Downing Street has chosen the first day of the Christmas holidays to publish the salaries of government special advisers. Theresa May’s joint chiefs of staff Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy are on £140,000 each. There are now 83 SpAds costing the taxpayer £7.9 million a year…
Jamie Reed, a two term MP best known for cracking bad jokes on Twitter, is resigning as an MP. He is off to work as a lobbyist for Sellafield. As a no holds barred anti-Corbynista he can see which way the wind is blowing politically. Aged only 43, he has chosen to make some money rather than battle in opposition for the rest of his working life…
He of course says “This decision has got absolutely nothing to do with Jeremy Corbyn. On a personal level I’ve got a very cordial relationship.” Yeah, right…
Given how poorly Labour are polling currently, Reed’s Copeland seat looks fairly marginal. The Tories were only 2,000 behind. Could UKIP steal votes from both Labour and the Tories? This will be Nuttall’s first test. If Labour lose the by-election Corbyn will be back under intense pressure…
Click image to enlarge
By-election! Majority just 2,000…
Can’t help feeling today that Rafael isn’t going to the same parties as Guido. Must be pretty tough for Rafael at the moment. He’s a centrist, liberal metropolitan political commentator. Broadsheets have an excess inventory of those type of columnists nowadays don’t they? “They write authoritatively, shame it is all bollocks” was a country-dwelling, right-of-centre columnist’s description of his rivals to Guido at a jolly Christmas drinks party. Unfortunately the lumpen liberal wordsmiths don’t go to dinner parties with Corbyn, May or Trump. Worse still they don’t even know people who go to dinner parties with Corbyn, May or Trump…
At some point they must fear that editors are going to realise that this type of columnist is a little surplus to reader requirements and not in the main game any more. Why else might Rafael, and other columnists of his ilk, be joyless?
- He’s Blairite or whatever they call themselves nowadays. Their host party has been taken over by Corbynista loo-las.
- He didn’t expect Brexit. Now all the wrong people are enjoying themselves and partying.
- He was looking forward to President Hillary. She’s their kinda gal. They got Trump.
- He’s a Guardian journalist. The paper had a billion dollar endowment to last them in perpetuity. They are now losing so much money it won’t last them a decade. Look at what happened to the Indy.
Today is the darkest day of the year, tomorrow it gets lighter. So cheer up Rafael and a hearty Merry Christmas to all the columnists who have had a very difficult and traumatic year: Zoe, Janan, Hugo, Matthew, Matthew, Phil, Philip, John, Gaby, Polly, Jonathan and Marina. You have given the rest of us unintended laughs all year long…
Last week MediaGuido reported that the Telegraph’s digital guru and pantomime villain Malcolm Coles was being let go from the paper. Coles responded by demanding we take our story down, telling us it was “untrue” and “defamatory” and cc’ing his lawyer into his email to this site. Today, six days later, Coles has confirmed he is out:
“We did some good stuff over the last two years. And we also did football emoji scores. I wish everyone there well for 2017.”
A rare case where Telegraph hacks are pleased to see someone leave. Coles will be hoping his lawyer has better success getting him some redundancy cash…
Parliament is in recess, Guido’s liver needs to go into remission, the parliamentary news sausage machine has been switched off. The Dead Tree Press will be empty of news. We too will be taking a break from breaking news…
News flow will be light, we will still be uploading this and that, highlighting things that have amazed, amused and angered us and our co-conspirators. The daily Guidogram email will be as intermittent as if it was delivered by the Communications Workers Union. To all you news junkies and political obssessives, Guido’s advice is, take a break. We wish you all, a very merry Christmas…
That latest Register of Members’ Interests is in and George Osborne is continuing to coin it on the speaking circuit. He trousered £51,000 from Aberdeen Asset Management for a speech last month and another £68,000 from Dubai-based ITP Publishing for another speech just six says later. That brings Osborne’s speaking total to £627,890 since September. How did he celebrate? Over lunch with Nick Clegg at the Cambridge Street Kitchen in Pimlico, reports LBC’s Vincent McAviney. Described as a “neighbourhood social space”, a light lunch of Cornish crab is just £9 or you can get a burger for £13. Not the priciest place to take Clegg given Osborne’s bank balance. Though wine was taken…
Parts one and two of MediaGuido’s Impress File told how the state-endorsed press regulator wants to ban the Daily Mail and financially ruin the Sun and Express. Today we bring you part three, revealing that senior figures at Impress have a pathological hatred of the newspapers they want to regulate.
