Spygun Snapshots for 25 April, 2012

2:43 pm In case you didn't know, today's economic figures confirm that the United Kingdom is in the first double-dip recession since the 1970s. Unfortunately, it looks as if  the economy is once again being screwed by political ideology.

2:28 pm FTSE up a bit today. Must be all that excellent economic news we've been hearing !!

2:18 pm Great piece by Ben Dowell re Rupert Murdoch  at the Leveson inquiry :  http://gu.com/p/375gt/tw

2:09 pm Leveson Inquiry: Rupert Murdoch says that  Gordon Brown was "unbalanced". It was over the small matter of Murdoch telling Brown that the Sun (a newspaper) had declared "war" on the Labour Party. Apparently, Brown had said that he would return the compliment. That does not say "unbalanced"! It says "prat".

2:01 pm All that Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has achieved today is bought himself some time, ahead of his gig at the Leveson inquiry. He may be reshuffled out before the Olympics.

1:52 pm When will this Cabinet learn that you cannot sub-contract accountability? Culture Secretary Jeremy "Mike" Hunt is the latest in a long line of Cabinet Ministers who appear to think that they can merely say "He did it without my authority" and walk away unscathed.

1:39 pm Dennis Skinner was right when referring to Jeremy Hunt. "When posh boys are in trouble, they sack the servants."

1:33 pm Conservative MP Louise Mensch says it is "a mark of Jeremy Hunt's character" that he defended his special adviser Adam Smith in the Commons. Er...no it wasn't. It was a transparent deflection. It was  very easy for Hunt to appear magnanimous AFTER his SPAD has fallen on his sword in order to save the Culture Secretary's career.