Because your employees look to you for leadership, you should not leave your troubles and worries cast a dark cloud over everyone, for this way is a failure.
I I. You set a clear direction.
If you want to be a leader, you must create a vision in the minds of his disciples to where and how they carry. Otherwise, your organization and wandering in the desert.
III. You must create a viable plan.
Although no plan should be written in stone and plans should be modified if conditions change, if you fail to plan, then actually also plan to fail.
IV. You must ensure adequate resources.
While writing true that faith can move mountains, faith must be accompanied by bulldozers, dump trucks and paid staff who know how to use them.
V. You listen more than talk.
Leadership is not about the conference and then give orders. Leadership is to understand what others want and use the desire to serve the common good.
VI. You do not hold meetings without an agenda.
Before each meeting send a decree defining what will be discussed and for how long. His own decree is then set as the productivity of the whole team depends on it. Because, in fact, it does.
VII. You do not criticize in public.
While his staff and colleagues are composed of fools and knaves, public humiliation creates resentment. If a disciple deserves a reprimand, shall provide in the privacy of his office.
VIII. Do not ask an employee to do something that you would not do yourself.
Truly great leaders must make a piece of trash on the floor of a corridor, down, pick it up and throw it away.
IX. You will not make for yourself a bottleneck.
If you insist on making every final decision, stop the progression of your organization. If you can not delegate, no sense to pretend to be a leader.
True leaders accept the blame when things go wrong and take any credit when things go well. Their reward is just the love and commitment of those who continue to work for you
Journalists should not be taken to court for paying public officials for information if the leaks are in the public interest, a former director of public prosecutions has said.
Ken Macdonald QC said “not enough weight” had been attached to the public-interest defence in the recent attempts to convict journalists as part of Operation Elveden, the £20m investigation into journalists and their sources that began three years ago.
His comments came after the current DPP, Alison Saunders, announced she was abandoning future prosecutions of Andy Coulson and eight other journalists who were facing trial over leaks from public officials.
Lord Macdonald told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we have to give the highest regard to the importance of freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas, and I think it is simply obvious that there are circumstances in which it can be in the public interest for journalists to pay for information. Not for tittle tattle, or gossip or scandal. But we can all imagine cases where if the price of information coming into the public domain is the payment of a public official by a journalist then that’s an appropriate thing for the journalist to do.”
Macdonald, who was the DPP from 2003-08, added: “It looks as though in the charging decisions that were made in the past in the Elveden cases, not enough weight was attached to the public interest in free expression and the freedom of the press, and that was an error I think the DPP has tried to correct by dumping these cases.”
The Crown Prosecution Service will now offer no evidence in the cases of nine journalists, who include Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, and Clive Goodman, the paper’s former royal editor, who were awaiting trial.
The prosecution will continue of a further three Sun journalists: Chris Pharo, head of news, and district reporter Jamie Pyatt who both face a retrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict earlier this year, and Anthony France, the paper’s crime correspondent.
The decision to drop the cases came after a review forced on the CPS by an appeal court ruling last month that questioned prosecutors’ use of the charge of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office – an ancient common-law offence – to pursue the journalists.
The new CPS guidelines state that where journalists are involved with corrupt police officers, there would be a “high public interest” in prosecuting. But for journalists who deal with other types of officials, such as prison guards, the harm to the public interest in corrupt payments may be “finely balanced” against the lack of harm caused by the resulting stories. In these circumstances, the prosecution of journalists “may not always be in the public interest”.
The high-profile Elveden inquiry began after widespread phone hacking was revealed at the News of the World. News International, the owner of the Sun and the News of the World, gave the police documents relating to its staff, including 300m emails. From this information, detectives were given details of journalists and their sources and began a series of raids.
The journalists arrested were left on bail in some cases for two or more years. The vast majority were cleared, with only two convictions out of 29 charged.
Among those acquitted were the former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, the deputy editor Geoff Webster, the royal editor Duncan Larcombe, the executive editor Fergus Shanahan and the chief reporter John Kay.
Kay successfully argued that the leaks, which included revelations about shortages of equipment for British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and bullying at Deepcut barracks, where four soldiers took their own lives, were in the public interest.
“At last”, says the Daily Mail today. “After two largely insipid weeks”, the Tory election campaign burst into life with the party’s promise to remove family homes worth up to £1m from inheritance tax.
It praises David Cameron for freeing “more and more middle-class families” from “paying a punitive death charge that was intended only for the very wealthy”.
The Daily Express is also delighted by the proposal, claiming that it amounts to “another epic stride forward” for the paper’s “crusade to end inheritance tax”. This is reinforced in an editorial and in an op-ed column by Leo McKinstry.
Boris Johnson, a Tory candidate, devotes his Daily Telegraph column to praise for the idea: “Hooray. Great move, Blue team! At last we are doing something to end the unfairness of a tax that has crept up on countless ordinary families”.
The Times’s editorial welcomes the promise. “Inheritance taxes are rightfully loathed”, it says while pointing out that it is “actually less of a pledge than the one made in the last Conservative manifesto”, which was blocked by the Liberal Democrats in coalition.
And Trevor Kavanagh, the Sun’s associate editor, also greets the proposal. He reminds readers that the party’s similar pledge in 2007 killed off Gordon Brown’s plan for a snap election. He points out that it appeals not only to older voters but also to “inheritors in their 40s and 50s”.
The Sun goes it alone with its main story of the day - on its front page, across two pages inside and an editorial. It concerns its orchestration of “a letter to Sun readers” from 100 small traders (aka “100 hard-working entrepreneurs”).
The burden of the letter is that Labour’s leader Ed Miliband “would be a disaster for business”: “We feel the Conservative party is best placed to continue overseeing the recovery of the economy - while a change to Labour will have a negative impact on British business”.
Its editorial bolsters the point, belabouring “Red Ed” for whose policies that “treat business as some sort of enemy: “For small, medium and large businesses, Labour is the problem, not the solution”.
The central message in both the Times and the Mail is about what the latter calls an injection of passion into the campaign to beat “a left-wing Labour party obsessed with taxing and spending ever more of your money”.
The Times’s splash is even headlined Passionate Cameron outlines his Tory dream and talks of the prime minister having “struck a notably more passionate and optimistic tone” in his inheritance tax speech as he tried “to jump-start his party’s campaign with a more upbeat message”.
And the Daily Star’s main political story is headlined, “Put more passion into it, Cameron!” and claims it reflects a call within the Consercvative party.
What it clearly does reflect is the power of Tory spin doctors to set the agenda in their briefings. Passion was obviously the word whispered to the political correspondents.
Although one of the Mail’s political spreads plugs Cameron’s pledge, PM: I’ll stand up for aspiration, another one leads off with a warning from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that tax proposals by both the Tories and Labour “risk having a ‘longterm malign influence’ on the economy”.
It also headlines the TV interview by Andrew Marr with the chancellor, George Osborne, in which he “repeatedly ducked questions” about how a Tory government would find the extra £8bn it has promised the NHS.
The Telegraph’s choice of splash is interesting: Labour plea to voters: the economy is safe with us. It’s built around the leak of one page of Labour’s manifesto, entitled “Budget Responsibility Lock”.
It reveals that Miliband will “put Labour’s fiscal credibility at the heart of the party’s manifesto” by cutting the deficit every year to get national debt falling and obtain a surplus on the current budget as soon as possible in the next parliament.
The Guardian, here, the Financial Times, here, and the Independent, here, carry similar stories on their front pages.
The Daily Mirror is positively ectastic in running a poster-style front page with Miliband’s picture and the headline, “My pledge”, plus an inside spread.
A two-word phrase in a single sentence from David Cameron’s manifesto speech provides the headlines in several newspapers today. He said:
“The next five years are about turning the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family”.
The sound bite worked. So the Daily Telegraph’s front page is topped by Return of the good life. And here’s the Times, I’ll bring the good life back to Britain, Cameron promises and the Financial Times Tories break with austerity policies and promise ‘good life’ to voters.
And the others? Yes. Cameron pledges good life for all (Daily Mail); I’ll bring back the sunshine and the good life (Daily Express); Cam in good life promise (Daily Star); “Family guy Cameron promises to deliver the ‘good life’ to all” (Metro).
The Sun comes at it from an angle designed to please its readership by reporting that Cameron has pledged to reward “ordinary” low-paid workers. Its splash headline therefore is “Happy ever grafter”.
The Daily Mirror is, as one might expect of the lone Labour-supporting paper, less ecstatic. Its headline asks “Where’s the £25bn to pay for ‘the good life’?”
The Guardian, the Independent and i eschewed the chance to run “good life” headlines. Again, that’s to be expected of a sceptical non-Tory press.
Aside from the headlines, the leading articles about the Tory manifesto provide greater insights into the papers’ opinions. Several refer to Margaret Thatcher in praise of Cameron’s right-to-buy proposal.
The Times thinks we heard “the authentic and optimistic” Cameron in his promises to working parents, the low-waged and to the NHS. But it also counselled that such pledges depend upon an optimistic reading of Britain’s public finances.
