Number 10 Director of Communications Craig Oliver who is formally of the BBC, you'd of thought he'd of noticed the camera was on, attempted to intimidate the BBC's political editor Norman Smith over his reporting of Jonathan Stephens who is the Permanent Secretary of the DCMS evidence to the Leveson Commission on Friday.
Mr Oliver said early on, being very Mandelsonion, "I've spoken to Kevin". That'd be Kevin Bakhurst who is the Controller of BBC News oh and Norman Smith's boss. Clearly an attempt to intimidate. It is well known that government and opposition spin doctors often try to put their point across and sometimes do so quite aggressively but we rarely get to show them do it in public. It is an interesting insight for people to see how things work in the Westminster village.
Unlike with Malcolm Tucker there is no strong language although I have a feeling something along these lines will make it into the next series of the thick of it:
the video is no longer available
