Guto’s Revenge

Look out for Mr Steerpike in this week’s Spectator magazine, but here’s a
taster of what’s coming up:

‘Lynton Crosby’s swear-box is filling up. The Aussie strategist may have guided Boris to victory in this year’s mayoral contest, but he managed to alienate many of BoJo’s inner circle in the process. One former Boris aide leaked a rumour that Crosby had made disparaging asides about ‘f***ing Muslim voters’ in London. Instant retaliation followed when a Crosby crony let slip that the Australian guru regarded all Boris’s aides as ‘f***wits.’ These dark whispers are extremely unwelcome to Crosby. He hates ‘process stories’ which shift attention away from clear political messages and onto managerial snarl-ups. Yet his possible recruitment by the Tories has become the noisiest ‘process story’ in Westminster. One of his pals tells me the Wizard of Oz is ‘becoming furious’ about all this. Another offers a different version. ‘Crosby is already completely f***ing furious about it.’

‘Guto Harri, one of those Boris advisors that Crosby rated so highly, just moved to an influential post at News International.