It is not clear, said the paper, that that “waving around... electoral goodies was electoral plan A for a Conservative party that until very recently was talking up the economic risks that still lay ahead. Only six months ago Mr Cameron was warning that the ‘red warning lights are once again flashing on the dashboard of the global economy’”. It continues:
“Opinion polls have, however, cast doubt on the wisdom of the Tories’ ‘hold on to nurse for fear of something worse’ strategy. Surveys have indicated that voters are fed up with the austerity medicine and want public spending to rise again. The prime minister has responded to that mood...
At the heart of the Tory manifesto is an admirable ambition to reward work and invest in education, the two essential underpinnings of social progress.
The Times welcomes Mr Cameron’s commitment to build affordable houses with the proceeds of an expanded right-to-buy policy”.
The Telegraph liked Cameron’s “upbeat message emphasising hope, aspiration and self-reliance” compared to “Labour’s defensive manifesto launch... Ed Miliband’s central theme was a scarcely credible attempt to persuade voters that he has converted to the cause of fiscal probity...
“Mr Cameron, on the other hand, could point to a period of economic success without which the myriad promises spewing out of both party machines would be worthless”.
So the Telegraph believes despite Miliband’s efforts to portray himself as born-again champion of austerity, the simple fact remains that the stewardship of the economy is best left in Tory hands”. But jobs, and fairness, are the key:
“Having helped to put the economy back on an even keel, the problem facing the Conservatives was the impression that the good life they were offering was reserved for better-off home owners and higher-rate taxpayers.
The manifesto counters this with a bold plan to extend home ownership through a new rightto-buy scheme encompassing housing association properties and by improving markedly the help for families with child-care costs”.
The Mail was pleased with Cameron’s “hugely assured performance” when outlining “a distinctively Tory vision of a Britain”. It continued:
“This was the vision of a leader looking ahead, with infectious hope and a refreshingly Tory sense of purpose. Not for him Ed Miliband’s all-powerful state, regulating every spit and cough of our lives and seizing money from those who earn it to give to those who don’t.
In Mr Cameron’s ‘buccaneering, worldbeating, can-do’ Britain, families will be able to decide for themselves how they spend their wages...
But perhaps most welcome is the pledge to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants... Thus, Mr Cameron keeps burning the flame lit by Margaret Thatcher – a prime minister who truly understood the meaning of aspiration (and how typical of the monstrous hypocrisy of the Left that so many state-subsidised housing association landlords, with six-figure salaries and handsome homes of their own, wish to deny their tenants the same security and independence)”.
The Sun views the Tory promises as a REAL boost for the poor, praising the 30 hours’ free childcare a week for working mothers; the right-to-buy proposal and exemption of minimum wage earners from income tax.
Like the Mail, it nods to Cameron’s adoption of Margaret Thatcher-style policies to empower “ordinary people to improve their lives”.
The Financial Times praises Cameron’s shift “to a more positive message” rather than slamming Miliband and sees it as a counter to the perception that the Tories are “on the side of the well-to-do”.
And it also sees it in historic terms as an echo of the Conservatives’ most successful post-war leader:
“The Tory manifesto injects some sorely needed ‘one nation’ rhetoric which draws on the blue collar conservatism that powered Margaret Thatcher to three election victories.
This may be understandable in terms of electoral positioning and the pressing need for a breakthroughin the polls which have been stubbornly deadlocked”.
But the FT thinks “Cameron has chosen some questionable policies to make the point”, arguing that “the pledge to extend the right to buy to 800,000 social housing tenants will do nothing to address Britain’s acute housing shortage. It may even choke off the supply of new social properties”. It continues:
“The Tory move risks simply showering unearned rewards on those who happen to be renting existing stock”.
It concludes: “In his quest for electoral traction, the prime minister should beware of discarding what remains theTories’ strongest suit”.
The Guardian is unconvinced by Cameron’s transformation of the Tories into a “free-spending party of the workers”. It continues:
“As with Labour, the counter-intuitive campaign message is a calculated political risk. Unlike Labour’s smart gamble, however, this Conservative reinvention doesn’t stack up”. But it concedes that “there was an unmissable feelgood theme to the launch that has been conspicuously absent from the party campaign so far”. It said:
“Mr Cameron’s presentation was so set on being upbeat that it said much less about many mean-spirited commitments lurking in the manifesto itself.
The continuing retreat on alternative energy, for instance – subsidies for onshore wind farms ended – got no mention. Nor did the nasty pledge for a further freeze in the BBC licence fee. Nor did the further dilution of any reform of the House of Lords. Nor did the snooper’s charter, which the Tories would reintroduce if they form the next government”.
For the Guardian, the manifesto launch “was a clever attempt to sell a false prospectus”.
The Independent is unconvinced by the right-to-buy proposal, arguing that Thatcher’s original adoption of that policy “helped to create our contemporary housing crisis”. Its consequence has been “a chronic shortage of local authority accommodation and large waiting lists for those properties that remain”.
It states: “Estimates suggest more than a third of the flogged council stock is now in the hands of private landlords. And who are their tenants? Families who, in the past, would have been housed directly by councils”. It continued:
“It was... notable that the reaction to the Tories’ right to buy manifesto pledge from the housing industry yesterday was uniformly negative. The hostility from the likes of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed, in particular, how times have changed.
The sickness at the heart of housing today is not a lack of aspiration from council and housing association tenants but a chronic shortage of new housing supply. We are simply not building enough new homes.
The Tories’ 1980s-infused policy cocktail will do nothing to cure that ailment. Indeed, it threatens to make matters far worse”.
The Express didn’t run a leading article, but its op-ed piece, by Stephen Pollard, was probably an accurate reflection of its view, Tories’ manifesto pledges run rings around Labour’s.
Journalists from Russia, Spain, France, Bosnia, Romania and Britain have been honoured for their outstanding work by being awarded European Press Prizes (EPP).
They include the Observer’s columnist, Nick Cohen, who won the commentator category for his pieces on “the cowardice of Nigel Farage”.
The EPP judges, chaired by Sir Harold Evans, the Reuters editor-at-large, praised Cohen for his “zest, rhetoric and clear determination to tackle his targets straight on”.
He, like the winners of the other three categories - distinguished writing, investigative reporting and innovation - picked up €10,000, which must be spent on a new journalistic project.
Elena Kostyuchenko won the distinguished writing award for her reporting in the Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta. She followed a Russian woman as she searched for the body of her husband who had been killed in Ukraine. His death, said her piece, was shrouded in silence by Russian bureaucracy.
The investigative category prize went to Ander Izagirre for an article in the Spanish paper, El Pais. He revealed how Colombian army officers kidnapped civilian boys, murdered them, dressed them in guerrilla clothes and claimed rewards for their bodies. At the time, 4,716 cases had been recorded.
The judges said Izagirre’s work was “compelling, splendidly organised and devastating at a human level. It told a terrible story that no one could forget.”
The innovation category, the prize went to a database called The Migrants’ Files that recorded more than 28,000 migrants who have died on their way to Europe since 2000. Ten journalists from six different countries worked on the project.
The map, as pictured above, allows users to search for places where deaths have occurred. It is possible to navigate through 2867 events, 72 territories, 15 detention centres and the 13,744 migrants for which some data is available.
The EPP judges said tragedies continue “because the full extent and horror of the problem is not reliably reported... The Migrant Files begins to fill that gap. It is painstaking and necessary work, full of details that challenge our humanity.”
A special award was also given to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a pioneer of collaborative, cross-border investigative journalism by non-profit organisations.
Founded by Paul Radu and Drew Sullivan, it’s a consortium of investigative media and journalists operating in eastern Europe, central Asia and central America that specialises in exposing organised crime and corruption.
Radu, from Romania, led one investigation on this year’s innovation shortlist that details how Russian banks use Moldovan and Latvian conduits as mafia money flows into mainstream Europe.
Miranda Patrucic in Bosnia was nominated in the investigative reporting category for her revelations about the web of alliances and streams of funds surrounding Montenegro’s prime minister, stories that halted Montenegro’s march towards European Union membership.
The judges described the OCCRP as “a memorably motivated, determined force for good everywhere it operates. Its members do not get rich, but the societies they serve are richer and cleaner for the scrutiny only true, independent journalism can provide”.
Aside from Evans, the other EPP judges were Juan Luis Cebrian, founding editor of El Pais; Joergen Ejboel, former editor of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten; Sylvie Kauffman, editorial director of Le Monde in Paris; and Yevgenia Albats, editor-in-chief of The New Times in Moscow.
The prizes were handed out at a ceremony in Copenhagen yesterday (Monday). For more information, see the EPP website.
NB: The Guardian Foundation helps to run and fund the EPP.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has confirmed that it is in talks with Rebekah Brooks, the former Sun and News of the World editor cleared of phone-hacking charges last year, about starting a new digital business.
However, that senior role is unlikely to involve running part of the Sun newspaper despite reports sparked by a recent visit to News Corp’s UK headquarters close to London Bridge.
In a statement, a spokesperson for News Corp said: “Discussions with Rebekah Brooks are ongoing, and focused on a potential new digital business for News Corp, but it’s premature to speculate about the details of a position that does not yet exist.”
