The Daily Mail hit out at firms “including RBS, KPMG and Microsoft” this morning who are set to keep staff at home for months, slamming companies that have “no immediate plans for a return to office working”. One firm, however, was missed off the list – the Daily Mail itself.
The Mail has published no ‘return to office’ date, and Guido understands only about half the newspaper’s staff are going into work at the moment. It’s a bit rich of them to snipe at other large firms for taking the same approach. Team Guido, on the other hand, have all been back at the office for weeks…
Hat-tip to Richard Tice
Today the Daily Mail dedicates a full page to the idea that the Government’s two-week quarantine plan for new arrivals into the country was, in fact, just a “dead cat” strategy to distract from a Guardian story on 8th May about care homes. A drastic measure for a Government polling over 50%…
“According to sources, he telephones The Times [on 8 May] to inform a journalist that he Government intended to impose a 14 day quarantine on all arrivals by air to the UK… He had briefed about quarantine to deflect attention away from the care home crisis.”
Which is odd given newspapers were reporting the Government’s two-week quarantine plans back in April, the month before the Guardian story…
Remainer-luvvie Emma Thompson, who in February won a lot of publicity by moving to Venice with her husband in the wake of Brexit, has fled back to Scotland after northern Italy became a no-go zone due to Coronavirus. You can’t outrun a global pandemic, Emma…
A local co-conspirator has informed Guido they spotted Thompson last Tuesday in their Argyll supermarket, where the two have “a cottage, a barn and seven sheep”. Just two weeks after becoming honorary Italian citizens…
Guido can almost understand Emma’s decision, as the media’s advice on running away to second homes has been far from clear. On Saturday, the Daily Mail published the now-deleted article, “Britain’s brilliant boltholes: The best places to revel in splendid isolation, from the lonely Lancashire hills to the Welsh wilderness”, even recommending activities in case rural boredom sets in.
This morning, the Mail labelled those running away, as they advised, to the countryside or the coast to avoid coronavirus, “covidiots”. An even quicker and more embarrassing u-turn than Emma Thompson was capable of…
There’s big churn over at the Daily Mail following Jack Doyle’s appointment as No. 10’s new press secretary. Earlier this week it emerged the News Editor Ben Taylor is also leaving, being poached by the Sunday Times as deputy editor.
Guido hears word that Caroline Wheeler, Deputy Political Editor of The Sunday Times, is the hot front runner to fill the Daily Mail’s associate political editor vacancy created by Jack Doyle’s transfer Downing Street. Geordie Grieg will be pleased to nick a hack back from the Sunday Times. Guido understands the contract has not yet been signed…
UPDATE: Sunday Times source gets in touch to say “Caroline is not leaving”. Guido understands that following negotiations the drinks are on Caroline…
Guido understands from a Daily Mail source that Peter Oborne‘s services as a columnist are no longer required. Oborne has been rampaging around broadcast studios for the last few days railing at the corruption of the Lobby and their “Downing Street sources”. His targets of attack included the political journalists of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, his now former employers. As yet this is officially unconfirmed. Peter is not answering his phone either. It is of course a Friday…
UPDATE: Alex Bannister, managing editor at the Daily Mail, gets in touch to insist that it is Peter himself who has decided to quit his column and not renew his year-long contract, which has entirely coincidentally come to an end in the same week he launched a tirade against his colleagues on the newspaper. He may still contribute pieces to the paper apparently…
UPDATE: Peter surfaces:
I’ve not been fired. I’m giving up my weekly column on the Daily Mail but look forward to writing for the Mail and other publications in the future.
— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) October 25, 2019
It is a good time to be a Times columnist. Smarting from having Quentin Letts lifted from their pages to be spread across News UK’s titles, Daily Mail editor Geordie Grieg is on the hunt for columnists to fill the inches previously filled by Quentin. He is looking to nab a Times columnist in revenge. Rumour is that Giles Coren has been an object of his attention, as has the well-remunerated Jeremy Clarkson. So far we understand he has been rebuffed…
