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Axe grinder 20.01.06
20 January 2006
Marr plays with fire on talk show
DID producers of Andrew Marr's Sunday AM breakfast TV show know the risk they were taking when they invited Jeff Randall and David Cameron to appear on the same programme last Sunday?
Randall, the highly paid Telegraph columnist, has an intense dislike for the Tory Party leader. The animosity dates from some years ago, when Cameron was a Carlton Communications PR man and tried to knock down one of Randall's stories.
Since then, Randall has taken every opportunity to slag off Cameron, saying publicly that he would not trust the politician "with my daughter's pocket money".
Even on Sunday, the day of Marr's show, an Observer piece quoted Randall taking yet another verbal swipe at the former "PR flunky".
Although both men were invited onto Marr's sofa, they narrowly managed to miss seeing each other.
Randall featured at the start of the show, but then scurried off to his BBC office to work on his Radio Five Live programme (which was being broadcast that evening). Then Cameron went on to be interviewed.
Randall emerged from his office 45 minutes later and went to have breakfast with Marr and the other guests. But by then Cameron had vanished, thereby avoiding what promised to be a good squabble over eggs 'n' bacon.
The weekend has lost its fizz
FAMOUS guests on Andrew Marr's weekend show, Sunday AM, have been quietly grumbling about how they miss the star treatment that Sir David Frost used to give them when he occupied the same slot.
When the credits rolled on Frostie's show, the presenter would whisk everyone up to a private room. There they tucked into a sumptuous feast, Buck's Fizz on tap, while giggling and swapping tittle-tattle.
Marr and his pundits, on the other hand, squash into a lift and head down to the canteen by the main foyer of Broadcasting House, where they sip Tetley from mugs and push rashers of soggy, fried bread around a plate while being eyed up by the plebs on neighbouring tables.
The Christmas break that lasted an hour
MORE horror stories emerge concerning Daily Mail associate editor Martin Clarke (bizarrely still referred to by the paper's switchboard operators as "deputy editor").
The hefty executive's explosive behaviour and inability to communicate without swearing has already convinced staff that he is a suffering a chronic case of Tourette's Syndrome.
His interactions are now being closely monitored, most notably his dealings with likeable news editor Chris Evans and associate editor John Steafal. The low point of Clarke's relationship with Evans came on Christmas Day, I am sorry to report.
Evans had cheerily wished the team a festive farewell and headed home.
But an hour later or so, the news supremo was back at his desk and looking gloomy. He had been reeled in by Clarke, who was furious that Evans had dared to leave the building on what is traditionally such a big news day.
Meanwhile, Clarke has been equally frosty towards Steafel, who declined a job at the Telegraph in favour of promotion and a pay rise at the Mail. The two men bicker constantly over layouts and headlines.
However, Clarke is about to be dispatched to work on the Mail's Irish edition. This means that tension will ease in Kensington. But in Dublin the sales of earplugs look set to soar.
When the cat's away, Mail staff go to Telegraph
THIS WILL have nothing to do with Martin Clarke, of course, but I learn that yet another Mail executive is jumping ship.
Night news editor Ed Stearns becomes the latest Mail staffer to head over to the Telegraph. News of his departure comes a week after I mentioned that features executive Liz Hunt has signed up with the Telegraph.
When Mail editor Paul Dacre returns from his month-long vacation in the British Virgin Islands, will there be anyone left to greet him?
Deedes dynasty in decline
THE Daily Telegraph is about to lose yet another member of the Deedes dynasty.
Three months after Jeremy Deedes stepped down as vice-chairman of the newspaper group, his youngest son Henry has also decided to quit.
Henry is leaving his job on Celia Walden's Spy column to become deputy to Guy Adams on the Independent's lively, wit-filled diary, Pandora.
After a stint with CNN, Henry joined the Telegraph as an enthusiastic graduate trainee, but must feel disenchanted as he watches colleagues scamper off with their redundo cheques.
