The New European is closing a £500,000 funding round at a £5 million valuation. It boasts a number of rich, big name remainer celebrity backers like Lionel Barber (ex-FT) and Mark Thompson (ex-BBC). They reckon the investment will help it make a profit next year after consistently losing hundreds of thousands a year. Guido is not convinced this will be a profitable investment.
It seems fashionable for rich remainers to own their own loss-making publication, the hardline-centrist to soft-left, loss-making media space is well-funded and crowded; Prospect, Tortoise, Byline Times, New Statesman and The New European. They somehow give themselves multi-million valuations and raise investment on the back of it. Would you buy shares in a magazine on the back of a recommendation from Alastair Campbell? It seems “mission” investors will.
Over on the right-of-centre side of the political media, The Spectator booked over £2 million in profits last year, Guido is pleased to say we did well too. Are we doing something wrong consistently making actual profits?
Some Might Say Alastair Campbell’s blind hatred of the Tories is leading him further down the rabbit hole. His latest conspiracy, shared on Twitter this morning, is that Boris might’ve taken “narcotics” last night before his Sky News interview. Apparently this is a “reasonable” question “given his demeanour“. In other words after a draining high-pressure 48 hours, he looked run down, had a slightly runny nose, and sniffled a few times. Bang to rights, obviously…
With his tinfoil hat still tight around his skull, he’s also claiming “categorically that on no occasion in [Blair’s] ten years did I see any evidence whatever of drug taking in Number 10”:
in Number 10. Soft or hard. I wonder wherever everyone who has worked there since 2019 can hand on heart - or even better hand on Bible - say the same. DMs always open for those who believe standards in public life matter and the law of the land matters too 4/4
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) June 7, 2022
Definitely, Maybe… not. While Alastair might claim never to have seen “any evidence Whatever of drug taking” in Downing Street, there was at least one large shipment from Columbia delivered through the door. Back in 1997, Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher rocked up to No.10 for cigarettes & alcohol with Tony Blair, later admitting on Russell Brand’s Radio 2 show to snorting cocaine in a toilet reserved for the Queen. “As I remember, it was quite nice. It had a velvet seat and everything”…
Don’t Believe the Truth if you don’t want to, Al. Just Stop Crying Your Heart Out.
UPDATE: Nick Timothy’s response was perfect:
Still inventing stories about imaginary chemicals, I see. https://t.co/xf09yfRjye
— Nick Timothy (@NJ_Timothy) June 7, 2022
During the Question Time Ukraine Special last night, former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt (who is married to Stephen Kinnock) smugly came out with this disconnected-from-reality take:
“First of all you said something that made me almost chuckle before, when you said ‘Putin will think that the UK’s leading the efforts against Russia right now’ of course it’s not. The EU is leading the effort against Russia so I don’t think they’ll see Boris Johnson as a particular leader in this field”
Leaving aside the fact David Lammy can be seen nodding along to this nonsensical bilge, Thorning-Schmidt is clearly oblivious to the UK government trying to go further and faster than almost all of the EU when it comes to sending military equipment, banning Russia from SWIFT and sanctioning more Russian assets than the US and EU combined. It was not the UK that dithered on sanctions, or carved out exceptions so Italy could carry on exporting luxury handbags to Putin’s regime.
Even Kremlin spokesman Maria Zakharova contradicts Lammy et al: “London plays one of the leading, if not the main, roles, leaves us no choice but to take proportionately tough retaliatory measures. London has made a final choice of open confrontation with Russia.” A back handed compliment to London’s leading role against Russia.
Of course it’s not just Thorning-Schmidt becoming deranged by this self-loathing brain rot.
The inhumanity of our Govts resistance to fleeing refugees is depriving the kind and generous hearts of the British people of their capacity for compassion… we want to help… please let us.
— Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 (@DeborahMeaden) March 8, 2022
"I'm very grateful to you Boris" says Zelensky, calling for tighter sanctions.
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) March 8, 2022
The UK lags behind the EU and US.
Apart from the UK, are there any other western democracies that are still allowing members of Putin's government to buy and sell assets, set up companies, and raise money? Is the UK alone or are there other safe havens for them to use?
— Jessica Simor QC (@JMPSimor) March 6, 2022
.@BrookesTimes pic.twitter.com/js62y6GW7k
— Anna Soubry (@Anna_Soubry) March 4, 2022
Very funny seeing these stupid fucking op-eds saying "Putin feels like he can attack Ukraine because we are all too woke" instead of saying "it's because he literally owns our Prime Minister"
— Nish Kumar (@MrNishKumar) March 5, 2022
Did he thank you and @pritipatel for being world leading in the raising of obstacles to 🇺🇦 refugees? Or for the succour you continue to give to Putin- and Tory-backing 🇷🇺 oligarchs? https://t.co/Wuw6K3AiS8
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) March 10, 2022
Orwell’s oft quoted point that “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality” could be re-applied to remoaners, it is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any tweeting, FBPE hashtagging, blue ticker would feel more ashamed of crediting Boris for something than of stealing from a poor box. All of this is without going over those who revelled in Russia’s foreign minister insulting Liz Truss, because our enemies are less bad than any Tory. Yesterday’s polling showed how those on the ground in Ukraine actually feel, without the luxury to sit back and play political point-scoring via Twitter. Boris is the most popular politician after Zelenskyy among the Ukrainian people, though in the minds of deranged Remoaners he may as well be Putin…
Guido leans towards not banning Putin’s RT channel in the UK for the following reasons:
- The propaganda is counter-productively nonsensical at times
- Free democracies can withstand misinformation because they have a plurality of news sources
- It will give Putin an excuse to ban British media organisations that puncture Putin’s domestic hyper-reality
Though now it transpires that Alastair Campbell used the channel to demagogically call for the overthrow of the democratic will of a sovereign nation post-referendum, it is giving Guido second thoughts. On balance, the tiny audience for the channel probably does not make a ban worthwhile…
Yesterday Guido’s eye-witness report of Alastair Campbell’s ill-fated awards compèring clearly touched a nerve. Campbell spat back denying various aspects of the story. A dodgy dossier it was not…
Oh dear. Number 10 puppy ‘Guido’ getting a tad obsessed again. On Brexit,show of hands of 500 people in room, one said it was going well. Probably Puppy pal. On transition team we had what we call good banter and I said they did good job raising awareness Brexit happening 1/2 https://t.co/gD5EIAAQdU
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) November 10, 2021
Guido does have a correction to make regarding yesterday’s supposedly sexed-up story: Campbell claimed that our photo showing a table of his books had gone unsold, misrepresented the truth.
We now accept that was incorrect. Multiple sources tell Guido they were in fact made available free of charge. Couldn’t even give them away…
It seems even a liberal London PR awards shindig isn’t safe territory for Alastair Campbell these days. Guido’s PR co-conspirator was sat in the audience as Campbell delivered a mood-dampening rant against the Government, specifically referencing the Brexit Transition team who were in attendance after being nominated for three awards. A video passed to Guido shows Campbell laying into the hard-working group, saying they should be “ashamed of themselves”. Guido’s mole then proceeded to wet themself with laughter as the Brexit Transition team won two out of the three awards, Campbell having to congratulate them through gritted teeth.
The Brexit team ended up winning both International Campaign Award and the in-house B2B Award. Campbell was clearly bitter, as he went on to announce the Public Sector Award, won by Anchor – a company he joked rhymes with Boris.
In the end the punters clearly didn’t warm to him – as the table of his unsold books demonstrated at the event’s conclusion…
