An off-colour joke between colleagues. Why say it? Why leak it? Why print it? Why lie about telling it?
Reading back, it highlights how supposedly level-headed ‘realists’ were so slow to recognise the true nature of the National Socialist regime.
The abuses at the heart of the hacking scandal were already illegal. A state regulator would only allow those running it to pursue punitive agendas against legal activity.
The focus of the big four centre right newspapers has switched to immigration – binding them closer to a Brexit position.
The Blair-era instinct of trying to manage a crisis by ‘winning’ the day-to-day news grid is inadequate to the challenges facing the Government.
Newspaper endorsements are not as valuable as they once were but the editorial endorsements of a newspaper are still actively sought by politicians – not least because they tend to influence the overall news priorities of that newspaper. Over the last 24 hours I've been speaking to journalists within all of Britain's main daily newspapers […]
It’s probably the angriest article he has written since dumping all over Boris Johnson. Here are some extracts from Simon Heffer’s critique of David Cameron’s Davos speech, already online – "I understate my case to say that it is one of the most shallow, ignorant and vacuous speeches by a supposedly serious politician that I […]
The Press Gazette notes an interesting confession by the Daily Mail’s Political Editor Benedict Brogan. Ben, speaking in a personal capacity, comes close to saying that his newspaper has been played by Gordon Brown: "Brogan said that although Tony Blair was seen by many as "the master of spin", he believed the Gordon Brown spin […]
Earlier this week Irwin Stelzer – ‘Rupert Murdoch’s representative on earth’ – gave an interview to The Guardian in which he signalled a growing warmth of The Sun (and News of the World) to David Cameron. The Murdoch-Brown-Cameron relationships have been taken up by Roy Greenslade today in his ‘Media Analysis’ column for the London […]
The Press Gazette is reporting that Rosa Prince, a political journalist at The Mirror for the last ten years, is to replace Brendan Carlin as a political reporter for The Telegraph. Brendan Carlin is leaving for the Mail on Sunday. The Telegraph’s recently-appointed political editor Andrew Porter said: "I am delighted Rosa is joining The […]
More details of the ICM/ News of the World poll: 77% disapprove of Labour’s record on immigration. 63% of its law and order performance. 62% disapprove of Labour on tax. More than half (52%) give Labour the thumbs down on the NHS. The NotW leader offers advice to David Cameron: "The Tories’ alluring promise of […]
The Sun is at its best this morning. Not only does its front page attack Brown for his dismissive 12 second mention of the EU Treaty (and its own high voltage campaign for the referendum we were promised) but its Sun Says column exposes the hypocrisy of yesterday’s speech: "In Bournemouth, he promised to abolish […]
On each of the last three weekdays the newspaper formerly known as The Daily Torygraph has been causing big headaches at CCHQ. On Friday it gave massive attention to a YouGov opinion poll – a lot of the data for which was already a week old. That week had included the energetic Cameron offensive on […]
In a rare interview in September’s Esquire magazine Les Hinton, the executive chairman of News International (owners of the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World), said that the next election will be "the first time we’ve had a contest since 1992" and that it is "impossible to say" who […]
All of the papers are reporting that Gordon Brown has killed off Tony Blair’s supercasino plans. The Mail can barely contain its delight: "To his huge credit, Gordon Brown is turning his back on the big-money interests that held his predecessor in thrall and is signalling that Britain’s first supercasino is dead in the water. […]