Is the Telegraph finally getting embarrassed at being seen as a mouthpiece for the Conservatives?

It emerged last night that the list of “5,000 small business owners who back the Tories” that led the paper’s front page on Monday – supposedly a Telegraph exclusive – was authored by someone at Conservative party HQ.

My Little Tory - Metadata is Magic pic.twitter.com/nZ0TL52XwR — Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) April 27, 2015

Fast forward to mid-morning and the link to the original document – initially available in PDF format along with the revealing metadata that exposed its origin – has mysteriously disappeared, replaced with a web page listing all 5,052 signatories in a gargantuan effort of cut and paste.

Telegraph seems to have removed the link to the small business letter now. Wonder why? http://t.co/Wv1ftBzwdr — Jess Shankleman (@JessicaBG) April 27, 2015

There could be a perfectly innocent explanation for the deletion, but Monkey wonders if the Telegraph’s top brass was trying belatedly to cover its tracks. In any case, the PDF is available to download here.