Guido Fawked - Telegraph Meet Fail

Whichever parts of the Fourth Estate the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog are doing business with right now, the troubled Telegraph titles do not appear to be one of them. “PM Met Three Top Telegraph Men In Three Months” trumpeted the Fawkes folks this afternoon, after revealing that Jason Seiken, Chris Evans and Aidan Barclay had all met Young Dave during the first three months of 2014.

Fart in lift Inquiry suffers data leak

This is accompanied by a routinely crude graphic proclaiming “Daily Torygraph”. Gosh, how very original. The inference is clear: the Tel and the Tory Party, long believed to have a relationship in which the two are effectively joined at the hip, are still thus connected. But here a problem enters: the information on the PM’s “Meetings With External Organisations” is available to anyone to view.

And this reveals that the Telegraph executives were far from the only newspaper representatives to see Cameron last year. Indeed, unlike Seiken and Evans, who had to share their meeting, the Sun’s David Dinsmore and Times editor John Witherow both enjoyed one-on-one meetings - these happening during February. But, strangely, no word from the Fawkes rabble, who have a column in the Murdoch Sun on Sunday.

A little delve into the previous year shows more one-on-one meetings which the Fawkes folks have not seen fit to highlight: for instance, in October 2013, both Geordie Greig, editor of the Mail On Sunday, and Richard “Dirty” Desmond, were hosted by the PM. Before the Sun, the Fawkes crowd had a column in Des’ Daily Star Sunday. And crossing anyone at Northcliffe House might not best please Paul Dacre.

And, speaking of the Vagina Monologue, he had a one-on-one with Young Dave in September - as did, once again, David Dinsmore of the Sun and John Witherow of the Times. Dinsmore was particularly fortunate in his access to the PM - but then, Dave does supposedly look at the Sun first of a morning - as he had another exclusive chat in July. Three Telegraph men in three months? How about three Murdoch meets?

To give the Fawkes rabble their due, if you go back to the second quarter of 2013, there are two more one-on-one meetings involving the Telegraph: Aidan Barclay (again) and Tony Gallagher, apparently his last such before being sacked for being, well, we might never find that one out. But during the same period, one of those meetings was also granted to John Witherow of the Times.

And another thus favoured was Dominic Mohan, Dinsmore’s predecessor at the Sun. What does this prove? That right leaning newspapers get access to a right leaning Prime Minister. What it shows about the Fawkes crowd is they don’t appear to have an entrée down the road at the Tel’s Victoria HQ. But why would they want to go anywhere near the place, given the impression that it’s a sinking ship increasingly devoid of rats?

Oh, and try a more thorough data analysis in future, lads. Another fine mess.