Hugh Grant, the former Screws hack and the haunted pub in Dover

The Castle Inn, Dover

It's certainly the most delicious media story of the year (to date). A major British actor bugs the hack who once bugged him. Their topic of conversation: illegal phone hacking. Part of the transcript of Hugh Grant's highly revealing taped conversation with former News of the World whistle-blower Paul McMullan is now online at the New Statesman website: click here.

Priceless nuggets include Andy Coulson's alleged complicity in phone hacking, the PM's unhealthy proximity to Rupert Murdoch moll Rebekah Brooks (who, as one witty Arcatiste has pointed out to me, looks more like Robert Plant every day) and how Murdoch wickedly plays his multi-media games with celebrity pawns - the Nicole Kidman/Moulin Rouge! tale is a thing of beauty.

Grant travelled to the Dover pub/hotel McMullan runs, The Castle Inn, where all was revealed; and he generously encourages readers to pay the establishment a visit. It sits on the corner of Dolphin Lane and Russell Street. Click here to read about the colourful history of the 18th century coaching inn: it is of course haunted, and the medium Derek Acorah will want to know about the 'creaks, icy blasts and apparitions' should he ever be called in for a spot of exorcism.

I only mention all this because I want to see Mr McMullan safe and secure in his new business, out of harm's way and solvent. He is a very important source for future scholars of the worst scandal ever to hit British newspapers. Long may he thrive.

Iain Dale blog announces its murder: Old Etonians held as suspects

As expected, the Iain Dale blog has announced its demise. A nano-second's silence, please. The right-wing Mr D denies he's shutting up shop because the Tories are in power; and attributes his disenchantment with blogging to its damaging effect on his business and whatnot. This may be partly true, but actually the obvious and crassest main reason should not be blithely discounted.

He lost his mojo because the Tories are in power.

While Blair lied through his teeth and Brown impotently sulked and raged, Dale had a cause. The alternative to New Labour had to be preferred at the very least, and Dale was tenacious in the fight. He was an excellent Tory propagandist blogger in opposition. His raison d'etre: to get the Tories into power. And now that the smooth, suave, patronising Old Etonian plutocracy holds sway... oh, dear. Even Dale must see the calamity ahead.

An eroded NHS, a hostile disillusioned student population, local services ravaged, mass redundancies, a war on the poor, sick and incapable, quid pro quo plural privatisations of social services for Tory donors - well, you know all this and the rest. Even rickets is making a comeback.

Could you imagine the Dale blog thriving on a diet of friendly Tory tales amid the government's crazy slash and burn realities? A successful political blog will by its nature ply against power or else just be a fan site - BBC blogs excluded. Dale doesn't strike me as the power fan site type. So off he goes to his LBC radio show and his publishing company to consolidate his ker-ching thing. Wise.

He ran out of a blogging script for the party he will continue to support from the sidelines. Not for him reader withering scorn as he attempted to defend the trustafarian Old Etonians lecturing the rest of us that getting something for nothing is not open to all. In style terms, I'm sure he sensed the vulgarity of his Westminster pals.

A nano-second's pause, please, for a hollow laugh. Meanwhile, will Guido be next?

Austerity Britain: Cameron's cuppa and Hitler's soup

Would the PM fancy this model?

The Old Etonian political editor of the UK-based American tabloid The Sun, Tom Newton Dunn, exclusively reveals that David Cameron has 'banned tea and coffee being served to No10 mandarins at their desks to save taxpayers' money' in austerity Britain.

An 'insider' (surely not Tory boss spinner Andy Coulson) is quoted as saying: 'The PM is determined that he and his staff should not be enjoying luxuries while the rest of the country is having to make do with less. He wants to prove we really are all in this together.'

However the message is somewhat sullied by this exception: 'But the Prime Minister will still be served at his desk - as his time is deemed too precious to waste queuing.'

Now, don't laugh! There's far too much cynicism abroad (I mean, at home). We should accept that our multi-millionaire PM's heart is in the right place. And his gesture is not unique in the annals of leaders' presentational sensitivity.

Quite by chance I am reading Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich. On p179 he writes: 'When, at the instance of the party, word was sent out that all households in Germany should eat a one-dish meal on Sundays, thereby promoting guns instead of butter, only a tureen of soup was served at Hitler's table too.' When the number of his lunchtime guests shrank in consequence, Hitler remarked sarcastically 'about the spirit of sacrifice among his associates....'

Goodness knows what the Führer would have made of Cameron's aversion to brew-queuing. Can't someone buy the Old Etonian a teasmade?