Her new role, which she has been negotiating with the News Corp owner since being cleared, is also unlikely to involve running Storyful, the Dublin-based social media news agency, according to sources.
Brooks was reported by Exaro News as being “lined up to take charge of the Sun’s digital operation and video offering” on Wednesday. But an executive at the paper said: “She will not be running part of the Sun, nor sitting on the Sun’s floor. That is utter bollocks. People are putting 2+2 together and making 763.”
However, her new role is expected to include responsibility for digital expansion with a focus on video and multimedia. Content provided by all the News Corp titles, including the Sun, could conceivably be part of that role.
Although Brooks is understood to be keen to move to New York with her young child, her husband Charlie Brooks is said to be less so. She is understood to have found a temporary berth in News Corp’s 17-floor headquarters at London Bridge.
Brooks stood down from her role as chief executive of News Corp’s UK division four years ago after a 20-year career at the group that included editing the Sun and the News of the World. She left the group after the News of the World was closed down following revelations that included hacking into the phone of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Reports of Brooks return to the News Corp fold first emerged in the Guardian last October. Last month, she was said to be “close” to finalising a role with unconfirmed reports that she would be heading Storyful, a Dublin-based social media news agency started by the former RTE current affairs present Mark Little. Brooks has been seen in News Corp offices on both sides of the Atlantic and in senior industry meetings held in Las Vegas among other places.
Reports of Brooks’s possible return to the Sun came after she met Victoria Newton, editor of the Sun on Sunday, earlier this month. There has been speculation that the newspaper’s content including the mostly online-only Page 3 could be exploited more online.
Rupert Murdoch is understood to be concerned about falling circulation at the title – which is now well below 2m – as well as its continued support for the Conservative party. An announcement about the new role could be politically sensitive this close to an election.
Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who was given a job by David Cameron, was jailed for 18 months for conspiracy to hack phones.
I’m not certain how many times I said that Operation Elveden was flawed. But the Crown Prosecution Service has finally acknowledged the fact by abandoning the prosecutions of nine journalists arrested by the Metropolitan police.
But it is still, remarkably, going to pursue three Sun journalists in retrials. Why? Where’s the public interest in doing so?
Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, is surely wrong not to drop every case involving alleged illegal payments to public officials.
Look at the record: 29 journalists charged under Elveden and just two convictions (which will surely be appealed).
Consider also that jurors have been regularly clearing journalists of this absurd charge of conspiring and/or aiding and abetting officials to commit misconduct in a public office.
Thirteen journalists have been declared not guilty after lengthy trials. Enough is enough. Similarly, the CPS should also give careful consideration to showing sympathy towards the journalists’ sources, some of whom have either been found guilty or who have pleaded guilty to offences.
Almost 30 of them - police officers, prison officers, civil servants - have gone to jail. Their sentences should be reviewed too.
If these people broke their contracts of employment by leaking information to reporters, that’s a civil matter, not a criminal one. To go to jail for having done so is a travesty of justice.
The law under which the journalists have been tried was unknown to the journalists, their editors and their publishers. And it has proved so controversial that at least one judge failed to appreciate its nuances.
Hence the lord chief justice’s overturning of certain convictions in a trial conducted by Judge (Charles) Wide. The appeal court decided that he had “misdirected” the jury on a key aspect of the ancient common law offence of misconduct in a public office.
I have been convinced of the innocence of the journalists for more than two years. I first met the Sun’s Whitehall editor, Clodagh Hartley in October 2012 and listened carefully to the reasons for her arrest.
I spent a couple of weeks mulling over what she told me. I later read the evidence against her. I couldn’t see that she should have been charged, although I also took some legal advice that suggested she should. I ignored it, thankfully, and gave evidence on her behalf.
I am delighted to say the the jury in her case found her not guilty. She is therefore one of the 13. I won’t say lucky 13, however, because all these journalists have been through the mill since the Metropolitan police launched Operation Elveden. None have been lucky.
Saunders needs to take account of the fact that juries just don’t agree with the arguments her legal teams have been advancing. Journalists may not have a high standing with the public, according to opinion polls, but jurors cleared them all the same.
Why? Because jurors obviously saw that there was a public interest in the disclosure of information.
Counsel for one of the defendants in the most recent trial, in which four journalists were cleared of such charges, was right when he described Elveden as a “misconceived witch-hunt”. I could not put it better.
It appears that Nicola Sturgeon has become the most dangerous woman in Britain. In an interview with the Guardian the SNP leader said her party would have a “huge ability to change the direction” of the government in the event of a hung parliament.
And Sturgeon’s deputy, Stewart Hosie, gave a giant clue as to what that might mean. He said during a TV interview that the SNP could vote against “any bit of spending” that it didn’t agree with, such as Trident.
Together, those statements outraged both the prime minister, David Cameron, and the editors who support his return to Downing Street while opposing the possibility of an accord between Ed Miliband’s Labour and the SNP.
Gone is the praise for her TV performances. Now she is the election’s demon figure as far as Fleet Street’s blue newspapers are concerned.
The SNP will hold Britain’s defence to ransom, says the Times. The SNP is prepared to paralyse the armed forces, says the Daily Telegraph. She will hold UK defence to ransom, says the Times. The SNP is threatening to hold the UK to ransom, says a Daily Mail headline across two pages. The i, which does not toe the Tory line, carries the splash headline, “SNP veto on Labour spending”.
The sudden realisation that the Scottish nationalist tail could end up wagging the Westminster (Labour) dog is the major concern of most of today’s London-based national newspapers.
“The SNP plans to co-operate with Labour enough to keep it in power but meddle in unprecedented ways with individual budget items”, says the Times’s editorial. It continues:
“The uncertainty on policy that this will bring will be as nothing next to the constitutional chaos caused by the SNP’s refusal yesterday to rule out another referendum on Scottish independence...
The SNP is a separatist party on the cusp of national power, and is not afraid to say how it would use it. It would back Labour on cutting tuition fees, scrapping the coalition’s welfare reforms and fixing energy prices.
The signs are that at the same time it would hold the UK budget to ransom with line-item deliberations... This is not a basis for stable government”.
The Times concludes that Sturgeon’s offer to Miliband to help him to “end the Tory agenda” is only possible “by ignoring every basic rule of fiscal prudence” and “worse still would be her price — her own agenda — which is the break-up of Great Britain”.
Making a similar point, the Telegraph’s leading article fears “a party that is literally anti-British... will effectively hold the whip hand in a Westminster parliament... The SNP, which may win around one million votes in an electorate of more than 40 million, will have power to dictate policy in the rest of the UK where it is not represented”.
It argues that this amounts to “the antithesis of democracy” and concludes:
“The flaws in Labour’s devolution strategy, which was meant to slay the dragon of independence not give it new life, have been exposed for all to see. Once again, the threat to the Union is real”.
The Mail is withering about the SNP’s leader. “Even by her own megalomaniac standards, Nicola Sturgeon’s language on the day of her manifesto launch is breathtaking in its arrogance”. (It does not say this in its Scottish edition, which carries a different, though avowedly unionist, editorial).
The Mail believes the SNP, a party representing less than 5% of the total electorate, is “intent on destroying the UK” and that the prospect of its ruling in company with Labour “should make anyone who believes in democracy shudder”.
The Sun refers to Sturgeon as an arrogant leader whose chief motive is to ‘lock the Tories out’ of power” regardless of whether most voters in England want the Tories in government. It continues:
“Labour’s agenda — already the most left-wing in 30 years and an imminent danger to the recovery — would be dragged even further to the left.
Miliband would drive the economy back to the cliff edge. The SNP — bent on breaking up the UK — will bind him hand and foot, and floor the accelerator... If Cameron doesn’t get a majority this is our bleak future”.
The Daily Express’s columnist, Leo McKinstry, think it would be an “undemocratic farce” and “a disastrous scenario” should the SNP hold the balance of power in the next parliament. He warns that Sturgeon, “brimming with tartan ideological fervour” is aiming to form with Labour “a Caledonian socialist pact” and “an anti-English pact”.
The non-Tory Independent also sees problems ahead:
“The greatest of many headaches the Labour chief whip will have in the next parliament is how to prevent left-wing Labour MPs from being seduced by SNP promises on public spending and Trident, and from voting against their own minority Labour government’s budget”.
The Financial Times, while conceding that the SNP opposes “the existence of the UK as we know it” and “might behave provocatively [by] tugging a weak Labour government to the left” thinks this “cause for concern, but not panic”. It argues:
“Britain has not suddenly lost its ancestral gift for improvisation. It has a way of finding a path through political and constitutional problems...
The system depends on opposition parties resisting the temptation to bring down the government. Look closely and they have an incentive to show such forbearance.
If the SNP win virtually every seat in Scotland, as polls suggest, they can only stand to lose if there is another election soon after. They will not want to take risks before the Scottish elections in 2016”.
The FT thinks in the “haggling culture of coalition” the prime minister of the day “might proceed on a bill-by-bill basis or seek a “confidence and supply” agreement.
It sees a virtue in the Fixed Term Parliaments Act because it “prevents an election for five years unless a supermajority in the house of commons votes for one, or the government loses a confidence motion and no other administration is formed within 14 days. This provides some insurance against the uncertainty of another election... Do not underestimate the British knack for muddling through”.
