Geordie Greig, editor of the Mail on Sunday, “is 50% courtier, 50% old-school hack” says his former Condé Nast boss, Nicholas Coleridge.
In fact, says Coleridge, who witnessed Greig at first hand when he edited Tatler, “Geordie is alert, mischievous, courteous, perfectly mannered, with a deadly eye for the main chance”.
The quote is included in a rare interview with Greig by Arif Durrani in Campaign magazine. There are the usual references to Greig being “a toff... an Old Etonian, Oxford graduate and friend to the royals... with ‘posh’ received pronunciation”.
And Greig gets in plenty of hype about his paper being a scoop-publishing “dominant force on a Sunday” and so on. Politicians have to take notice, evidently.
Durrani notes “the steely resolve behind Greig’s polished demeanour” as he scorns the Labour party and criticises the BBC. And we also learn that Greig has, thus far, ignored participating in social media.
He wasn’t trapped into discussing his future, despite claims that he is in the running for the Daily Mail editorship should Paul Dacre step down.
Diplomatically, he refers to Dacre as “an incredible editor” and says of another supposed contender for Dacre’s job, Mail Online supremo Martin Clarke, that he has done “the most stunning job”.
One interesting revelation: Greig has sold the film rights to his book on Lucian Freud to Harvey Weinstein.
Source: Campaign
