Moot: Should Real Journalists Behave Like Boy Bloggers?

Suggesting that he has a mole at the highest levels in The Mail, one that he's like to see sacked given as so many clues have been scattered, Iain Dale questions editorial decisions made by proper journalists on where PMQs should be ranked on the news agenda as Wednesday progressed and Thursday came.

Presumably he thinks it should still be at the top even now? I disagree and I can see why proper journalists at even right wing papers are of the same mind.

The Mail and Telegraph do not want to over-state some horrendous Punch and Judy yahhing and booing from the man who said he'd consigned that to history.

They had already covered the goings on over the election decision for some four days of certainty. These following a further few days where it was more or less the expected outcome. A week of it all told.

Covering the PMQ reflection of those goings on at any length is not particularly proportionate. Shadows of shadows on the cave wall of disembodied unreality.

And Paul Dacre is right. If The Mail - already seen as hugely and risibly right wing - tries to out-Guido Mr GuF and out-Dale Mr Dale on Brown- bashing they might as well give up and go home. They're better than that. Just about!

By not going down the route of media on media and front page headlines for something that happened almost 18 hours before most readers' outraged daily choke over their cornflakes they are of course doing the right thing.

Also incidentally doing Cameron a favour. This was not actually his finest hour. This session of pantomime PMQs will I think come to be remembered as rather more like the odious Harry Paget Flashman giving young Tom Brown a roasting than as bravura heroism to treasure.

Dave-id Cameron and other Tory Boy Bloggers - particularly any who praised or re-published - should re-read Mr Blaney's thoughtful contribution and reconsider their approach. Rule 2: Don't Be Arsey; Rule 3: Don't Underestimate Brown.