The Mirror’s Political Editor job is a much-prized title for any high-flying, ambitious and – most importantly – pro-Labour political hacks. Now Pippa’s moved aside in favour of The Guardian – a paper in need of a regular SW1 scoop-getter – Guido’s turned his attention to who might be next in line for the star prize. Runners and riders currently within the Mirror family are highlighted in red…

• Ben Glaze – An obvious choice, has played the role of Pippa’s Deputy Political Editor for five and a half years. Is overly familiar with The Mirror’s political campaign line after racking up seven and a half years of reporting for them, though doesn’t spring to mind as someone who could easily step into Crerar’s large scoop-getting shoes. 
• Mikey Smith – The Mirror’s current Whitehall Correspondent, almost nine years at the paper. Resentfully liked by some in Tory circles for his wry, ankle-bitey writing. A particular fan of sleaze and government transparency scoops. Would he struggle to juggle the new job’s extra hours with his imminent fatherhood?
  
• Rachel Wearmouth – Senior political correspondent at The Mirror, set to join the New Statesman as deputy political editor later this year. Guido reckons she could easily be persuaded to drop those plans if offered Pippa’s job. Andrew Marr wouldn’t be happy…
• Dan Bloom – Mirror’s online political editor. Racks up a decent number of exclusives. Spoken highly of by colleagues.
• Keir Mudie – Deputy News Editor, Sunday Mirror and People. Prolific opinion writer for the website. Could the Mirror go down the BBC route of choosing an internal transfer?
• Lizzy Buchan – The online Mirror’s Deputy Political Editor, albeit for the relatively short stint of less than two years. Previously of the Independent, PA and The Scotsman. Seemingly strong on Labour scoops. A potential front runner if the paper wants to promote a woman from within. 
• Dan Sabbagh – The Guardian’s defence and security editor, previously the Guardian’s national news editor with major experience covering Brexit from 2018, currently focusing on Ukraine. A former Labour Councillor and communications guy for Oona King…
• Jess Elgot – The banter option if The Mirror wants to get their own back at The Guardian for poaching Pippa. Currently The Guardian’s chief political correspondent. Guido’s not sure what would allure her away from her current job… more money?
• Gabriel Pogrund – Certainly a promotion within Progrund’s ability, one of the best hacks of his age group with consistently big exclusives for the Sunday Times as their Whitehall correspondent. A seemingly endless contact book for Labour stories, with a book already under his belt last year with Patrick Maguire, detailing Corbyn’s slow-motion car crash in 2019. Would presumably have to come with a significant pay rise to tempt him over…
• Patrick Maguire – The Times’ Red Box editor of two years, with two years at the leftie New Statesman before that. Similar to Pogrund has extensive Labour networks and a good writer at that. Or is his eye on the soon-to-be vacant Politico Playbook editor vacancy? 
• Emily Ashton – Politics reporter at Bloomberg. Another major contender if The Mirror is concerned about the gender make-up of their team. There is that old problem of hacks struggling to part from Bloomberg’s exceptionally deep pockets…
• Lewis Goodall – Left-wing enough, might have an eye on a non-screen role these days as his hair disappears. Would make for excellent preparation ahead of a possible head of communications job in Wes Streeting’s government…
• Matt Chorley – It’s a thought.
• Tom Newton Dunn – should the TV career come to an imminent end he would have useful transferable tabloid skills from his time as political editor of The Sun.
• Ben Riley-Smith – The Daily Telegraph’s political editor is known to be looking for a transfer after missing out on The Guardian pol-ed job.

This month The Mirror condemned the government’s 1% pay rise for nurses, saying it is a “scandal” and a “kick in the teeth“. Imagine Guido’s shock, therefore, when Mirror employees were told yesterday afternoon they’ll be receiving a pay rise of… 1%.

“This year all eligible colleagues will receive a 1% pay increase from April and this will form part of a wider package of benefits. As highlighted at the start of the year, staff who would have had their increase in January will not lose out (you will receive 15/12ths of the award which equates to 1.25% between April 2021 and 2022).”

The group editor-in-chief cited “this extremely difficult and challenging 12 months” in his announcement. Do as the Mirror says, not as they do…

Guido picked up a copy of this month’s painfully woke GQ, which has just hit the news stands. In it the Daily Mail’s editor, Geordie Grieg, has granted only the second interview of his editorship. The first interview with the FT resulted in a complete car crash after he dissed the great Paul Dacre to such a degree that Dacre wrote to the FT to deliver a monumental slap down to his successor. His second interview is timed to coincide with the Daily Mail finally surpassing The Sun in daily sales. Or as the hagiographic Matt Kelly puts it:

“… now the Mail has in all actualité, attained the one great prize to elude even Dacre, you’d have to have a heart of pure weapons-grade vitriol to begrudge Grieg and his team their moment in the sun, as they passed The Sun to become the bestselling newspaper in the country.”

This interview was done in June, before the newspaper industry forced ABC to cease publishing sales figures that have dramatically plummeted during the pandemic. Guido however has managed to prise open the undisclosed ABC circulation figures and can reveal that The Sun in July returned to being the tabloid primus inter pares. Geordie’s day in the sun was short and the interview’s whole premise was overtaken in July by cold hard print sales figures…The latest figures (not published) by the Audit Bureau of Circulation show that in July The Sun outsold the Daily Mail by 1,030,000 to 999,000 – both titles down double digit percentages from pre-pandemic. Geordie doesn’t have much luck with his annual interviews…

The Daily Star has seen the biggest post-lockdown readership recovery of any national newspaper, according to new figures from ABC. A boost of 5% on last month…

No other paid-for national newspaper grew its circulation by more than 3% in June, meaning the dead tree press’ recovery as a whole has slowed month-on-month compared to May. Yesterday’s front page was just another of the Star’s recent stellar front page politics coverage…

Keep it up lads…

The Guardian has this morning announced plans to cut 180 jobs in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. In contrast to publications such as The Spectator, Telegraph, and Guido – all of whom either did not take Government handouts or paid them back – the paper is set to axe 70 staff from editorial and 110 from advertising, Guardian Jobs, marketing roles, and Guardian Live events. No news yet on names…

This data from the Reuters Institute is stark. The pandemic has made printed newspapers a minor source of news, most people get their news online or from television. More than twice as many people get their news via the likes of Twitter and Facebook as from newspapers. So who is really mainstream now?

Guido has been calling newspapers the Dead Tree Press for over a decade. The situation for many national newspapers is dire, year after year of double-digit falling newsstand sales, disappearing local newspapers unable to compete with ultra-local advertising solutions from the tech-media giants which are objectively better than they can provide.  All exacerbated and undercut by unfair competition from the BBC’s monolithic, monocultural empire of local websites and radio stations. The print editions are in a death spiral…

How is the Dead Tree Press coping? They have suspended ABC audited circulation reporting, the transparency* newspapers always call for, is for other people. Not publishing their circulation figures is like not publishing their obituaries. They are still dying.