Guido’s immediate thought was “uh oh” when the former doyen of the Lobby Michael White made this not very Guardianista comment on the Media Show:
“The power doesn’t all lie on one side; clever, attractive young women looking for stories. They can play the power game to poor old, ugly backbenchers with bad breath… they are predators.”
Female hacks are the real predators?
The ladies of the Lobby are understandably unimpressed:
So, according to @michaelwhite, as a female lobby journalist I am a “predator” who tricks “poor old ugly backbenchers” to get stories …
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) November 1, 2017
As if it’s not hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman working in politics without senior male journalists saying this stuff. Furious.
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) November 1, 2017
Everyday sexism from old Mike…
Congratulations to Sunday Express political editor Caroline Wheeler, who MediaGuido hears will be the new deputy political editor at the Sunday Times from July. A smart hire, Caroline was one of the few journalists who reported definitively that there would be an early election. She has plenty of Sunday Lobby experience and will now enjoy a deserved wider audience. From one Brexit-backing paper to another…
MediaGuido can reveal a major Lobby move: the Sunday Times’ deputy political editor James Lyons is leaving to take up a communications role for NHS England. Lyons has been in the Lobby for 16 years, on the Tories’ case at the Mirror before becoming the scourge of the Corbynistas at the Sunday Times. Spinning for the NHS is a job that typically pays well into six figures, certainly a nice little earner. Congratulations to James. Half the Lobby will be sniffing around his old job, stay tuned for what will no doubt be an epic MediaGuido runners and riders…
The Tory MPs’ team was thrashed 5-2 by the Lobby in the traditional conference football match yesterday. Changing room chatter reveals MP Alan Mak, a mercurial central midfielder, was subbed off after just nine minutes, by which point the Tories were 3-0 down. According to a teammate, “we started playing well when he was taken off”. Mak requested to be allowed back on the field in the second half – he lasted another five minutes before suffering the ignominy of being subbed off a second time. Housing minister Gavin Barwell scored the first own goal of conference by heading into his own net on an afternoon to forget for the Tories. “Mak-ed in the morning, you’re getting Mak-ed in the morning…”
Ruth Davidson didn’t spare Leadsom or Brexiteers at today’s lobby lunch:
.@RuthDavidsonMSP sticks the boot in at Lobby Lunch: “Before politics, I single-handedly saved the banking system. Speaking as a mother…”
— Robert Hutton (@RobDotHutton) July 12, 2016
The top Tory Scot left no Brexiteer safe, taking a pop at the member for Uxbridge’s recent departure from front line politics:
“We’re already enjoying a post-coital cigarette having withdrawn our enormous Johnson”, @RuthDavidsonMSP on Tory v Labour leadership races
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) July 12, 2016
After the room broke up into laughter she said “Sorry that’s not even my speech, that’s just a text from Stephen Crabb….”. She did eventually take a pop at the opposition, calling Corbyn “comical Ali”:
Ruth Davidson calls Jeremy Corbyn “a national joke” + “we’ve got someone caught between a cross of Norma Desmond and comical Ali”
— John Ashmore (@smashmorePH) July 12, 2016
As well as her own opposition in Holyrood:
Ruth asked on differences between Holyrood and here: “We don’t have scaffolds up and the toilets work”
— John Ashmore (@smashmorePH) July 12, 2016
Davidson also revealed why she was so pro-Remain – love:
Ruth says she wants an assurance on EU nationals staying in the UK: “nothing to do with the fact I’ve got engaged to an Irish EU migrant”
— John Ashmore (@smashmorePH) July 12, 2016
And let’s not forget her words for the press:
Ruth: “I didn’t say that, you can’t report that and if you do it will be gutter journalism of the highest order”
— John Ashmore (@smashmorePH) July 12, 2016
Letting off some steam, Ruth?
H/T the lobby
Andy Burnham has refused to rule out giving Jeremy Corbyn a job in the Shadow Cabinet – describing the man who counts Hamas terrorists among his friends as “a man of integrity”. Speaking to a Lobby journalists’ lunch at the heart of the “Westminster bubble” he claims to despise, Burnham praised Corbyn as someone who has “important things to say” and as having “made important contributions” to the leadership contest. An unsubtle shift to the left to sweep up second preferences from Corbyn supporters… Jezza for Shadow Defence Secretary?
Burnham then went off on one about Hillsborough, mystically hinting “all I’m saying is there was a decision to leave it alone” when asked directly about a link between Blair and News International. He didn’t squash the idea that the relationship between New Labour & “certain newspapers” led to a cover up. No sign of tin foil…
