Daily mail

For those us who dabble in journalism, it is a constant effort to make our prose as engaging, punchy, and robust as our limited vocabularies can manage. It is thus utterly refreshing and deeply imposing to be reminded of how best to do it by a master of their craft. Exhibit A: Paul Dacre’s statement following Prince Harry’s loss in court yesterday. Read it and grin. Dacre and his publications stood for people like us: ordinary suburban Brits ‘There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family’. ‘I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case’. This ‘trumped-up action’ raises ‘profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession’.

After cross-party condemnation and a Commons summons by Lindsay Hoyle, it was only natural that the Mail would hit back over its Angela Rayner story. The Daily Mail has today ridden to the rescue of its sister newspaper the Mail on Sunday, aiming a double-barrelled blast at both the Speaker and Labour's deputy leader. In a typically strident front page splash, it roars 'No, Mister Speaker!' declaring that David Dillon, the editor of the Sunday paper, will not appear before Hoyle to explain a report which suggested Rayner tries to distract Boris Johnson at PMQs, in the manner of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

Sanctions, boycotts, bans, penalties of all kind: there's no end to the punishments being slapped on Moscow. But amid the frantic rush of institutions and individuals to distance themselves from Russia, some seem to be somewhat overstepping the mark.  The Cardiff Philharmonic has today cancelled an all-Tchaikovsky programme as ‘inappropriate at this time’; Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was sacked last week by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra for failing to condemn Putin. In Italy, the University of Milano-Bicocca has been forced to backtrack after trying to cancel a Dostoevsky course while at least three MPs in the UK have suggested stripping Russians in Britain of their citizenship.

As war between Ukraine and Russia continues to rage, closer to home a very different conflict has been playing out at Daily Mail HQ over on High Street Kensington. Mr S has chronicled the recent comings and goings in the hallowed halls of Northcliffe House, as Paul Dacre, Geordie Greig and Martin Clarke have all found themselves in and out of the building's revolving doors since November. Now another bigwig has joined the list of those exiting the Mail group: Mail+ editor Gordon Thomson,  who is departing after three years. The Mail+ project, which has been referred to internally as the 'baby' of owner Lord Rothermere, was launched to much fanfare in 2019.

The shenanigans at Northcliffe House have given Mr S much to write about in recent months. Whether it's Geordie Greig's sudden fall from grace, Ted Verity's promotion or Lord Rothermere's designs on DMGT, it appears that the Daily Mail creates as much drama as it reports. Unfortunately it seems that the shock return of Paul Dacre last month has ruffled a fair few feathers in the newsroom, with some hacks fearing a return to what they call the 'bad old days'. Amid the uncertainty and conflicting reports about comings and goings, it's unsurprising that some young guns now see their futures elsewhere.

Fear and unease have stalked the corridors of Northcliffe House since the announcement last Wednesday of Geordie Greig’s defenestration as editor of the Daily Mail. A ‘funereal’ atmosphere has lingered over the paper’s staff ever since, with nervy hacks fearing the return of expletive-riddled editorial explosions associated with Greig’s predecessor Paul Dacre. There’s also considerable unease about the decision to combine the editorships of the daily and Sunday papers into a single post. But on Saturday, Greig’s successor, Ted Verity, sought to reassure the Sunday journalists that their future were safe.

I may have spoken too soon when I predicted that the Daily Mail might not suffer from its Brexit volte-face. At the Daily Telegraph’s Christmas charity phone-in last Sunday, I was struck by how many donating readers mentioned the Mail’s desertion, and by reports of recruitment by the Telegraph of disconsolate Mail readers. There are rumours that the Mail’s new editor, Geordie Greig, has personally rung to plead with readers who are cancelling their subscriptions. Geordie is a charming man, but obviously he cannot speak to all the disgruntled tens of thousands. The Mail has chosen to switch from an insurgent to an establishment position just when that establishment is more discredited than at any time since the 1930s.

Awake to the Today programme and ordure being dumped on me by Polly Toynbee while the Mail’s legendary Dame Ann Leslie sings my praises. I recall how Toynbee penned a venomous piece about my predecessor, Sir David English, only days after he died at 67 (though, through a slip in the actualité, his Who’s Who entry had him at 66). I never cease to be amused by the way the left demonise anyone they disagree with, but poor Polly’s obsession with the Mail is almost psychotic. Roger Alton, the ex-editor of the Observer, wades in, writing to the Guardian that I am ‘a very great man and a newspaperman of genius who has done as much to improve the quality of life in Britain as anybody I can think of’.