The news broke yesterday that Lord Glasman had agreed to take up a political column on Rupert Murdoch’s new Sun on Sunday newspaper, along with Toby Young.

It was a curious decision for the Labour peer given how hard Miliband has attacked Murdoch over phone hacking.

The move appeared to cement the idea that Glasman had fallen out of the Labour leader’s inner circle after making some critical comments in a New Statesman article a few weeks ago. The perception in the Westminster village was that he had been hired to write insider-ey critical pieces about Miliband.

Now I can reveal that Glasman has turned down the column after all, after some private words with Miliband; perhaps they are still friends after all.

He has certainly given up a lot to stay in the Labour tent: I’m told he was set to receive over £1,000 per column.

UPDATE: News International sources insist that it was only going to be a trial article – although this could have led to more in the future.

Liam Fox has been making waves this morning with this opinion piece in the Financial Times. Here is our news story off the back of it.

The intervention has been carefully timed by Fox, still in rehabilitation mode after he was forced to quit the cabinet over the Werritty saga before Christmas.

The MP is still a standard-bearer for the Tory right, in particular those who believe fervently in free markets. In his article he calls for a cut in National Insurance for employers and also for a loosening of the labour market to allow easier hiring and firing – as recommended in the controversial Beecroft report.

Many other Tory MPs share his view that the Budget needs to be a

We revealed this morning in the FT that Treasury officials believe that as many as 100 civil servants may have been paid through private companies rather than individuals – far more than had previously been thought.

That marks a major widening from the 25 at the Department of Health exposed in the Guardian yesterday. The health department admitted that many of the staff paid in this way were full-time employees and had worked in the department for years.

Departments have sought to argue that nothing inappropriate has occurred and that it is legitimate to hire people who classify themselves as companies or partnerships.

You might wonder why this is allowed to happen and why there is no rule preventing it already.

The answer is that there is: It’s called IR35, which was introduced in 2000. It was set up to prevent people using such devices to avoid PAYE or National Insurance.

John Whiting, a leading tax expert, tells me that the HMRC should establish whether any of the individuals fell under IR35.

Mr Whiting, a director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said it was “terribly difficult” to establish if someone was using a company with the purpose of avoiding PAYE and National Insurance. But there are some clear guidelines.

“It doesn’t apply to someone doing a day here and a day there and working for several clients,” he said. “But where you have someone working half time for one orgniasation and for say six months, or a couple of years, they’re bang to rights.”

The Treasury only sent out its detailed guidance to departments last week and won’t produce a report until late March.

However, HM Revenue & Customs will be working closely with the Treasury on the issue, it told us.

“All sorts of people work through service companies for all sorts of reasons,” an HMRC spokesman said. “But where the arrangement is really only a way of avoiding PAYE tax and National Insurance, then the law says the service company must pay the PAYE and National Insurance to us on behalf of the individual at the end of the year. We police the application of that law and we are currently increasing the number of people focussed on compliance work making sure the tax rules apply as they should.”