When Henry goes, it will leave just one Deedes — Henry's grandfather Lord (Bill) Deedes — on the Barclay brothers' payroll. Bill has notched up 75 years of reporting for the Telegraph. Will the young-at-heart 92-year-old be the next one to start scouring the jobs section of Press Gazette?
Stories whip up over Walden's gossip column
LET'S move on to the delightful Celia Walden. She is paid to be a gossip for the Telegraph, so she won't mind me mentioning the rumours surrounding her job.
Axegrinder is Walden's greatest fan, but there are those who insist that her Spy column will soon be gone.
She is keen to get her beautiful face onto the box. And to achieve her dream she has spent recent weeks wining and dining TV contacts (on those rare occasions when she is not being wined and dined by a handsome magazine boss known well in this parish).
Katherine Bergen, who compiles The Sun's Whip column, is being suggested by one source as the woman who could fill Walden's Jimmy Choos at the Telegraph.
Bergen is married to former Tory spin doctor Nick Wood (ex-political journalist for The Express and The Times)
who no doubt passes on tittle-tattle across the pillow.
Or, put another way, the Whip is often discussed in their bedroom.
Sunningdale story was not Gilligan's work
HEAVENS! What have I started? An email arrives from Andrew Gilligan, who now writes for the Evening Standard following his departure from the Today programme in the wake of David Kelly.
"Your Axegrinder piece about me last month — which I only saw this week — is untrue. I am not ‘the man behind' the ‘contentious article' in Londoner's Diary about the Sri Lankan president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, buying Sunningdale Park, which the Standard had to correct. The man behind it is the man who wrote it, Sebastian Shakespeare," writes Gilligan.
He then adds: "I did tip him off that I had heard a rumour about Kumaratunga buying Sunningdale, but I explicitly told him I didn't know it was true, I hadn't done any work on it and he needed to check it out. Clearly Shakespeare and his ‘superb team' did not bother to do this.
"Even though I sit about three rows away from him in the office, he has never, incidentally, mentioned the matter to me from that day to this. In fact, because I was away in early December, the first I knew we'd even run a story, let alone a correction, was when I saw your piece.
"Shakespeare is on holiday (in Sri Lanka, as it happens) at the moment, so I haven't been able to take up with him why he chooses to blame me for his journalistic inadequacies in the Press Gazette diary. But please rest assured that both I, and the editor of the Standard, with whom I discussed this yesterday, will be raising his completely unacceptable behaviour with him when he returns."
Call Lord Hutton — there's going to be another inquiry.
Guardian and Observer sing a different tune GUARDIAN political editor Michael White leaps in to defend Ruth Kelly and takes a swipe at the tabloids for carrying out a cruel witch-hunt against the troubled politician.
"Suddenly," says White, "the tabloids and their hangers-on in television have scented blood and think they might get rid of another cabinet member.
"Ms Kelly becomes what the Mail's attack dogs today called ‘an arrogant android with a nine-to-five brain'.
Whatever that means, it is not meant to be kind. But No. 10 is still behind her.
Mr Blair has no choice but to back his choice to see through current reforms and compromises."
White, therefore, would have been peeved last Sunday to see that The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer, was calling for Kelly to be sacked over the school sex offender scandal: "She has failed to master her brief at the Department of Education. A cabinet reshuffle is due. The Prime Minister should put his flagship policy into a safer pair of hands."
NB: it was The Observer, not a tabloid, which broke the story that has tarnished Kelly's career.
Real People, not so real prizes
THE BUBBLY was flowing last week over at NatMags as the first issue of Real People hit the shelves. But aaarrgh! — the corks stopped popping when someone spotted a blunder on the front cover.
Amid the enthralling coverlines ("I had to steal my daughter's baby to save her life!", "How I lost five stone to be a beautiful bridesmaid"), readers were told they had the chance to: "Win £34,290 in cash and puzzle prizes."
Inside, however, prizes and cash only amounted to £21,390. A calculator is badly needed.
Beeb refuses to be taken for a ride over cab
ALTHOUGH Jono Coleman began presenting his radio show for BBC London last October, he has yet to return his signed contract after a disagreement over taxis.
