Royal wedding sparks Labour photographer joke

Alan Johnson just suggested that if the Royal couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton, “need a photographer, I understand there’s one now available.”

That was a reference to what one Labour shadow minister called “our first scalp” – Andy Parsons, the Conservative party’s hired snapper, slipped onto the government payroll not long ago and today, a short while before the royal engagement was announced, slipped back off it.

Ed Miliband’s team managed to infuriate the PM when they got their man asking about Mr Parsons in Prime Minister’s Questions. They hoped this saga could get traction with voters in the same way that Mr Cameron became associated strongly with the chauffeur driven car that, for a while, drove behind him carrying his work gear as he cycled to the Commons.

Tories will be hoping they’ve killed this story off fast enough to avoid exactly that.