• Whether or not Sue Inglish is the BBC’s election supremo, she is a pivotal figure in its TV campaign coverage as the head of political programmes, as was recognised when she led the broadcasters’ team negotiating with the parties over election debates. So Monkey was interested to take a peek at the declaration of personal interests made by Inglish (who is ex-ITN, like the Beeb’s political editor and head of newsgathering) when senior managers’ expenses and interests were recently released. Although she joined the BBC back in 2002, rising to her present position 10 years ago, it seems she has retained 1,662 shares in ITV. Comparing this to a general having a side-bet on the enemy would surely be too harsh, however.
• If you believe you belong to “the cream of world journalism”, then there’s only a week left to apply for a place on Mail Online’s six-month Editors’ Programme, in the course of which the elite trainees will “learn the secrets” of digital news and be groomed to be the site’s “next generation of leaders”. Noticeably lacking the word “celebrity”, or indeed “sideboob”, the job ad is tantalisingly abstract but does give some hint of the, ahem, special stresses of the MO working environment in requiring in candidates a “flexible approach to shift patterns” and an “ability to thrive in a past-paced digital environment” (which may or may not mean “ability to turn around all stories for all platforms within three minutes despite having someone standing behind you continually shouting aggressively”). Especially fascinating is the prospect of successful candidates winning jobs in the expanding Rothermere empire’s “global network of bureaus”, which for now is confined to “London, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney” but excitingly if enigmatically will advance into “other geographies as we expand”. The sci-fi phrasing suggests that in the near-future Mail Online boss Martin Clarke could be planting a flag on Mars; but with imperial plans frustratingly under wraps the other geographies might equally be Westeros, or Skaro, or Discworld.
• An endorsement, or just a tease? With Jeremy Clarkson away, the Sunday Times intriguingly chose for his replacement as its Driving section’s cover star and car reviewer the motorcycle racer and Channel 4 presenter Guy Martin, who is among those named as possible Top Gear hosts (Paddy Power has him at 5/1). Martin would have the advantage of being a genuine petrolhead like Clarkson, rather than a utility presenter like Sue Perkins, Jodie Kidd and some other contenders.
• The New Statesman’s current “anniversary issue” (it’s, erm, 102 years old) has a cover modelled on Sgt. Pepper’s, with the Beatles’ collage of idols replaced by an idiosyncratic pantheon made up of Statesman types, political heavyweights and literary greats. They include: some former editors but not others (incumbent Jason Cowley and once-red now-right turncoat Paul Johnson are in, John Lloyd and John Kampfner are among those left out); some current columnists but not others (you look in vain for, say, Kevin Maguire, Ed Smith and Felicity Cloake); several pongy pontificators including Fabian devotees of eugenics, alleged rapist Arthur Koestler and the militaristic Christabel Pankhurst (rather than left-wing Sylvia); someone called “Melvin Bragg”; ex-NS guest editor Jemima Goldsmith under the name she no longer uses; and a bizarre, presumably provocative selection of politicians that omits British left heroes such as Hardie, Attlee, Bevan, Foot and Benn, but does feature Stalin, Mao and Thatcher. Much sulking and stropping inside the Statesman office and beyond it can be expected to ensue.
• The Staggers’ biggest snub, however, is to the originator of the cover concept: there’s nothing on the image itself or in the contents pages (which just credits someone for “cover art direction”, as if it was all their own idea) to indicate the debt to Peter Blake, designer of the 60s album sleeve. Has the socialist weekly celebrated its birthday by ripping off the fruits of a working class artist’s labour?
• On top of getting it in the neck for messing up ITV’s breakfast offering, alienating Champions League viewers and being the presenter chiefly responsible for Radio 5 Live’s current ratings slump, Adrian Chiles has now been fingered for a long-ago celebrity interview fiasco - and sadly the fingerer is his former joined-at-the-hip sofa partner Christine Bleakley (who on this evidence is no longer even on “Adrian” terms). “I remember on The One Show, Morrissey came on,” she tells Radio Times. “His mum was a big fan of ours. But Adrian Chiles called his mum by the wrong name and he was quite upset! It was a complete and utter disaster after that.”