The Beeb happily agreed to pay for a cab to collect Coleman from his home in Swiss Cottage and drop him at the studios in Marylebone High Street. But his bosses refused to cave in to his demands that they should also foot the bill for his return journey by taxi.
The DJ has been forced to concede.
From now on he is planning to walk the short distance from work to home.
Axegrinder reckons it should take him all of 10 minutes.
Daisy's in clear over Chaz drink problem piece
"AXEGRINDER, has got the score badly wrong in relation to its report last week concerning our chief political correspondent Daisy McAndrew," writes ITV News boss David Mannion. "The suggestion that Daisy was put under pressure by her ITN bosses to reveal the extent of Charles Kennedy's drink problems is wholly false. She only became involved (along with other members of our political team) when we began the process of seeking validation from secondary sources. May I recommend therefore that you apologies unreservedly to Daisy for [the] highly damaging suggestion."
Axegrinder of course extends the hand of friendship to Daisy and would like to apologise for upsetting her, even over a drink perhaps.
Face to face, I could diplomatically point out to her the irony of this situation: when she was Mr Kennedy's spin nurse she denied to the press that the Lib Dem leader had a drink problem ("he uses breath freshener with alcohol in it"). Who would have thought that one day she would be involved in standing up the story that she had previously knocked down?
The name of the game is anagrams
AXEGRINDER reader Jon Cooper emails with the suggestion that the column should incorporate anagrams (no thanks) of the names of Fleet Street's rich and infamous.
"An anagram of Paul Dacre Esquire is Acquired Pleasure, which I thought was quite appropriate," writes Jon. "And [Daily Mirror editor] Richard Wallace's name becomes Raw, Radical Lech.
Peter Hill [Daily Express editor] transforms into Hell! Tripe, which, judging by the declining circulation, might mean something to the rapidly departing readers."
Adds Jon: "An anagram of the words Sun editor Rebekah Wade is Not weakheaded bruiser."
Try telling that to Ross.
Theakston: the model pro
HEART DJ Jamie Theakston flashed up during a commercial break on Tuesday evening, telling viewers to tune into his breakfast show.
Then it was straight back to the ITV news where Theakston's face immediately flashed up on the screen again — Mary Nightingale had a story about prostitution laws and mentioned Theakston as a celeb who has used hookers. Great timing.
the 1pm girl
life begins at lunchtime
RICHARD Littlejohn may have been hired to get Daily Mail readers talking. But it's Mail staff who are gossiping at the Derry Street HQ over the columnist's byline photograph, which was touched upon (though not with an airbrush)
here last week.
According to sources in the Mail's basement studios, when Littlejohn arrived to have his picture taken he was accompanied by a stylist who had the intricate task of of improving his looks.
NEWSPAPER bosses will be delighted to learn that the Royal Mail is now able to offer a full redesign consultancy service.
Discussing new postal rates set for August, when packages will be priced according to shape rather than weight, the Jewish Telegraph has been advised that the simplest way to avoid increased charges for subscription copies is to change the size of the paper.
When the Telegraph asked whether the Royal Mail was suggesting that every newspaper in the country should follow suit, it was told this was the most expedient way round the problem.
ONE of Fleet Street's more nightmarish jobs is up for grabs — joint leader writer of the Daily Mail.
The Mail employs just two leader writers. One is the longserving Michael Toner, a former Daily Express veteran who is always saying he intends to quit, but never quite gets round to it.
The other leader writer in recent months has been David Hughes, the Mail's former political editor, but he is now taking on different duties. Before him, briefly, there was ex-Telegraph letters editor Nigel Dudley.
"The trouble with this job,"
says a Derry Street inmate, "is that you have to work long hours, remain sober, write the whole column, see it rewritten by the editor, see the page off stone, and STILL be called a cunt by Paul Dacre. If only one of those duties could be dropped it might be bearable, but as things stand, this is the job no one in his or her right mind wants."
Quite good money though, apparently.
