From the first of next month, Emily Sheffield will replace George Osborne as editor of the Evening Standard. Osborne himself will move upstairs to editor-in-chief. Osborne has overseen tens of millions in losses at the paper and had no idea how to turn it around. As many have pointed out, Sheffield is Samantha Cameron’s sister.
After 3 wonderful years I’m stepping down as @EveningStandard editor to become editor-in-chief. Thanks to the team who’ve made the paper a must read + helped me steer it through the greatest crisis in its history,never missing an edition & producing some of its finest journalism
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) June 12, 2020
Very proud to be the announced as the new Editor of the Evening Standard. It has been a core part of my daily life since I moved to London aged 18. And spent five formative years there as a young journalist in my 20s. @standardnews @mrevgenylebedev @George_Osborne
— Emily Sheffield (@emilysheffield) June 12, 2020
She is charged with making it a profitable digital first offering. That’s not an easy trick for a paper dependent on property and consumer advertising with little must read content. Congratulations!
In a marked departure from the attitude he would have taken in office, George Osborne’s newspaper has published a guide to today’s Black Lives Matter protests, set to begin in Hyde Park. The Standard advises those choosing to break the lockdown to wear “non-identifiable clothing” to make it harder for the police to identify criminals, and which won’t help with organisers’ first request of “remain peaceful”. The organisers also envisage the need for “shatter resistant Swimming Goggles” and “shoes you can run in” for a planned “peaceful protest”…
The Standard also directs readers to the website of Green and Black Cross, an anarchist legal aid service that is avowedly anti-police. If the paper’s retail advertisers get their windows smashed in this afternoon, am sure they will appreciate the advice given to those planning looting and rampaging. Guido’s not sure The Standard’s crime and coronavirus-riddled London audience will thank them for the stance they’ve taken on this one…
The Commons’ first Saturday sitting since 1982, intended for MPs to finally vote on Boris’s Brexit deal before MPs voted to delay the vote and further sabotage Brexit, cost the taxpayer £115,000. And remainers are calling the cost of Big Ben bonging ‘pointless’…
The sum, discovered thanks to an Evening Standard FoI request was spent on broadcasting and extra staffing costs and all thrown down the toilet thanks to rebel former-Tory MPs abanding the opportunity to get Brexit done and close up a loophole in the Surrender Act Boris wasn’t even planning on using. All in a day’s work…
George Osborne’s Evening Standard has endorsed the Liberal Democrats in the European Elections in his leader. Labour Press will love this.
In the Evening Standard editorial today, the Liberal Democrats are lauded for their remoaner credentials: “They had the courage from the start to say the referendum result was a mistake — and Britain needed to think again.” Despite leader Vince Cable arguing that the referendum result must be respected and talking up the benefits…
Last week when pushed Osborne told Peston that it would be ‘ridiculous’ if he didn’t vote Conservative. Strangely he won’t commit to saying he will vote Tory, just as his paper is telling people to back the Lib Dems…
The Adam Smith Institute’s famously laid back neoliberal star, Sophie Jarvis, last seen on Politics Live last week taking politicians to task over the Porn Laws, environmental policy, and the future of tax, has been snapped up by George Osborne’s Evening Standard. Sophie will start working on the Londoner’s Diary from Tuesday next week…
Sadiq Khan has been getting a little wound up since the Evening Standard started running the “Sadiq Khan Audit” last week, looking at how well he was actually delivering on his election promises. You know, that normal thing that journalists do…
The pressure seems to have got to Sadiq, as he channelled his inner Trump to unleash an angry outburst against Evening Standard editor George Osborne during Mayoral Question Time yesterday. Is it a good long-term strategy for the London Mayor to be launching personal attacks on the editor of one of London’s biggest papers?
