Richard Branson has taken to lecturing the Daily Mail on their values, proclaiming that regardless of customer choice the newspaper will no longer be offered on Virgin Trains. His company said:

“Thousands of people choose to read the Daily Mail every day. But they will no longer be reading it courtesy of VT (Virgin Trains)… We’ve decided that this paper is not compatible with the VT brand and our beliefs. We won’t be stocking the Daily Mail for sale or as a giveaway.”

A lecture on values from Richard Branson, who just a month ago was accused of ‘motorboating’ US singer Antonia Jenae – that is, putting his head between her breasts. Jenae said the incident “feels like sexual assault.” She recalled:

“We were by the bar and he was saying bye to everyone. He came up to me and put his face in my breasts. He went ‘brrrrrr’ and just walked away.”

Branson didn’t deny it and apologised – also saying he “had no recollection”…

A lecture on values from Richard Branson, who F1 star Jenson Button recalled had stared at and then touched his girlfriend:

“Although Jessica was a model, she was quite shy, so this was making her feel uncomfortable. Especially when Sir Richard followed up his blatant flirting by putting his hand on her face.”

Branson didn’t deny it and apologised…

A lecture on values from Richard Branson…

Top banter from the Daily Mail this morning teasing The Guardian over its decision to go tabloid. The Guardian has said it will ditch its ‘Berliner’ format in the new year. The Mail’s editorial shows just what can be done with a smaller page:

“The Mail congratulates the Guardian on finally seeing the light and becoming a tabloid. True, it’s taken a long time and – through awesome business ineptitude – losses of hundreds of millions of pounds. We sincerely hope that by joining the tabloid club, the paper might now begin to make financial sense, rather than depend on massive subsidy. Just one bit of helpful advice. Commercially-viable tabloids – even mid-market ones like the Mail – rely on putting stories on their pages that actually interest people.”

What will actually sting the Guardian newsroom is the realisation that the paper wasted £50 million on Berliner format presses in 2005 – they were expected to roll for much longer. The Guardian also spent £30 million that year upgrading printworks in London and Manchester. Another £80 million down the Guardian gutter…

Owen Jones was pontificating on Paperchase and the decline of the right-wing press. Piers Morgan got involved and so did Media Guido:

Guardianistas should be more worried about getting eclipsed by the likes of The Canary…

Today’s Daily Mail splashes on a story by its “Investigations Unit” apparently revealing that in 2013 John McDonnell called for “insurrection” and encouraged the overthrow of the government. At a speech at Goldsmiths university, McDonnell said:

“Parliamentary democracy doesn’t work for us. Elections don’t work for us… We used to call it insurrection. Now we’re polite and say it’s direct action. Let’s get back to calling it what it is. It’s insurrection.”

How far did the Mail’s fabled Investigations Unit have to look to find the scoop? Well, the exact same quote was reported by their colleagues at MailOnline only a few months ago during the election campaign. McDonnell was even forced to explain his comments at the time, saying:

“What I said was, in the old days we used to call it insurrection, now we call it direct action and demonstrations.”

In fact, “insurrection” is one of McDonnell’s favourite terms to rile up his comrades. As the Telegraph reported two years ago he used the word on the public record at least three times between 2010 and 2013. That’s a low estimate. We know papers are slower than their online rivals these days but this is pushing it a bit far…

MailOnline is going French. The site is advertising for a French-speaking sub who can make “some of its showbiz and entertainment content available in French“. First job, translate Sunday’s splash. 

Who will speak for England?

The Daily Mail let rip in a truly epic full page leader by Tom Utley this morning, laying into the Guardian and distancing itself from its own Derry Street stablemate MailOnline. According to the Mail, MailOnline has “a very different worldview“:  

“Earlier this week, a Guardian writer attacked the Daily Mail for carrying comments by the controversialist Katie Hopkins. That was a lie. The Guardian and its writer know that Ms Hopkins has nothing to do with the Daily Mail, but works for Mail Online — a totally separate entity that has its own publisher, its own readership, different content and a very different world view.”

To be fair to the Mail, their leader is bang on about the Guardian and partly correct about MailOnline. The Mail and MailOnline have different audiences and a completely different flavour, and Katie Hopkins isn’t in the paper. But are they really “separate entities“? They may be in editorial structure and decision making, but they share a huge amount of content: a quick search shows at least 22 articles with Daily Mail bylines have appeared on MailOnline since midnight. The paper’s leader usually goes up on MailOnline, funnily enough it didn’t today…