Titbits – GCHQ, artful dodgers and in praise of Mao

■ Who’d be a spy? Not enough people, if GCHQ has to resort to spraying recruitment ads on pavements. The intelligence agency has a history of taking the law into its own hands, which includes breaking Hackney Council’s policy on graffiti. The council said it will “take enforcement action,” only if it finds evidence the adverts are “definitely in Hackney”. Which to Titbits sounds like a case of knowing when to choose your battles.

■ “There aren’t any tax dodgers!” cried Cllr Michael Levy, leader of Hackney Conservatives, during the last full council meeting. He’d been heckled by Ian Rathbone, Labour councillor and arch heckler, for defending the Chancellor George Osborne’s spending review. Two years is a long time in local politics, but wasn’t Cllr Levy once found to have had a personal and prejudicial interest in a planning application in Stamford Hill? Not such an artful dodger himself!

■ If some newspapers had their way, the name Diane Abbott would be replaced by ‘Corbyn’s former lover’ in the annals of history.
But the Shadow International Development Secretary is a fighter not a lover, sticking up for the Shadow Chancellor after his Little Red Book dispatch box stunt. “On balance, Mao did more good than harm,” the MP said on television, of the dictator responsible for millions of deaths. Good thing she’s au fait with international matters.