Last night’s Partygate photos, taken at Lee Cain’s leaving drinks on 13th November 2020, will prove difficult terrain for the PM, even after having escaped a second fine from the Met’s investigation last week. In November 2020 the country was in a full national lockdown, with gatherings only permitted if “reasonable” for work…
As with the birthday cake debacle, details of the gathering were leaked to the press contemporaneously, to very little fanfare. On 15th November 2020, two days after the event, the Telegraph revealed Boris gave “a leaving speech” for Cain, who was then cheered out by colleagues:
“The Telegraph has learnt that Mr Johnson gave a leaving speech for Mr Cain, who stayed in Number 10 for hours after Mr Cummings had departed. One member of staff said: “It was a very warm speech, the Prime Minister talked about how good a friend Lee had been and how they would continue to be friends. It was a nice gesture…
Former journalist Mr Cain was then “banged out” by colleagues, a tradition borrowed from Fleet Street, in which people thump on desks to show their affection for a departing co-worker”
The Sunday Times ran with a similar line on the 14th:
“Johnson visited Cain in his office and signed a pair of boxing gloves emblazoned with “Get Brexit done” before making a speech wishing him well. “He’s the only one of my staff who always answers phone calls, no matter what time of day or night,” Johnson said, adding: “I sometimes wait for days for Dom to return them.””
At the time, the focus was naturally on the circumstances of Cain and Cummings’ departure – not the farewell speech afterwards, though not a single member of the media decided to go through Covid laws line-by-line to see if it was permissible. Of course, there may well be more incriminating evidence to come, and it’ll likely be a sticky wicket for Boris to defend in front of the Commons Standards and Privileges committee. Still, Guido struggles to see the difference between wine and crisps in Downing Street, and beer and curry in Durham…
There was some consternation and amusement when word went round Guardian towers that Ben Riley-Smith, The Telegraph’s political editor for the last year, had applied for the vacant political editor’s position at The Guardian. Audacious and unprecedented…
It is a tribute to the unhappiness at Telegraph towers that a senior hack would apply for a job transfer to their polar opposite rivals. Asking around colleagues as to whether he would fit in with the somewhat different editorial stance, the memorable line quipped to Guido was that Ben is an “Etonian shapeshifter” who would more than cope. The Guardian could certainly benefit from some journalistic political insight with more Eton-influenced sympathies…
A senior source said the “Telegraph is a horrible place and you’re always on death row” under editor Chris Evans’ reign of terror. A more junior source citing Riley-Smith’s “byline banditry” says he won’t be mourned if he moved. Guido wishes him luck…
Yesterday’s Sunday Times made a passing reference to an unnamed “Lobby journalist” being “stripped of their parliamentary pass last week following reports about their raucous behaviour”. The fearless Lobby cartel’s “rule of omerta” when it comes to their own is in play. Guido understands it was a Telegraph Lobby journalist who was stripped of their pass last week following a row in a bar. No one at The Telegraph is willing to comment…
This will reduce the number of Telegraph journalists with passes giving them access to Parliament from 23 to 22. They’ll just have to cope somehow…
UPDATE: A Telegraph spokesman gets in touch “We are aware of an incident, we take the matter of parliamentary security seriously, and are dealing with the matter accordingly.”
Jane Bruton, The Telegraph’s deputy editor is unexpectedly out. With the latest figures showing print circulation down 14% the paper is upping the news quotient. Bruton, who was Grazia’s editor-in-chief before joining the Telegraph in 2015, was director of lifestyle and deputy editor. The news came as a surprise to the newsroom. Senior Telegraph sources are keen to tell Guido that she is going of her own volition.
UPDATE: Chris Evans emailed Telegraph staff the following:
After seven glorious years, Jane Bruton has left The Telegraph to pursue new challenges. We’ll miss her enormously and we’d like to thank her for her marvellous contribution in helping us reach 750,000 subscriptions, with the target of 1 million firmly in sight. Paul Nuki will act as temporary replacement for Jane, reporting to me. Kath Brown will continue to run the Lifestyle half of Features and she will also report to me. Anyone interested in replacing Jane, and helping to lead The Telegraph in its digital transformation, should apply to Adam Sills.
Thanks.
No mention of what Bruton’s new challenges might be and strange that if she had, as Evans claims, decided to leave presumably after having given her notice as normal, that no permanent replacement was lined up. According to a source, struggling editor Chris Evans’s “reign of terror” is also the explanation for Jane Bruton’s deputy, Victoria Harper, being on sick leave. It will be interesting to see how the paper is doing when their annual figures are out later this month…
Operation Red Meat appears to have transformed into Operation ‘just announce anything’ as this morning the Department for Transport has come out with a new policy of reducing annoying train tannoy announcements. The policy, that was presumably greeted with “yes and ho” in the Horseferry Road office, will see the “endless torrent” of train announcements curbed to make journeys “a little more peaceful”.
📢 '...put unwanted newspapers in the bin...'
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) January 21, 2022
This is one example of the announcements that we're getting rid of, making the passenger experience better and delivering on the Williams-Shapps #PlanForRail.
Read more on announcements we’re removing 👇https://t.co/rSHLqZ5itH pic.twitter.com/xvp09Op4m9
In a promo video, Shapps can be seen reading the Telegraph before putting it down and asking viewers – à la Clarkson -“do we really need to be told to put our newspapers in the bin?”. The video itself is captioned “📢 ‘…put unwanted newspapers in the bin…'”. Given the Telegraph’s long-time loyalty to the government, Guido’s amazed Shapps’ SpAds didn’t make the obvious gag, and have him reading the Guardian…
Humiliation for the Muslim Council of Britain, as their media spokesperson has lost an IPSO complaint against the Telegraph. Miqdaad Versi had made a complaint that an op-ed entitled “We’re not drifting into segregation, we’re hurtling perilously towards it”, written by Nick Timothy, breached Clause 1 (accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. The complaint has now been thrown out.
In the article, Timothy referenced a letter to schools from Gavin Williamson, “warning that while pupils are allowed to express political views, anti-Semitic language and threats must not be tolerated”, going on to state:
“In response to the Williamson letter, Miqdaad Versi, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, complained that the Government was being ‘one-sided’. The letter, of course, was not about events in Israel, but the harassment of British Jews. In suggesting there might be two sides to racism, Versi revealed more than he intended about why the Government refuses to engage with the MCB.”
Versi argued that Timothy’s interpretation of his views was “based on misinterpretation of a Twitter thread he had posted” and claimed “he was calling on the government to also take action on the discrimination and racism encountered by Muslim children”
In the end neither party disputed that the alleged breach of Clause 1 had appeared in the context of the op-ed, merely disputing whether the alleged breach was presented as fact or comment within the comment piece. The body ultimately commended the Telegraph for publishing a letter from Versi, allowing him to put his point of view across…