Richard Desmond’s £1m donation to Ukip won’t make any difference to the outcome of the election. Naturally, it was greeted by Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage.
Indeed, outside our media world, it is probably a matter of little consequence. (If Rupert Murdoch had done ther same it would have been front page news across the globe).
It did get front page billing, of course, in Desmond’s own two newspapers, the Daily Express (here) and Daily Star (here), but didn’t get page one coverage elsewhere.
The Times ran a page 2 lead; the Independent gave it top-of-the-page status and it was carried in its little sister, i, as well. There was only a cursory reference to it in a Daily Mail piece about the “union barons” having given Labour £1.6m.
The donation was also given a page lead in the Daily Telegraph, and it was covered online by the Guardian (here) and the Financial Times (here). But I couldn’t find anything in the Sun.
The Daily Mirror ran a short item in print that certainly bears repetition:
“A millionaire newspaper magnate yesterday poured £1m into Nigel Farage’s election coffers, bringing the fund to £1.3m. Richard Desmond, owner of Express newspapers, Television X and Red Hot adult channels, made the huge cash donation to Ukip just three weeks before polling day.
Labour received donations of nearly £2m during the first week of the election campaign but is still lagging behind the Tories thanks to David Cameron’s fatcat City pals”.
Its online report was somewhat straighter. Most of the papers that covered Desmond’s donation mentioned his reasoning. He was fed up with “the floppy-haired Eton club” (the Tories) and with “champagne socialists” (Labour). He wanted Ukip to be a thorn in the side of those parties, both of which he has supported at different times in the past.
I think it fair to say that Desmond genuinely does support Ukip’s two major policies - pulling out of the European Union and curbing immigration. I understand that he assured himself a long time ago that the party was not anti-Semitic and, having done so, moved ever closer to Farage.
The FT cites “people close to the multimillionaire” as saying that his support for Ukip is motivated partly by a desire to become a peer. Maybe, but it’s unclear whether Desmond - who is noted for his anti-establishment stance and intense dislike of “clubs” - would really be happy about donning the ermine.
Whether or not Desmond’s support for Ukip is a matter of political principle or personal ambition is beside the point when seen from the perspective of his editorial employees.
No wonder the National Union of Journalists referred to the donation as “sick-making”. In other words: how cynical of him to spend so much on a political whim when Express Newspapers’ journalists have been denied a pay rise for seven years?
Seen in terms of the total editorial budget for his newspapers, £1.3m is only a fraction. That’s beside the point, however. It is about perception, about fairness, about rewarding loyalty and hard work.
The journalists who produce the Daily and Sunday Express, and those who produce the Daily Star and its Sunday sister, do so against the odds.
You, like me, might not like the output. You, like me, might think that these newspapers have lost all credibility. You, like me, might think these titles are now so marginalised that they have no impact on the body politic.
Fair enough. But the journalists who write the articles, sub the copy, take the pictures and organise the production on a daily basis are professionals who, for a variety of reasons (mostly, of course, financial), merit understanding.
The bulk of the staff have no power whatsoever over the editorial direction of those papers. They must do what they are told. If there were plentiful jobs elsewhere, many would surely walk away. They cannot.
As the NUJ’s general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, noted: it’s all very well for Desmond to say he backs Ukip because the party supports people who are struggling, but what about his own staff?
She contends that Desmond “has used Express Newspapers as a cash cow for years, starving the titles of the resources needed to produce decent newspapers” and “treating staff with contempt”.
Stanistreet’s point was reinforced by a member of the Express NUJ chapel who pointed out that Desmond “enjoyed a £360m windfall from the sale of Channel 5 last year and saw his Northern & Shell company record a £37m operating profit”.
I think Desmond bought the Express titles in 2000 in the belief that he would reverse the papers’ long declines. He boasted at the time that the Daily Express would surpass the Daily Mail, and, absurd as it was, he probably meant it.
It gradually dawned on him that trying to achieve that aim - as the unshaken owner and editor of the Mail knew well enough - would be impossible. Even if Desmaond had been willing to pump the profits he was making back into the business, it would not have come to pass.
So, a combination of thwarted ambition and the realisation that nothing could stem the relentless sales slide across the whole market, changed his attitude. He decided to laugh all the way to the bank instead.
It must be admitted that he did improve the Star’s sales for a while but he gradually became disillusioned with newspaper ownership. “Nothing I do makes any difference”, he often lamented.
His response was to cut the staffs on all four titles to the bone and, in recent months, he has been seeking a buyer for Express Newspapers, which remains very profitable.
He hasn’t had much luck yet. And I don’t believe he will change Ukip’s fortunes either.
The following is the text of yesterday’s statement by Neil Kinnock:
In the wake of the election defeat I am taking action which, in my judgment as leader, will serve the best interests of the Labour Party.
I trust that members and supporters will readily come to understand and support the course I am going to follow.
The decisions which I have made will require rapid change. Those decisions have not, however been taken hastily. They result from rational consideration which I have given over a period of time to the future of the Labour Party.
I will not be seeking re-election as leader of the Labour Party. In order to ensure that the new leadership elections can be completed without delay, I will be proposing to the special National Executive Committee meeting tomorrow [Tuesday] that the elections be held as quickly as proper organisation allows. The elections will therefore take place in the second half of June.
My resignation from the position of leader of the Labour Party will take effect on the date of the elections. The deputy leader Roy Hattersley shares my view of the course which must be followed and will be acting accordingly.
This timetable will make it possible for the Parliamentary Labour Party to elect a new shadow Cabinet well before the summer recess. In providing for these developments, I am seeking to ensure that the Labour Party can get on with its work with maximum speed and effectiveness.
This will prove to be particularly important when the Government has a small majority and faces the continuing and very deep economic difficulties that it has caused for the country. In these circumstances, I am certain that it would not be right for the Labour Party to wait for the six months until October before establishing the leadership team and the political course which must be followed.
As the election process opens, I have only one piece of advice for the labour movement at every level: do not feed and do not believe the press and broadcasting media in their reporting of these events. The Labour Party must conduct its own democratic election and do it in a way that brings credit and strength to the party. That was done in 1983. I am sure that it will be done again.
I am taking the opportunity of this statement to notify the Labour Party of my intention to seek election to the constituency section of the National Executive Committee at this year’s annual conference. My purpose in doing that is to try to continue to play an active and supportive part in sustaining the advances in democracy and policy which I believe to be vital to the future success of the party.
I want to record my heartfelt thanks to Roy Hattersley, the rest of the shadow Cabinet, and the National Executive Committee for their loyalty and for their hard work...
I also want to express my admiration for members of the Labour Party, old and new... I want them and the many others who have sent countless numbers of moving messages of support to Glenys and myself in the last three days to know that I deeply appreciate their great kindness.
I assure them very firmly that the action that I am taking is an essential act of leadership. It is not to do with any personal sensitivity - it arises entirely from my desire to see that the Labour Party will gain further strength and be better able to serve the people of Britain and the wider world community...
There will be many opportunities to consider the causes and consequences of last Thursday’s election result. I will not dwell on them here.
I will content myself, for the moment, with drawing attention to the words of the former treasurer of the Conservative Party, Lord McAlpine, in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph:
“The heroes of this campaign,” said Lord McAlpine, “were Sir David English, Sir Nicholas Lloyd, Kelvin McKenzie and the other editors of the grander Tory press. Never in the past nine elections have they come out so strongly in favour of the Conservatives. Never has their attack on the Labour Party been so comprehensive... This was how the election was won, and if the politicians, elated in their hour of victory, are tempted to believe otherwise, they are in real trouble next time.”
Lord McAlpine could not be expected to acknowledge the degree of misinformation and disinformation employed in the attacks on the Labour Party, but in all other respects his assessment is correct.
The government elected on 9 April 1992 does not have and will not develop the policies necessary to strengthen the British economy and will not try to address the injustices in British society.
My great regret is that I failed to ensure that enough people understood that and the implications which it has for the future. My sorrow is that millions, particularly those who do not have the strength to defend themselves, will suffer because of the election of another Conservative government.
I make and I seek no excuses, and I express no bitterness when I say that the Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tory Party to win yet again when the Conservative Party could not have secured victory for itself on the basis of its record, its programme or its character.
The relationship between the Conservative Party and those newspapers which Lord McAlpine describes as being edited by “heroes” is a fact of British political life. I did think that it would be possible this time to succeed in achieving change in spite of that. Clearly it wasn’t. Success will therefore have to wait. But it will come, and I will work for it.
The news stories are all about the Conservative party’s manifesto; the editorials are all about the Labour one. For the Tory press, that means positive front pages and negative leading articles.
So the Daily Telegraph’s splash headline, over its report of the Tory document, says: We are the true party of working people. And its editorial refers to the manifesto produced by the traditional party of the working people as one “driven by misdirected anger”.
The Daily Mail, in company with just about every national daily title, chooses one key pledge from the Tories for its front page, Right to buy: a new revolution. And its leader scorns “Labour’s statism” and Ed Miliband’s “11th-hour conversion... to parade himself as the champion of ‘fiscal responsibility’”.
