Media Confidential, which apparently was the name of Prospect magazine’s weekly podcast hosted by Alan Rusbridger and Lionel Barber, is no more. It has now been cancelled by editor Philip Collins (not that one), who succeeded Rusbridger in the editor’s chair last year. Ouch…
Barber wrote on his Substack this week:
“Sadly, in a bid to save pennies, Prospect is cancelling the show. No hard feelings at my end. Phillip [sic] Collins, the ex Blair speechwriter, academic and new(ish) editor, is paid to make the right calls.”
It probably didn’t help that Barber managed to spell his own editor’s name wrong. No prospect of return…
Cambridge University Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice has announced the university will launch an investigation into the appointment of Jason Arday, as well as a review of its Misconduct in Research policy. The results will then guide a review into the appointment process for senior academic roles. Which would be helpful, to put it mildly…
Read Prentice’s full statement below:
Continue reading “Cambridge University Launches ‘Full Investigation’ Into Jason Arday Appointment”
Labour’s favourite left-wing think tank IPPR is boasting on X this morning about how many of its ex-personnel are now in government in leading positions. This is going to go well…
A huge congratulations to the IPPR alumni who are taking up new roles in government!
Wishing them all the very best in their new posts. Congratulations and good luck to:
👉 James Purnell, chief of staff
👉 Miatta Fahnbulleh MP, secretary of state for energy security and net…— IPPR (@IPPR) August 12, 2026
Starmer’s government was also stuffed with these IPPR types – some retreads are included in the above list. See how well that went…
The post has also revealed some new SpAd moves. Check the fully up-to-date definitive list at order-order.com/spads…
Andy Burnham has called his first COBRA meeting on the heat in Britain. After waiting 53 days in which he also went on holiday…
The meeting is mostly a PR exercise because response systems are all in place and extra management goes through the National Drought Group. You could try building a new reservoir for once…
There have been 37 consecutive heatwave days somewhere in the UK this year. If this was a Tory PM they would have been buried under criticism for not hosting a COBRA sooneer…
Temperatures are due to cool next week with some expectation of rain. Starmer sabotaged the weather machine on the way out…
Doubling down on Burnham’s claim yesterday that “all parts of the country need to play their part” in taking migrants, Home Office minister Anne Turley said on BBC Breakfast this morning:
“I think this is about fairness. And we won’t be asking anyone to take more than they can. It’s about their fair share. And we look across the country at what is appropriate for areas to take. What is the infrastructure, what is manageable with the local community. So this is about fairness… it’s important that everybody plays their fair share in that.”
Define ‘a fair share’…
Stop Funding Hate is struggling to get funding of its own. Oh dear…
The campaign spends its time demanding advertisers pull their money out of media it doesn’t like, including Daily Mail and GB News. It has spent its summer attacking GB News and X to persuade its band of pro-censorship supporters to stump up ÂŁ50,000 by 7th August so it can “cut off the funding” of legitimate news platforms. Somehow people aren’t too interested…
But approaching its initial cut off, it had raised barely a quarter of the amount required (27%) and put out a post admitting failure that they “have not yet reached the ambitious target” with the deadline quietly extended to 11 September. Having spent over five years droning on about GB News the campaign’s supporters have seemingly dwindled to a small group of hard left cranks, with public profiles backing the appeal turning up to Green Party fundraisers and getting on a campaign to question Lucy Letby’s convictions...
The big fundraising failure comes in the same week as GB News was confirmed as Britain’s biggest news channel for a whole year. Timing is everything…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”