If Tory leaders are hucksters, what are the press?

Hucksters is Observer columnist Nick Cohen's name for senior Tories and their families who use journalistic coverage to promote their careers and businesses.

George Osborne slipped a plug for his wife's book-signing into his Observer diary. A few weeks earlier she puffed his mother's chocolate shop in her diary for the London Evening Standard. Samantha Cameron, wife to Dave, used press interest to promote a distinctive range of handbags. Her mother has been capitalising on her son-in-law's celebrity by plugging her furniture in the lifestyle sections, with, for example, a piece in the Mail on Sunday advertising the chairs and curtains she sells.

In his column yesterday Cohen implies that this lot don't know how to behave.

Perhaps he has the wrong target. It's hard to blame the tacky tradespeople of the new Tories when the papers are conniving in such blatant product placement. Why don't subs strike out the gratuitous plugs that sound so hollow? Crop the pictures to leave out the products? It's not difficult.

Les

PS - Having no shame and not being bothered about being called a huckster, I'm thinking of instituting product placement here at hackles.co.uk.

As soon as I can work out how to upload an image, I'll be putting up pictures of my writing shoes in action. Footwear retailers will be welcome to show their appreciation.