The Times does similar. Front page: Right to buy for 1.3m families. Leader page: “Trust deficit: Labour’s manifesto is an attempt to prove the party can be trusted over the economy. In its vagueness, it goes some way to proving the opposite”.
The Daily Express is no different. Front: Maggie’s ‘right to buy’ dream is back. Inside is an op-ed headline: “Don’t be fooled by Labour’s promises on the economy”.
The Sun’s front page is dominated by a story about a footballer’s alleged misbehaviour but it does manage to carry a small political story headlined Bright to buy. Inside is a leader heaping ordure over “Labour’s sham manifesto” and a spread likening Miliband to Bart Simpson with the headline “Manifest-doh!”.
The non-Tory press adopts a similar formula - Tory manifesto stories on the front pages; the dissection of the Labour manifesto in leaders.
So the Financial Times’s splash is headlined Cameron builds on Right to Buy in effort to regain the edge from Miliband and its leading article, unimpressed with Labour’s financial pledges, is headlined Miliband’s belated vow to do his fiscal homework.
The Guardian’s front page headline says: Tories to offer 1.3m families right to buy housing association properties. Its leading article is kinder to Labour, arguing that its “programme offers change in times of scarcity” but remains “a calculated risk”.
The Independent’s front page headline is Cameron banks on Thatcher’s legacy while the i goes with “The great social housing giveaway”. The Indy’s leader, headlined “Pink Ed”, thinks his manifesto “is moderate enough to win over floating voters”.
The Daily Mirror chooses to splash on a story claiming that NHS patients are being denied pain relief, food and water due to budget cuts. It is based on the results of a survey carried out by the health service union Unison.
That story is the subject of its main leader. A secondary one claims that Miliband gave a “commanding performance” when launching Labour’s mainfesto.
Blokeish... triumphalist... ferocious...
The political sketch writers enjoyed their excursion to Manchester to hear Miliband reveal his manifesto amid the Coronation Street set at the old Granada studios.
Anne Treneman in the Times saw the launch as “a strange theatrical set piece” and pointed to a flaw in the central actor’s performance. Miliband’s statement that his manifesto “doesn’t do what most manifestos do” (by offering a shopping list of promises) didn’t live up to its billing. She wrote:
“The manifesto-that-does-what-other-manifestos-don’t was chock-a-block with lists of promises. Indeed, I felt like I had found the Promising Land. Labour is triple-locking every door in Britain. It is driving innovation, outlawing non-doms, giving football fans a voice in club boardrooms”.
Michael Deacon in the Telegraph thought Miliband, “his face a ferocious, glaring grin”, reminded readers that the Tory campaign “has sought to highlight Mr Miliband’s awkwardness and timidity”. But...
“Here, rather disobligingly, he sounded confident, assertive - even, at times, blokeish. (In recent weeks he’s developed a habit of defiantly grunting “Right?” at the end of sentences, as if to suggest that, should his interlocutor persist in doubting him, Mr Miliband will have no hesitation in taking the matter outside)”.
Deacon also noted that waiting outside “was a gaggle of Tory activists in Nicola Sturgeon masks” accompanied by the former education secretary, Michael Gove.
He “was attempting to give interviews about how the public distrusted Labour, but unfortunately the public kept shouting abuse at him... Mr Gove wasn’t wearing a mask. Perhaps in future he should”.
John Crace in the Guardian, like Treneman, was unconvinced about the purpose of manifestos, calling them “booklets full of promises that will be broken that turn up unwanted on voters’ doorsteps and remain unread”.
He also detected “a different Ed”. Better than expected opinion polls over the weekend have done wonders for his confidence”. He thought “the emotion in the room was verging on sexual chemistry”, adding:
“The Daily Mail’s recent efforts to portray Miliband as an untrustworthy shagger-in-chief appear to have backfired badly. Far from wrongfooting Ed, it has given him some self-belief. Given time, it could even turn into charisma.
Questions from female journalists were met with an easy flirtation. ‘Look, I’m sorry I never got round to asking you out, but I want you to know I’ve always fancied you’.
Questions from male journalists were rebutted with a charming subtext of ‘I can’t remember if I ever slept with your wife/girlfriend but if I did, then no harm done eh?’”.
Quentin Letts in the Mail heard an echo of Neil Kinnock’s 1992 Sheffield rally trumphalism in Miliband’s “palpably confident” address:
“Miliband radiated right-to-rule. ‘I’m ready’, he announced. ‘I’m ready. I’m ready”... The tone was American with folksy uses of ‘so’ and ‘get this’ and ‘ah tell you’ and ‘yuh know what?’.
During rehearsed pauses he closed his eyes and licked his lips. The acting lessons may have some way to go before he is ready for the Hackney Empire”.
Letts thought “his performance was more like a party conference oration, big on rhetoric”. He concluded: “The credulous may have been impressed. But when he asked, ‘Who do you want in Downing Street?’ (modestly thinking ‘You want me, the ruthless, randy Ed!’), I felt my shoulder blades crawl as though their skin was covered by a thousand red ants”.
Google has apologised to the Guardian and Bild, after citing “nonsense” figures for the two sites’ traffic statistics in a response to the European commission’s antitrust charges against the company.
The figures, which claimed that the two papers get “up to 85% of their traffic directly” and “less than 10%” from Google, were later retracted.
In the wake of the decision by European regulators to investigate the search firm for anticompetitive practices, Google’s senior vice president for search, Amit Singhal, published a blogpost arguing against the allegations.
“Any economist would say that you typically do not see a ton of innovation, new entrants or investment in sectors where competition is stagnating – or dominated by one player. Yet that is exactly what’s happening in our world,” Singhal wrote. He argued that the wealth of innovation in sectors such as travel search, shopping comparisons, and social media is evidence that Google does not dominate any of those sectors.
Google also defended its role in news, an area not covered by the European commission’s complaint but one where it is constantly under attack across Europe. In Spain, the company closed its news search product after the introduction of a so-called Google Tax required it to pay licensing fees to papers it aggregated. In Germany, major publishers accused Google of blackmail when it removed images and text snippets following a lawsuit.
Downplaying Google’s strength in the news field, Singhal wrote that “when it comes to news, users often go directly to their favourite sites. For example, Bild and The Guardian get up to 85% of their traffic directly. Less than 10% comes from Google.”
But those figures are “nonsense”, according to the Guardian’s audience editor Chris Moran. Citing the paper’s internal statistics, he said that “unknown traffic to Guardian fronts” – readers coming directly to the paper’s front page – “was broadly the same in [page views] as Google referral.”
— Chris Moran (@chrismoranuk) April 15, 2015
Just to be absolutely clear... this is nonsense http://t.co/o283lh7q6k pic.twitter.com/tuV8LHw34u
— Chris Moran (@chrismoranuk) April 15, 2015
A little Ophan powered fact re Google blog. Yesterday unknown traffic to Guardian fronts was broadly the same in PVs as Google referral
After it was brought to their attention, Google removed the figures and apologised, updating the post with a correction.
“An earlier version of this post quoted traffic figures for Bild and the Guardian, researched on a third-party site. The Guardian data were for the domain guardian.co.uk, which is no longer the main domain for the paper. We’ve removed these references and we’re sorry for the error,” the correction read.
The company also apologised to Yelp, another firm cited as evidence of healthy competition. “Yelp has pointed out that they get 40% of their searches (not their traffic) direct from their mobile apps. They don’t appear to disclose their traffic numbers. We’re happy to correct the record.”
SimilarWeb, the third-party site which was the source of the incorrectly reported Guardian traffic figures, estimates site data using information from a panel of web surfers who have volunteered to install a browser plugin. If the correct domain for the Guardian is entered, it suggests that slightly over 30% of the Guardian’s traffic comes from Google, compared to slightly under 30% of the traffic coming from direct sources. Those figures are also contradicted by the Guardian’s internal statistics.
Perhaps the theories about internal co-operation at Rupert Murdoch’s companies are exaggerated after all.
The Sunday Times’s TV staff were clearly unimpressed with Sky Atlantic’s failure to give them the inside track on the opening episode of the new season of Game of Thrones.
So, in retaliation, the preview page in its Culture section carried this odd headline
G*** of T******
with the following paragraph below it...
We don’t know what we did to upset them, but the folk at Sky Atlantic decided the Sunday Times TV desk should not be invited to the launch of their latest series of the blood, sex and dragons saga. The channel rarely makes any effort to keep us onside and we use Twitter to find out what it is up to. We have no idea if this week’s episode is any good, but we asked people who were at the launch and their response was: “It’s ok, nothing great, bit of sex, but not much happens this week.” More updates as we get them.
Well, golly gosh. A definition (or, pun intended, stark example) of journalistic pique. Overt message: how dare publicity people keep us in the dark! Below-the-line message: don’t you guys at Sky Atlantic (owned by 21st Century Fox) realise that us guys at the Sunday Times (owned by News Corporation) should have special privileges?
Mind you, the Sunday Times did give Game of Thrones a generous boost on the front of its news review section, Here be dragons, in which we discovered that the TV series “draws up to 1m UK viewers and is the most-watched HBO series of all time in America”.
