Nobody’s House Journal

Some time ago, Alastair Campbell and his pals at Team Blair were disabused of any thought that the Guardian might give them an easy ride (and Big Al is not happy with the meeja in general right now), so you might think that the lesson would not need re-learning.

But the re-learning is happening over at Tory Party HQ, with Saturday’s Guardian being a superb example of independent spirit: on the front page there is a less than helpful article suggesting that the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, “mis-summed” in his calculations. And it’s not a minor error: this one is to do with the raising of the pension age. And it’s three billion quid.

Then, in the Observer today, Toby Helm (who’s getting good at this kind of thing) has given the Tories both barrels on the Michal Kaminsky business. Helm has also co-authored another Observer piece, this one on the more general subject of the Tories’ alliances in the European Parliament.

The conclusion to be drawn is straightforward: anyone who thinks that the Guardian is a puppet of one or other political party is not dealing from a full deck.