Recession and oligarchs

The Deripaksa story rumbles on in the papers today but Osborne will be relieved to see that he appears to be out of the woods now. The Guardian reveals that Mandelson and Deripaksa met in October 2004, a meeting which his Brussels staff appear to have been unaware of. Meanwhile, The Independent reports that David Cameron took free flights to go and see Rupert Murdoch aboard his yacht. 

In other news, official figures out later this morning are expected to show the first quarter of negative growth since 1992.  One imagines that the public are not overly impressed by tales of politicians spending their times on super yachts with Russian oligarchs when the economy is actually shrinking. This has not been a good week for the reputation of politics.