Guido Fawkes news editor turned Westminster bureau chief Harry Cole is joining The Sun's political team.
Harry Cole is being made Westminster correspondent. Meanwhile, The Sun on Sunday's political correspondent Craig Woodhouse is moving to replace Kevin Schofield, the new editor of Politics Home, as the daily edition's chief political correspondent.
Cole started at Guido Fawkes, under editor Paul Staines, as an intern in 2008 after setting up the Tory Bear blog. It was his first job after university, and he had no formal journalism training. He is also now a contributing editor to The Spectator magazine.
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The Guido Fawkes team now currently has four full-time members of editorial staff (including Cole) as well as a sketch writer.
The blog said in an article announcing his departure: “Harry’s considerable charm and panache more than compensated for his idiosyncratic early writing style, which Guido would describe as 'after-dinner-speech', this however allowed him to branch out into writing for the Spectator.
“He’s also been writing for mainstream media tabloids for years – it is no small skill be able to write well received features for The Spectator, and the tightly written popular journalism that has seen Guido’s Sun column contract renewed for three years – winning him fans at The Sun such that they have poached him.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the success of Guido over the last six years is in large part down to Harry. The puns, the fun, the ability to get a story – often after an inexplicably long lunch – brilliance.”
It added: “Harry’s new colleagues in Parliament will no doubt appreciate and welcome his strong views, as expressed to the Press Gazette, on morally bankrupt Lobby journalism.
“How he came to be woken up from kipping on a sofa by a Permanent Secretary at 7 a.m.in the Secretary of State’s private ministerial office will always remain our secret.”
Cole said in a statement: "After six incredible years at Guido Fawkes the site is an unstoppable force. Paul Staines is an evil genius and I want to thank him for the best possible first job in journalism.
"It has also been a great honour to write for the oldest continuously published magazine in the English-speaking world and I'm very excited to be swapping The Spectator for the greatest newspaper in world.
"It's been a hell of a ride being Guido, but now it's time to blow things up under my own name and I can think of no better platform from which to do so than as Westminster correspondent for The Sun."
Read Cole's 2013 interview with Press Gazette here, and Press Gazette's interview with Staines and his team here.
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