.

In what is a contender for the most cringeworthy video ever produced by Whitehall, the Department for Transport has released a video in which cabinet ministers implore Londoners to get up earlier in the morning and avoid using the tube and buses during the Olympics. This unwelcome advice is euphemistically referred to as “remoding”.

Scrapbook wonders whether transport secretary Justine Greening could sound less convincing:

“I’m remoding at the moment and having a good old walk up to Cabinet. It does me a lot of good.”

Meanwhile, Francis Maude is preserving his hoard of petrol by cycling to work. The clearly out of breath cabinet secretary said:

“Actually it’s great, you feel great afterwards — a bit puffed, but it gets the circulation going!”

With the department’s flagship HS2 project remoded out of the Queen’s Speech, DfT ministers evidently have plenty of free time on their hands.

Just one day after Boris Johnson’s re-election as Mayor of London and the Tories’ drubbing at the local elections – and while the rest of the country was preoccupied — Hague was addressing a 5,000-strong rally against the closure of the maternity unit at Friarage Hospital.

Bill Fizz reassured the protesters:

“I share the deep concern that many residents have over the proposed changes at the Friarage.”

But in his role as Cabinet Minister, Hague said that making £4.5bn of “administrative savings” by 2015 would allow the NHS to “run more efficiently”.

Even Hague doesn’t seem to know where he stands on the NHS.

Vodafone’s top lawyer in India has quit after being tangled up in a four-year long tax avoidance scandal. The row has seen the Indian government bullied by its biggest foreign corporate investor — but officials are not giving up on extracting $2.6bn from the company.

Executive Andre Jerome led Vodafone’s defence against the Indian government, which imposed a $2.6bn tax bill on them for the takeover of Indian mobile interests from Hong-Kong based Hutchison Whampoa in 2007. Having lost a case in the Supreme Court, officials are looking to introduce retroactive legislation to recoup the cash.

The dogged determination of Indian authorities stands in marked contrast to Britain’s HMRC, who let Vodafone off tax bills of up to £7bn after senior civil servants — such as permanent secretary Dave Hartnett — were lunched to within an inch of their lives.

On tax enforcement, Britain could learn a lot from its former colony.

Scrapbook was amused to discover that the All-Parliamentary Media Group are operating under the delusion that one Jeremy Hunt will be speaking at their annual reception on 25 June. Events at the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon have heaped yet more doubt on whether the culture secretary will have a job by that point.

After protestations led by Harriet Harman yesterday, Leveson announced that he would not adjudicate on whether Hunt had misled Parliament over his handling of the BSkyB bid – leaving MPs free to pile on the pressure in SW1A.

And in even worse news, it has emerged that his former special adviser – on whom Hunt and the government have attempted to lay the blame – will be called to testify. This will be under oath.

Unsurprisingly, Jeremy’s odds with the bookies don’t look great.

CCHQ: There's a Eurozone recession on!

Eurostat: Oh no, there isn't!

With statistics from Europe’s official economics agency Eurostat clearly showing first quarter growth was 0.0% within the Eurozone and 0.1% within the EU27. The series of blunders is now threatening to erode their economic credibility.

Last Thursday the head of an economic think tank demanded that Tory HQ issue a retraction after attempts to use figures from NISER to deny a double-dip recession – by pretending it was the wrong month!

@RicHolden Please retweet correction with links: notthetreasuryview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/recess… & niesr.ac.uk/pdf/100512_122…

— Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) May 10, 2012

No wonder their head press officer is quitting.

Rebekah Brooks, her husband Charlie and four people close to them will be charged with perverting the course of justice. The move comes after police uncovered an alleged cover up following the former News International executive’s original arrest.

A laptop and an iPad found were found dumped in a bin underneath the Brooks’ luxury apartment on 18 July last year – the day after Mrs Brooks was first detained over hacking allegations.

Police have the CCTV from the scene at which they were disposed.

• Concealing materials from the Metropolitan Police.
• Permanently removing 7 boxes of material from News International.
• Concealing computers and other documents from the Metropolitan Police.

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Tory MP Craig Whittaker has come out against same sex marriage. Along with his statements that equality will lead to polygamy, three-way marriages and “who knows what else”, he says:

“Marriage has a unique place in our society. It is a bedrock institution and the most stable environment for raising children. Redefining marriage would make marriage adult-centred rather than child-centred.”

Scrapbook finds it somewhat ironic that Craig Whittaker is telling people about the best way to raise children – considering he was arrested for allegedly assaulting his own son on boxing day.

With the son concerned subsequently emigrating to, erm, Australia, the Calder Valley MP continued to dig a hole with this hilarious complaint about the Halifax Evening Courrier:

Mr Craig Whittaker MP complained to the Press Complaints Commission that the newspaper had published a misleading article. The article reported that his son was moving to Australia after Mr Whittaker had allegedly assaulted him. However, it had failed to make clear that his son had been planning to emigrate prior to the alleged assault. The complainant considered that readers would be misled into understanding his son’s move was connected to the alleged incident.

Readers should keep an eye out for Whittaker — he drives around in a car with his own face printed on the side.

John Bercow has effectively skewered Jeremy Hunt’s weak delaying tactics over his BSkyB bid fiasco — in which he has attempted to use the Leveson Inquiry as a ruse to dodge awkward questions from MPs.

Harriet Harman raised the following point of order in the Commons moments ago:

“it is in order for the Secretary of State to say that he won’t answer questions from Honourable Members because he’s going to tell Leveson”

“whether  it is in order for the Secretary of State to say he won’t place documents in the Library because he’s giving them to Leveson.”

The Speaker has spoken: Jeremy Hunt is accountable to Parliament and not Leveson.

Well he’s got my backing to explain himself at the Leveson inquiry. I think what everybody wants is to get to the truth. Now you can have an endless debate about whether you do it at the Leveson inquiry or through a different inquiry or a different inquisition. He has said he wants to say his piece there, let him do that, if there are any outstanding questions after that that can then be dealt with.

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