Paul Wragg is a legal academic at Leeds University and member of Impress’ Code Committee. He has shared a tweet saying: “I don’t know whether I exactly love Britain but I do know that I hate the Daily Mail”, adding in his own words: “I couldn’t agree more.” How can Impress reasonably regulate the newspaper industry when one of its most senior officials says he hates one of its most popular newspapers?
Likewise, Máire Messenger Davies – Impress Code Committee and Board of Directors member – openly spouts hatred of the Mail. She has promoted social media posts calling the Mail “Total scum” and its editor Paul Dacre “evil“. Her unhinged attacks on Dacre are personal in nature: she shared a mock up of a Mail front page with a picture of the editor next to the headline “This Hate Preacher Must be Stopped”. Why has the government given recognition to this bunch of cranks? It is demonstrably clear that the state press regulator is not fit for purpose…
Dan Jarvis is getting a lot of media play ahead of his Westminster Hall debate this afternoon highlighting the government’s shrinking of the cross-departmental civil service Child Poverty Unit from 23 staff down to 10. Jarvis argues that
“We are living through the biggest increase in relative child poverty in a generation. The Institute for Fiscal Studies predict that without changing course we will see a 50% rise by 2020.”
Sounds horrific, child poverty is going to rise by 50% in 3 years! Stop. Look around. Infant mortality has fallen, most health indicators are improving, even childhood obesity has peaked. How can child poverty be set to increase by 50%?
It is a ratio, not reality. As the economy strengthens middle and upper incomes recover at a faster rate than lower incomes – in part because of an unlimited supply of cheap labour from the EU – the ratio between the two rises, so the child poverty ratio rises. Even as household incomes rise for the less well off as well…
The creation of the Child Poverty Act (2010) was one of the last ideological acts of a Labour government that knew it was likely to lose the general election held two months later. It attempted to legislate against inequality, against people getting richer. The numbers show that absolute poverty, real poverty, where you can’t afford necessities, is falling as worklessness falls. Relative poverty, where you can’t afford as much as richer people, is not really falling – this is not a problem. Child poverty is not about ratios. Abolishing the Whitehall bean counters and focusing on work-based paths out of poverty is the way forward.
Labour talk a good game on poverty – it remains a fact that the unemployment rate always increases under Labour governments, this can have the effect of flattering the ratios. The best real child poverty counter-measure is working to support your family. No amount of redistribution, no ratios, no welfare measure can surpass the effectiveness of bringing home a wage to support your family.
Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon piled into into G4S over prisons yesterday, an easy target after Labour boycotted the security firm over its links to Israel. ‘Farting commie‘ Burgon slammed G4S for “making profit from prisons and from society’s ills”, what he didn’t mention is that he accepted hospitality from the firm just last month. G4S held a bash at the Southbank Centre in November showcasing art in prisons. Burgon attended with his girlfriend, a cheap date night. Guido hears he and his missus enjoyed the wine and several bowls of the hot pot on offer, though never raised any concerns about G4S running prisons when he spoke to their Head of Prisons. Burgon instead told his G4S hosts how he’d love to visit one of their prisons, but has he actually been to one yet? Guido has asked Burgon if he has visited a G4S prison since becoming Shadow Justice Secretary, he has not replied. This is all a bit Cathy Newman all over again…
Labour moderates descended on the 5-star Sheraton Park Lane last night to glad-hand small business owners and donors at the annual SME 4 Labour dinner. It was an uncomfortable gig for Jeremy Corbyn: his night took a turn for the worse when former leadership rival Yvette Cooper won the group’s “Labour MP of the Year” award to rapturous applause from the packed dining room.
Corbyn used his speech to attack the Mail and the Evening Standard for having “grotesquely and inaccurately reported” Labour’s embittered Christmas party: “I haven’t got time to list all the papers who have done it wrong”. Some comfort was offered when John McDonnell won an Italian meal for two in the raffle. Yvette looked confident throughout.
The LBC interview they’re all talking about this morning…
This tweet was sent by the Telegraph Politics Twitter account to the paper’s editor Chris Evans tonight, publicly shaming him for “firing journalists”.
It was swiftly deleted, before the message was tweeted again a few minutes later:
It would appear a disgruntled Telegraph journalist with access to the @telepolitics twitter account has decided to go rogue. Chris Evans needs to change the password quick…
“Matt nails it.”
Via Peston
Is he tough enough to fight off the flu?
Proud of new role in international health promotion. When America sneezes….#flulabour
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) December 19, 2016
UPDATE:[…] Read the rest
