For the record: 04/05/2009

"Ed Richards at Ofcom, he earns over £400,000 a year," David Cameron’s attack on public sector pay homes in on a former advisor to Tony Blair

Matthew: I'm out?

Watch out Duncan Bannatyne, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden and the rest of the dragons, you may have a new fire-breathing rival. PR supremo Matthew Freud – AKA St Matthew of the Shadows – will be honing his serpentine skills and setting up a new lair this Friday in the unlikely environs of Feltham, west London, where he will be acting out his own version of the BBC hit show Dragons' Den. The setting is the headquarters of Birds Eye (one of Freud's clients) and one of the other dragons is Martin Glenn, the top marketer who now runs Birds Eye. Staff will risk a tongue-lashing from Matthew, to pitch their ideas for new products.

The Fame game

Some of the more sensitive egos in adland are getting in a tizzy over Fame Fight, an online game invented by the Propeller Group PR firm which works out who are the biggest of big shots in the British advertising game by setting up one against another and awarding a cufflinked thumbs up to the victor. So Trevor Beattie (a score of 559) whoops Johnny Hornby (328), while Saatchi's Robert Senior, recently seen on The Apprentice: You're Fired beats McCann's Chris Macdonald, who was on The Apprentice itself, 315 to 104. No one can beat the mighty Sorrell though, with his 2,486 points. Scores are based on coverage on Brand Republic, so expect ad people to become even more desperate for publicity, especially if the game becomes an app on the iPhone.

Tories teed-off

Never mind swine flu and economic meltdown, Tory comms chief Andy Coulson was relaxed enough last week to be leading a team of Tories, including Tim Yeo MP, in a computer-generated Urban Golf tournament, only to get thrashed by a crew of media types that included GQ editor Dylan Jones, News International lawyer Tom Crone, James Weatherup of the News of the World and Gareth Morgan, editor of the Daily Star Sunday.