Never let it be said that Guardian Newspapers doesn't carry influence at the highest levels.
At a party in the Treasury last week, I saw the Chancellor's toddler son sat on the floor poring over the Crab and Lobster wallchart we gave away recently: apparently, he likes them so much (Octopus and Squid was a particular favourite) he's been practically snatching the paper out of his dad's hands, writes Gaby Hinsliff, the Observer's political editor.
Ok, so two-year-olds don't carry much weight in Cabinet, but you have to take influence where you can get it. And influence - who wields it, who wants it, who permits it - has been central to this last week in politics, which has given us an unexpected and rather unedifying glance into how it works.
Of course, where there's power, there will always be attempts to influence it. But this isn't necessarily malign: if a government is about to make a big mistake, people are entitled to jump up and down saying so, even if they have a vested interest. One man's lobbying is another man's brave crusade against the powers that be.
But influence becomes troublesome usually when it is sought secretly - when the powerful change tack after having their ear bent, and don't disclose why. And that's the kind of influence Westminster is obssessed with this week.
First came the news that the information commissioner has ruled Downing Street should disclose details of when the Prime Minister has met Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of News International - not the minutes of the meetings, mind, not even the topics, but just when they met.
But even this is apparently too ghastly for Downing Street to contemplate: it fears publishing the dates would give rise to all sorts of speculation about how Mr Murdoch might have influenced decisions being made at the time. Which inevitably it would: what if they met, say, just before a crucial decision on Europe, or as broadcasting legislation was being drafted?.
All rather embarrassing, then, just as Tony Blair is off shortly to address the annual gathering of senior News International executives - and, he hopes, persuade them not to start backing David Cameron. For new Labour types, Sun editorials are the political equivalent of the ravens at the Tower of London: just as legend has it that the kingdom would fall if the birds ever flew away, many Blairites believe if the Sun ever stopped saying 'vote Labour', the next election would be lost, so it's worth keeping them happy. If the information commissioner persists, we might get a little closer to answering the question: just how happy?
But the really big fuss about influence stems from John Prescott's hitherto unsuspected interest in cowboys - supposedly the reason he spent a weekend at the cattle ranch belonging to an American billionaire who just happens to be trying to build a casino at the Dome.
The truth about this should be clearer by Sunday (your Observer is beavering away even now) but the broader questions it raises about the circumstances in which ministers should accept hospitality from rich men who want things, even if everyone's motives are whiter than white, won't go away.
Then there's another question of influence that's shamelessly navel-gazing: how much sway do bloggers now have over political events? The decision by one last week to identify online a woman MP with whom Prescott's name has been linked in Westminster for years (not that anybody definitely knows whether or not they had an affair, which is why no newspaper identified her) has caused a rumpus. Prescott's mates say their online accusers are all wicked Tories stirring: meanwhile the anonymous blogger Guido Fawkes accuses lumbering old political hacks like moi of being slow off the mark. Hmm.
Of course I'm biased, but what I think the blogs are doing is simply - if rather cleverly - democratising gossip. These stories have been traded between journos, researchers, MPs and hangers-on for years: if there was proof, they made it into print, and if there wasn't they became cocktail party fodder, swapped by a smallish circle of people in the know.
Just as Popbitch opened up the world of 'slebs to us tawdry mortals, political bloggers make what was once 'insider' knowledge available to anyone who can google competently: and so Westminster has lost its cosy monopoly on information, the juice on which the entire engine runs.
This process is going to hurt some people badly - one blog has already corrected a posting linking Prescott to a female diplomat, but was it quick enough to spare her embarassment over something no newspaper libel lawyer would have let run without proof? - but it's probably unstoppable now: the blogging community will just have to work out its own code of honour. And it will do us political hacks good to have a little friendly competitition in what can be a terribly closed shop.
Nonetheless, I can't help pointing out that the really serious issue facing Prescott - and the story driving this week's events - is not his lovelife, but his stay at the ranch: a story broken in the boringly old-fashioned way, by a newspaper. There's life in us luddites yet.
