The Express is pushing through with cost-cutting measures. Columnists are the latest victims…
Guido hears Ann Widdecombe, who has been writing her full-page Tuesday column in the Express for years, will not have her contract renewed come February. Gone too will be columnists Fergus Kelly and Jessica Selway…
Rumours abound in SW1 that the Sunday Express in print is not long for this world as Reach PLC continues with “efficiency savings” that have already seen 700 jobs get the chop. Widdecombe, for her part, is going the way of what seems like half the population by starting a new Substack column. Tricky times at Express towers, but would the brand survive otherwise…
Guido hears that Sam Lister will no longer be The Daily Express’ political editor after two years in the role. The paper’s first female pol-ed is leaving the Lobby after 17 years…
Lister’s been promoted to associate editor and will start work in Canary Wharf on Monday. Deputy political editor Martyn Brown will replace her as the paper’s new political editor. Big shoes to fill for Brown. Congratulations to both…
“A publishing source said the Labour leader ‘instructed friends and colleagues not to cooperate’ with Lord Ashcroft when he wrote the original biography. Arguing that ‘the question of why Starmer was so reluctant to face scrutiny in Red Knight remains,’ the source asked: ‘Was he hiding something?’”
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”