Culture also carried a spread, Life beyond Westeros, and the results of its favourite GoT character poll (spoiler alert: Tyrion Lannister came top with Daenerys Targaryen second).
I admit I’m hooked. Can hardly wait for tonight. Will the dragons turn on their mother? Where will Tyrion end up? Will Brienne of Tarth get it on with Jaime Lannister?
From yesterday’s Sunday Times Photograph: Public domain
In 1846 the Hon Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt, MP for Lambeth and uncle of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, wrote to all the daily papers to deny a truly scandalous rumour which had just reached him: that his family had converted en masse to Roman Catholicism.
His letter was reproduced in the Tablet, and is revealed in a wealth of letters exposing the depth of anti-Catholic prejudice in Victorian England as the newspaper opens its archives to celebrate its 175th year of unbroken publication.
The source of the shocking allegation was apparently the Irish newspapers – and it would particularly have pained Tennyson d’Eyncourt, whose social pretensions were legendary. He had expanded his name from plain Tennyson by adding an old name from his wife’s family – though he failed to revive the d’Eyncourt peerage and acquire a title – and his home by turning it into a Victorian imitation of a medieval castle. He had aspirations towards poetry himself, and described his nephew’s work, some of the best loved in the English language, as “horrid rubbish”.
In fact the story was partly true: his eldest daughter had indeed become a Catholic, which he wrote “pains me deeply”. However, “for myself and every other member of the family … we remain unshaken in our firm attachment to the Protestant religion”.
Other letters in the Tablet archives give a sad glimpse of the lives of poor working-class Catholics, often from an Irish background.
On Ash Wednesday 1842, a priest called William Hunt tried to get to the deathbed of a teenage servant called Mary. He was turned from the door by her employer: “After stigmatizing the Catholic religion as devilish and idolatrous, the curse of the nation, absolutely refused to let me see the poor girl.”
One CF Kershaw wrote in 1843 that many were immediately rejected by Protestant families if they disclosed that they were Catholics and, if they were accepted, told they must go to regular Protestant services. “One was told … as to the Catholic Chapel, she must not even look towards it.”
The extent of the prejudice shocked many Protestants. In 1908 an Anglican deacon wrote after a Catholic procession was banned: “To every sane man it must appear intolerable that, while rowdy mobs of unemployed are allowed to parade the length and breadth of the country, rousing in many places fear and dislike, an orderly procession of Catholics, including ecclesiastics of the highest rank, should be forbidden at the behest of a handful of intolerant and intolerable fanatics.”
Despite the evidence of abundant prejudice, the Tablet carried many reports of conversions to Catholicism. In February 1846 those converted after a retreat at Mount St Bernard, a Cistercian monastery in Leicestershire, included “an honest Protestant”, “a woman who was a sinner”, “a Greek schismatic from Russia”, along with an Orangeman, a modern philosopher and “one socialist”.
Revamps by incoming editors are common. So there is nothing surprising about the new editor of the Brighton Argus introducing a fresh newspaper to his readers today.
But my hat is off to Mike Gilson for having produced a much better looking paper after having spent just seven weeks in the chair.
The front page is a vast improvement, with a new typeface, the adoption of an upper-and-lower case splash headline, and much cleaner lines than before. And the same is true of the inside design. In layout terms, it’s a winner. It has the appearance of a mid-market “compact” rather than a down-market “tabloid”.
As for the content, although outsiders may find its call for action to “save our seafronts” somewhat strange, it will be very popular with residents and local business owners who have become increasingly concerned about the decades of decline.
For instance, a long section of the seafront running from Brighton’s pier towards Kemp Town is in such a state that it has been fenced off for months. The walkway running parallel to Madeira Drive is closed to people because it is too dangerous.
But the Argus’s campaign is not confined to Brighton. The paper’s south coast circulation area is huge, so it is raising awareness about the deterioration of all the seafronts from Hastings to Bognor.
Less sure-footed, however, was Gilson’s decision to run a piece by the prime minister, David Cameron, during a general election campaign.
Given that the city’s Pavilion constituency has a Green MP, and that the neighbouring constituencies of Hove and Kemp Town are marginals, I think it will be a viewed as a free hit for the Conservatives.
Although Cameron was ostensibly greeting the revamp - remarking that the Argus is “a fantastic local newspaper” (really? how does he know what it is?) - he uses the piece to urge readers to vote Tory.
That aside, there were other things to appreciate, not least the quantity of the content. There was plenty to read, much more than of late. The 64-page main section included a 12-page guide, and there was also a 24-page property supplement.
Gilson took the opportunity to introduce himself to readers with a column in which he extolled the virtues of the city of Brighton and Hove:
“We have everything - the landscape, the sea, the weather, the fun, the food, the nightlife, the pier... but more importantly the delicious kookiness, the thinking the unthinkable, the celebration of diversity, the sights and sounds that few others can match”.
A bit of a gush, but it does reflect the change in the city in recent years. I recall Keith Waterhouse’s famous description of Brighton as “a town that always looks as if it is helping police with their inquiries”.
It did, but it doesn’t any longer. And Gilson - a man who previously edited the Belfast Telegraph as well as papers in England - has clearly caught the new atmosphere of the city.
But will it work? Will the revamp revive the Argus’s fortunes? As I pointed out two weeks ago when writing about its 135th anniversary, its print sales are poor and it has not built a large enough online audience.
Its owners, Newsquest/Gannett, have responded to declining profits by cutting away at its editorial staff. It is lucky to benefit from free copy supplied by students at Brighton Journalist Works, which runs an NCTJ-accredited training course.
One area Gilson will need to improve is the quality of the remote subbing. Day after day there are too many errors.
In yesterday’s announcement of the revamp, for instance, his own letter contained a typo: “we belief it benefits our communities”. And today’s article introducing the Cameron piece says: “When the Argus was offered the opportunity of David Cameron writing for us, did not hesitate in saying yes”. Eh?
Cavils about subbing glitches aside, this is a fine revamp. If Gilson can keep this up, if Newsquest keep providing the resources, if the paper is properly promoted over the next month, then he might just stop the rot. And that, in current circumstances, would be a triumph.
Has the steam run out of Ukip’s bid for power? The polls suggest it has. More telling still is the press response to the manifesto launch by its leader, Nigel Farage.
There is precious little support for the party despite, on the right at least, some sympathy for its policies. Consider the Daily Mail, for example.
“If Ukip candidates were as sound as most of their policies, this paper would be tempted to support the party”, starts the Mail’s leading article.
“Nigel Farage deserves great credit for addressing public concerns over such issues as mass immigration and the scandalous waste of overseas aid – the former treated as taboo by the political class, the latter as sacrosanct”.
And then comes the “but”. The Mail “most emphatically does not support Ukip. For Mr Farage is a one-man band, many of whose candidates are untrustworthy.
“And in all but a handful of seats, the reality is that a vote for Ukip will be wasted – or worse, a boost for statist, pro-immigration, EU enthusiast Ed Miliband”.
So here’s what the paper thinks voters should do. Vote Ukip in three Labour/Ukip marginals where “the Tories have no hope”. Otherwise, “the only sane advice” is to “help the Tories keep Labour out”.
The Daily Telegraph editorial, Voting for Ukip will help to put Miliband in No 10, makes a similar point. It believes Ukip “has done much that is positive for this country and its politics” because it has ensured that “politicians of all parties now debate the merits and costs of immigration more freely and frankly”.
Its pressure on David Cameron and his Conservative party has resulted in the promise to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. And then comes that “but”. The Telegraph says:
“For all its protestations about having a coherent and costed policy programme, too many of Ukip’s policies remain little more than incoherent ambitions...
The conduct of some Ukip members also raises the concern that it has not yet completed its transition from populist rally to mature political party. The aggressive heckling of a Telegraph journalist at yesterday’s manifesto launch was a case in point...
The principal reason for resisting any temptation to vote for Ukip, however, is to be found in another party: Ed Miliband...
Every vote cast for Ukip makes it more likely that next month, Mr Miliband and his party will take power... Britain cannot afford that”.
What then of the Sun, another paper that has previously shown a measure of understanding for Ukip’s EU stance (but not its antagonism to immigration)?
The paper’s view was clear from its news story headline, Nigel’s bullies cross the line. It was based on the reaction by Ukip supporters to a journalist’s question to Farage about his manifesto featuring the picture of only one black person.
The Sun’s editorial, despite accepting that some of its readers like certain Ukip policies, pours scorn on the party as “a magnet for weirdos and extremists”.
In other words, the papers that liked Farage’s policies - as they still do - were happy to give him plenty of coverage in the years up to the election. Now, with votes for his party being a danger to a Tory victory, he’s on his own.
Neither of the dailies published by Richard Desmond, who donated £300,000 to Ukip in December last year, appear overly enthusiastic about the party.
The Daily Express gives the manifesto launch reasonable coverage, a page lead headlined “We want out country back, says barnstorming Farage”. But there is no leading article. The news story, noticeably, makes no reference to the treatment of the Telegraph journalist who asked the ethnicity question.
The Daily Star’s front page Photograph: Public domain
The Daily Star carries a top-of-the-front-page blurb to its Farage story, which gets only a 10-paragraph single column piece inside.
Metro, the supposedly non-political paper, gives the Ukip launch a page lead boost too, “Set Britain free from EU, demands Ukip’s Farage”, and buries the question incident.
Some papers, rather than run editorials, left it up to their sketchwriters or commentators to deal with Ukip.
In the Times, Tim Montgomerie delivered a similar message to the ones urged by the Mail, Telegraph and Sun, Dear Ukippers, quit while you’re ahead.
He believes Ukip “has had a massive impact on British politics” - on immigration, the EU and the construction of wind farms. So it “can lay claim to have been the most successful pressure group in recent political history”.
Then comes the “but”. “By splitting the anti-Labour vote... there’s a real danger that the purple army won’t be remembered for being a transformational pressure group but for being the most destructive political party”. So stop your nonsense and vote Tory.
Today’s Daily Mail op-ed page. Photograph: Public domain
The Mail carries an op-ed piece by Stephen Glover and the headline itself carries the “but”. It says: “There’s hardly a word I disagree with in Ukip’s manifesto. And I know the other parties are lying to me. But...”
The sketchwriters, by the nature of their trade, are less concerned with scoring political points than trying to see the comic side of the political business.
All seemed to find it amusing that the launch was staged in Thurrock, “the beating and belching heart of Essex”, according to the Times’s Ann Treneman.
Matthew Engel, in the Financial Times, thought the constituency might well be Ukip’s most likely gain (rather than Thanet South, where Farage is standing).
He was unimpressed with the presentation of its manifesto document by its chief author, Suzanne Evans, “who gave us a kind of PowerPoint demonstration, though without much power or point”.
Donald McIntyre, in the Independent, was surprised that “the red-headed Ms Evans, a member of the party’s Sloane Ranger tendency” was “mysteriously wearing an elegant black coat on the warmest day of the year”.
John Crace, in the Guardian, agreed. “Quite an accomplished performer”, he thought, and “so cool... that she kept her coat on throughout despite everyone else in the room gasping for breath”.
Treneman, in noting that Farage “is intent on professionalising Ukip” remarked that “you can’t make a Savile Row suit out of a ragbag without it being a little rough round the edges”.
And so it proved when the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope asked: “Nigel, are you happy that the only black face in the document... ” The Kippers “went bonkers”, she wrote.
“In a Richard Curtis movie moment, all the black and brown Ukip people in the room stood up... You’ve heard of road rage. This was manifesto rage. Welcome to Ukip”.
It was, observed McIntyre, a “theatrical moment” when the “posse of ethnic minority Ukip loyalists stood up, triumphantly pointing at themselves amid general uproar”.
A punch-up “was only narrowly avoided” when Hope was shouted down, wrote Crace. But “like every good wedding, the fights were soon forgotten and Farage was keen that everyone should kiss and make up”.
The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon, naturally enough, saw matters through the prism of the attack on his colleague, Hope. “He’d have received a friendlier reception if he’d attacked a wasps’ nest with a spade,” he wrote.
“The room was angry. Not angry about the shortage of non-white faces in the brochure, obviously. Angry about the question. Angry that the shortage of non-white faces had been queried. The air crackled with menace...
Among the audience were a small number of non-white Ukip members. Glaring at my colleague, they rose from their seats. Many other members applauded them. The applause – angry applause – went on for over half a minute. It was almost enough to drown out the shouts and heckles. Eventually the din died down. I waited for Mr Farage to answer the question. He didn’t”.
Sadly, the Mail’s Quentin Letts chose to go to the Lib Dems’ manifesto launch. I’m sure he would have had more fun in Thurrock.
Journalists should not be taken to court for paying officials for information if it is in the public interest, a former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, has said.
The head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2003 to 2008 told Radio 4’s Today programme that “not enough weight” was attached to the public-interest defence in recent attempts to convict journalists as part of Operation Elveden.
The CPS announced last week that it was scrapping the cases of nine journalists awaiting trial for payments to public officials, after four more reporters were cleared of charges at the Old Bailey. The controversial police operation has been deemed a “witch hunt” by those taken to court. Macdonald said: “I think we have to give the highest regard to the importance of freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas and I think it is simply obvious that there are circumstances in which it can be in the public interest for journalists to pay for information.
“Not for tittle-tattle, or gossip or scandal. But we can all imagine cases where, if the price of information coming into the public domain is the payment of a public official by a journalist, then that’s an appropriate thing for the journalist to do.
“It looks as though in the charging decisions that were made in the past in the Elveden cases, not enough weight was attached to the public interest in free expression and the freedom of the press, and that was an error I think the DPP [Alison Saunders] has tried to correct by dumping these cases.”
Under new CPS guidelines, public officials and journalists are treated differently when assessing the seriousness of misconduct in a public office, an ancient offence dating back to the 13th century.
They make it clear there remains a “strong interest” in maintaining impartial and incorrupt public services and “public officials who flagrantly break the trust of the public for payments do cause real harm to the public interest”.
So when there is sufficient evidence, prosecution would “almost always” be in the public interest.
“Sustained misconduct” by police officers is a “particularly grave matter” because they have significant powers and access to confidential databases with details of witnesses and victims.
Where journalists are involved with corrupt police officers, there would also be a “high public interest” in prosecuting, according to the guidelines.
But for journalists who deal with other types of officials, such as prison guards, the harm to the public interest in corrupt payments may be “finely balanced” against the lack of harm caused by the resulting stories.
In these circumstances, the guidelines say prosecution of journalists “may not always be in the public interest”.
Operation Elveden, which was launched by the Metropolitan Police in 2011, led to charges against 28 officials accused of receiving a total of £180,000 for selling stories. Twenty one have been convicted.
In contrast, out of 27 journalists charged, just two have been convicted. The total cost of the CPS bringing the cases topped £2.2m last December.
New guidelines from the American Society of Magazine Editors about the relationship between commercial and editorial last Wednesday smacked of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Some of Asme’s biggest members already allow journalists to produce content for advertisers despite it being previously verboten.
Asme’s changes, which ended a bar on cover ads and jettisoned an admirably simple edict – “Don’t ask editors to write ads” – underline the difficulties of a trade organisation keeping up with a media industry under pressure to do business in new and possibly dubious ways. The challenges are coming so thick and fast it sometimes feels that no one, in any country, is getting this relationship right.
At one end of the scale we have the Telegraph, the once venerable paper still reeling from allegations made by departed columnist Peter Oborne that it committed a “form of fraud” on its readers by allowing advertisers such as HSBC to control the content written by an increasingly beleaguered editorial staff.
Related: Peter Oborne: advertising is consumerist sewage
But earlier this month, BuzzFeed, some years from venerable and whose growth has been almost as fast as the speed with which one of its cat videos goes viral, got caught in a mess of its own making by deleting articles that criticised two advertisers – Dove and Hasbro. “Ha!”, you could almost hear old media journalists snort – those teenagers have even less respect for the time-honoured church and state separation than us.
Much of the criticism over digital ventures such as Vice and Vox has centred on the way they display and create native advertising. This time, the controversy involved two articles about BuzzFeed advertisers that had been deleted in a way that contradicted the site’s own editorial standards and ethics guide, published this January. As Gawker, which broke the story, pointed out, BuzzFeed has previous when it comes to taking down posts critical of advertisers. The removal of two stories made even the site’s staunchest supporters uncomfortable. And yet, nothing has underlined the difference between the BuzzFeed and Telegraph stories, or indeed pointed to the transparency needed to deal with these kinds of events, as much as the way the news organisations responded to the criticism. Not the note to staff sent out by BuzzFeed Life editors Peggy Wang and Emily Fleischaker within a few hours of the Gawker article suggesting that their decision to remove the articles related to an editorial desire to “show not tell”. That move away from something BuzzFeed management delight in calling “hot takes” was instantly mocked by rivals who pointed out lots of similar stories remained on the website and told a lot without showing. It was more the reaction of editor-in-chief Ben Smith, who tweeted that he “blew it” by deleting the articles. Within 24 hours of the criticism, both articles, one of which was written by former Daily Telegraph assistant comment editor Tom Chivers, were back online under this statement: “This post was inappropriately deleted amid an ongoing conversation about how and when to publish personal opinion pieces on BuzzFeed. The deletion was in violation of our editorial standards and the post has been reinstated.”
Is BuzzFeed going to face more questions about its editorial integrity? Of course. In an age in which everything we write, tweak and delete can be detected, every news organisation will. Yet Smith, whether fine-tuning editorial judgments separating news and features as he says, or reacting to an advertiser which didn’t like the criticism (which he denies), has at least fessed up to a mistake and made a change. It did not stop the author of the Dove piece, Arabelle Sicardi, from resigning but in a fast-changing world transparency must be the route to integrity. Smith mucked up but deserves the benefit of the doubt this once, given he moved quickly and admitted it.
The Telegraph’s response to the criticism from Oborne and other former staff members anonymously was to refuse to apologise for its pro-business editorial stance, criticise its detractors on other papers (including this one), and to promise new editorial guidelines which are a “work in progress” on how staff should work with commercial. It might be easy to see the difference between these reactions as the difference between old and new media. A better decision, given the importance of the issue, is between good and bad. No media organisation is failsafe and everyone makes mistakes. Decisions about why such a story gets written or promoted, changed or dropped are made constantly under all sorts of pressures, not just commercial ones. In the US, editorial code makers are trying to draw a line. In the UK, the editors’ code gives no overt protection to journalists from commercial pressure. Yet allowing advertisers to use future revenues as a bait to dictate editorial is not the way to survive but to die faster.
To the Daily Mail she is the “most dangerous woman in Britain”, while her party is accused of “blackmail” on the front pages of three leading rightwing UK newspapers. But on a day when new research revealed that women are barely getting a mention in this election, at least Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP, is getting some attention.
Possibly for the first time in a general election, a story about the Scottish National Party is on the front pages of all quality newspapers bar the Independent on the day of its manifesto launch. As is proving typical of much election coverage, details of the policies themselves did not merit as much coverage as comments on them from elsewhere, in this case doom-laden warnings from Tory grandees.
The Times and Telegraph led with a speech by former prime minister John Major warning that a Labour government supported by the SNP would face a “daily dose of political blackmail” that would cause “mayhem” and lead to higher taxes and job losses. The Mail contented itself with a black-edged masthead with a shouty-looking Sturgeon alongside the headline “How I’ll blackmail England for £148bn by the most dangerous woman in Britain”.
The Guardian front page was a riposte of sorts by running an interview with Lord Forsyth, the last Tory secretary of state for Scotland, who claimed that David Cameron’s tactic of talking up the success of Sturgeon and her party could backfire by breaking up the union rather than simply wiping out Labour north of the border. He accused the party of a “short-term and dangerous view which threatens the integrity of our country”.
Front pages of the Sun and Mirror ignored the SNP altogether with the Sun choosing to focus on allegations about a Labour MP paying £4-a-day to interns while the Mirror splashed on the “new health scare” over cancer-inducing vitamin excess. Only the Daily Star put a picture of Sturgeon on the front page with “Nic holds Britain by the ballots”.
Sturgeon, appointed party leader after the close-fought Scottish independence referendum last year, may have become a media bogey woman, but she has at least won the accolade for most featured woman in this election. New research by Loughborough University revealed that 86% of all politicians featured in election coverage have been men since the start of the campaign proper. This is despite three parties, the Greens and Plaid Cymru as well as the SNP, being led by women. Leaders’ wives but especially Samantha Cameron have received more attention. Men dominated all other professional capacities such as “business spokespeople, experts, public professionals” etc. The one category women dominated was “politicians’ relative” (80%).
Talking of candidates who win no press popularity contest, a Guardian profile of prospective Labour candidate Keir Starmer was the first for a while which didn’t include telling readers that he was in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service when it started its “witch hunt” against journalists – otherwise known as Operation Elveden.
Bright sunshine, blue skies and the crisp green grounds of the Bank of England sports centre greeted the annual Hacks v Flaks clash on Saturday, which ended in a triumphant sweep across the board for the journalists.
Retaining the title of football champs for the second year in a row, Fleet Street’s finest beat the flaks 5-2 in a dramatic game that resulted in two PRs hobbling off the pitch with ankle and achilles injuries. Not only did Guardian reporter Josh Halliday win man of the match, scoring four of the winning goals – he kindly distributed his champagne to the celebrating crowd. Cider has enough bubbles for this footy star.
Hacks v Flaks: Josh Halliday leaves flaks gasping after another goal Hacks v Flaks: the full squads
The A-team hacks netball team were on astounding form, thrashing their PR counterparts with a record victory (64-16). Monkey feels weary even thinking about it. And to add to the flaks’ dismay, the hacks’ netball B-team won their match 16-12 after a loss last year. There was a sterling effort from the Telegraph’s senior personal finance reporter, Katie Morley, as centre combined with inspiring energy from the team’s shooters.
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Hacks v Flaks: the netball clash
More than £8,500 was raised for the children’s cancer charity Rays of Hope at the event, which was sponsored by IG and EY. Although it was second year in a row Monkey had spied Sir Trevor McDonald at the sports ground on the same day as the Hacks v Flaks clash, it admits that the Reading v Arsenal game seemed to have more of a draw for the newsreader: asked by one attendee if they could have a selfie with him, he replied, eyes fixed on the screen “Do I have to move?”
See you next year hacks, flaks ... and possibly Trevor McDonald.
Donald Trelford, the former Observer editor, is laying claim to being “Britain’s oldest new father”. He was 76 and six months old when his latest progeny, Poppy, was born in May 2014.
In an article boasting of his new title, published in the latest issue of The Oldie magazine, he writes:
“I would prefer to to be remembered as a campaigning newspaper editor, or a dashing pilot, or (in my dreams) scoring a century at Lord’s or a try at Twickenham - perhaps most of all as a loving father - than for the longevity of my reproductive organs. But there it is and there we are, as my old friend Alan Watkins used to say”.
Trelford was a mere 73 when his previous child, Ben, was born four years ago. Both children are the offspring of his 2001 marriage to Claire, a former TV presenter.
Prior to that, he had three children with his first wife and a fourth with his second wife. His eldest daughter is 50! And he also has six grandchildren.
The Trelfords live in Majorca and his wheeling of Poppy in her pram through the streets generates warm greetings from the locals. “I have been asked only twice if I am a grandfather,” he writes, “both times by British tourists”.
Although he concedes that there are times when he and Claire “resent being deprived of the freedom to sit quietly with a newspaper or book” it is balanced by “the joy of seeing the world afresh through the eyes of a child”.
But what about the fact that he is unlikely to see them grow into teenagers? “I have to face the fact that they may hardly remember me at all in later life,” he writes.
“But to say we shouldn’t have had Ben and Poppy for those reasons is a big call to make about other people’s lives”. And he concludes:
“I hope that they both get as much fun out of life as their old man”.
*For the record, Trelford was born on 9 November 1937 and he edited the Observer from 1975 to 1993.
Before we were able to count the clicks, in the days of ink on paper, editors tended to operate on hunches. Who were their readers? Who might be lured into becoming a reader? Why did anyone buy their newspaper anyway?
Market research was usually rejected on the grounds that it was either too expensive (for publishers) or too unlikely to produce “sensible” results (the ones editors favoured).
Even when it was employed, the results tended to be open to wide interpretation, allowing editors to divine strategies based on what they intuited the research was telling them. Back to instinct again and a range of implausible theories about how to attract readers.
Here’s a tale that could be told by many editors and journalists down the years. This one is by Emma Hartley, sometimes of this parish, who worked on the Western Morning News (WMN) in Cornwall in the mid-1990s.
In her GlamourCave blog, she recalls her time as a cub reporter “mulling over” what her editor, Barrie Williams, called “westcountry-ness”.
She tells how Williams, based in WMN’s office in Plymouth, would arrive from time to time at the paper’s Cornish offices, in Truro or Bodmin, “to tell us about the direction the paper was supposed to be taking”.
On the basis of supposed market research - “much to the hysterical amusement of my older colleagues” - Williams came to believe that “the WMN’s fastest-growing group of readers were recent arrivals to Devon and Cornwall from elsewhere in the UK, usually cities”.
They were attracted not by the quality of life but “by the idea of the place: something a bit wild, full of myths and legends, fluffy little bits of celtic fringe, mystical bollocks about piskies, pirates, wreckers, smugglers, Tintagel, the beast of Bodmin and the witchcraft museum in Boscastle.
“The readers, it seemed, really liked the part of Cornwall that was essentially fictional”. Hartley continues:
“My gnarly male colleagues were uniformly unimpressed by this theory: Robert Jobson, David Green, Colin Gregory and Michael Taylor... thought it was ridiculous.
Between them they had about 120 years experience in Cornish journalism, they knew where the bodies were buried, and they thought Barrie would probably blow over.
However, I was young and keen, and Barrie had just given me a job. So I set about doing as I was bidden – looking for the kind of stories the editor had mentioned – and hit the trail of Daphne Du Maurier quite hard.
Other areas potentially of interest, I decided, included Poldark, a New Age conference in Polperro where David Icke sometimes spoke and Mayday in Padstow”.
Little came of the venture, it appears, except for Hartley forming an easy-going relationship with du Maurier’s son, Kits Browning, who lived, as his mother had done, in Fowey.
I sympathise with Williams. Trying to find a way of winning over new readers as sales were going down was virtually impossible. You might as well have tried magic.
In a period where circulations were drifting away - even before the internet took hold - doing something rather than nothing was understandable. After all, sales were too often the only scale on which editors were judged.
And, yes, editors who did try something different were lampooned behind their backs, by their staffs. (I’ve been on both sides of that situation).
Williams enjoyed a good career, spending 30 years as an editor. He edited the Nottingham Evening Post as well as the WMN before he retired in 2005. Two years later, his book, Ink in the Blood: memoirs of a regional newspaperman,was published.
I haven’t read it so I can’t tell you whether he writes about his “westcountry-ness” initiative. What I do know, as he probably discovered, is that one of the reasons for the decline of regional newspapers was geographical mobility. People who moved into new areas rarely bought local papers, daily or weekly.
