Londoner’s Diary
Editor Geordie Greig took a swipe at the Daily Mail, his former employer, as he delivered the Hugh Cudlipp lecture last night. Now editor of the Independent, Greig criticised the Mail’s approach to Brexit, saying that “contentious slogans on red buses” and “claims it would solve all our immigration problems” should have been questioned by the paper. “We are seeing news diluted and distorted and derailed by social media, and also in some instances by other parts of the media,” Greig said, asking “Did parts of the Tory press in Britain exacerbate the problems of the Tory party by losing perspective and being too partisan?”
Greig was sacked as Mail editor in late 2021 after running a series of front pages that criticised Boris Johnson’s government. Referencing Johnson’s “powerful friends in the media”, Greig teased that the sudden termination of his employment “could all have been a coincidence”. While Greig praised the Mail’s proprietor Lord Rothermere for personal integrity, he made no mention of the chairman Paul Dacre.
Truss can hustle
Remember Liz Truss’s book, Ten Years To Save The West? It bagged her an initial advance of £1,512.88 in the UK. But the 49-day PM has recently been able to build on this pocket money. We note that she is expecting to be paid three hefty sums for public speaking on her US book tour. Truss, right, is owed £19,321.68 for a three-hour speech at the Young America’s Foundation, £14,328 for another one at Pepperdine, a Christian university in California, and £5,054 for her two-hour talk at Gettysburg College in Washington DC. The resulting total of £38,703.68 adds up to 25 times more than the initial advance. Not bad for a day’s work!
Corbyn surprised by Eavis knighthood
Former sort-of Glastonbury headliner Jeremy Corbyn won’t be attending the festival this weekend as he busily tries to win his seat as an independent. But he told the Standard he still remembers the roar of the crowd when he spoke back in 2017. When he recently learned that hippy Glasto founder Michael Eavis had accepted a knighthood, Corbyn said: “I was very surprised about that… I didn’t know he wanted it.”
Labour plays it safe
A week out from polling day, Labour is ramming home its we-won’t-rock-the-boat message. Bankers and other financial sorts arrived in the Square Mile this morning to be greeted by large electronic billboards of the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. “I worked at the Bank of England,” they read. “I’ll always put economic stability first.”
