Steerpike

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.

Mr S has been in his fair share of dodgy disco hot-spots but few captured his heart like Klute, the much-loved, much-hated Durham nightclub for generations of local students. With its sticky floors, cheesy tunes and lashings of cheap liquor, it’s no surprise FHM christened the Marmite establishment ‘the second worst nightclub in Europe.’ Klute subsequently inherited that dubious honour after the winner burnt down. But what makes this seedy citadel of student solace of such interest is that the club is owned by Dominic Cummings’s family. The Vote Leave architect even worked, according to various reports, as either a doorman or helping to take in the club’s earnings, during his summers on holiday from Oxford University.

Tennis is in the news again and this time it's not Emma Raducanu's prodigious feats making the headlines. Chinese sensation Peng Shuai, a onetime Wimbledon doubles champion, has gone missing a fortnight after accusing a former top party official of forcing her to have sex after playing tennis at his home.  Unlike the craven apparatchiks of the International Olympic Committee or the National Basketball Association, the Women's Tennis Association has threatened to pull tournaments out of China, with the men's Association of Tennis Professionals demanding clarity from the Beijing authorities. It's refreshing stuff from a top sports body, with Shuai's fellow professionals queuing up to join the #WhereIsPengShuai protest.

So farewell then Geordie Greig. The Daily Mail editor is leaving his post this week after just three years in the role, following an internal power struggle at Associated Newspapers. The supremely connected Old Etonian addressed the troops late this afternoon in the Northcliffe House newsroom, with many sharing in the ‘funereal’ atmosphere that greeted news of his departure. Fortunately Steerpike’s spies were in attendance and were able to record Greig’s (brief) farewell comments to his Mail men and women as they prepared to bang him out in age-old fashion… It's a profound pleasure and privilege to be editor of the finest newspaper in the world. Three times in three years, newspaper of the year.

As the race for the Elysée hots up, presidential candidates are busy courting voters and raising funds. And with Macron's poll ratings flatlining in Paris, all eyes are on Eric Zemmour, the right-wing talkshow host who is still yet to declare but is nevertheless third in the polls. So Mr S was intrigued to learn that Zemmour plans to come to London this weekend in light of the capital's considerable French contingent, with the metropolis often cited as the sixth biggest French city. Unfortunately Zemmour's plans have run aground, with successive venues cancelling on the anti-establishment candidate in light of his controversial past statements — some of which have put him beyond the pale of much of polite Parisian society.

It's all change at Mail towers. In shock news on Fleet Street, Geordie Greig, the well-connected editor of the Daily Mail since 2018, is to step down from his current post at the end of this week. Ted Verity, the current editor of the Mail on Sunday, will instead be Editor of Mail newspapers, a position that will include overall responsibility for both the Sunday and daily papers and You magazine. In an email sent out on behalf of the paper's chairman Lord Rothermere, staff were told that since the Mail's foundation 125 years ago: The paper has never shown fear, nor sought favour, in pursuit of its founding ideals to inform, entertain and fight for its readership and the people of this great country.

As MPs spent the afternoon debating second jobs, a former colleague who knows all about the subject was holding court elsewhere. George Osborne, the part time banker and full time mischief-maker, was unveiling a plaque in Piccadilly to the legendary caricaturist James Gillray – a satirist who would no doubt have had great fun with the former Chancellor. Wearing one of his many, many hats, Osborne – in his capacity as chairman of the British Museum – told the assembled crowds of his love of the great British tradition of print cartoons, remarking:  As a teenager I used to go to Camden Passage to the antique shops there to try and get hold of some Gillray prints.

You'd have thought certain Tory grandees would be chastened after the past fortnight. But while most Conservatives on the green benches now admit the decision to try to overrule the standards committee's recommendations on Owen Paterson was a mistake, it seems that one diehard remains unbowed. Step forward Sir Christopher Chope, the veteran MP for Christchurch, and no stranger to political controversy. Chope of course is a long-time member of the Tory awkward squad who specialises in filibustering parliamentary bills, most famously in 2018 when he blocked legislation that would have made upskirting an offence – an act which led to Commons staff placing a bunting of women's underwear outside his office entrance.