Every time Labour raises the issue of Andy Coulson during a debate on phone hacking, someone from the Tory benches (usually Graham Stuart, for some reason) gets up to ask about his press chief, Tom Baldwin, the former Times journalist.
Baldwin has been attacked by the prominent Tory funder Lord Ashcroft for an investigation he carried out into Ashcroft’s finances, and been accused of illegally accessing his bank details.
Labour have pointed out that no wrongdoing has ever been found, and that his investigation was more clearly in the public interest than hacking into phones of celebrities and missing children. But to no avail – the questions about Baldwin persist.
Now Ed Miliband appears to have killed it, with one line: “Tom Baldwin’s line manager at the time was the current education secretary.”
Now any time a Tory MP wants to raise the issue, they may end up finding themselves discussing Michael Gove instead.
Cameron’s response? There was little more he could do than laugh along.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey