Village People: Flipping journalists

As David Cameron's new director of communications, Craig Oliver, above, says goodbye to his years at the BBC, it seems the right moment to recall a striking piece of political journalism in which he played a central part. It was a 10 O'Clock News report about David Cameron's politics – how one minute he was a touchy feely Tory preaching understanding for hoodies, and the next he was a tough law and order man.

The report was accompanied by smart graphics in the form of one of those children's flip books in which cartoon characters are made up of a head, a torso and legs that can be interchanged by flipping the pages. It was entertaining journalism, but not very balanced, and provoked an angry reaction from many Tories.

The man who came up with the idea was Craig Oliver. The offence must have been forgotten, or forgiven, when he was invited to join Mr Cameron's entourage.

War correspondence

Mr Oliver has entered a notorious bear pit where ambitious people are only too ready to tear one another apart, but will it be much worse than the organisation he left behind? A copy of an e-mail has dropped into my inbox, sent from London by Frank Gardner, the BBC's Security Correspondent, to everyone in the newsroom, and aimed particularly at four named correspondents who are in Egypt covering events as they unfold.

"The troops on the streets in sand-coloured vehicles and desert cam uniforms are Army, quite separate from the riot police," Gardner wrote. "The riot police in black are Central Security Force, reporting to the Interior Ministry. So far we have not seen tanks on the streets (armour plating, big gun, caterpillar tracks), only armoured vehicles."

Or in other words: "I know what I'm talking about. Pity the same can't be said of you lot."

Slow leak

The rupture in relations between The Guardian and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has created an opportunity eagerly seized by the Daily Telegraph, which has been running Wikileaks stories every day.

The first blast, on Tuesday, was headed 'Ministers gave Libya legal advice on how to free Lockerbie bomber', which did not quite rock Whitehall, because it was based mainly on a letter from the former Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell, made public after a Freedom of Information request in 2009. Oops!