Search results matching tag 'Daily Telegraph'

If you read the Daily Telegraph you're not going to be allowed to forget there was a war on

1704826 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:18:00 GMT

Having finally realised that it has milked its dossier on MPs' expenses to a state beyond death, the Daily Telegraph has come up with a new wheeze that it hopes will guarantee readers buy the paper on a long-running but daily basis to find the latest revelations: World War II.

Today's paper promises, 'Second World War - Day-By-Day As It Happened'.

War was declared on 3 September 1939 but hostilities didn't finally cease until almost exactly six years later when Japan finally formally surrendered. So by my reckoning a day-by-day account of the events of the war will help fill up the Telegraph's pages until about this time in 2015, although we're going to have to endure coverage of the Phoney War until April 2010.

While I'm all for commemorating the War isn't this overkill and, dare I say, a bit lazy? It's not even as if it has much historical use as there is no benefit of looking at the events in their wider context.

BoJo's £250k 'chicken feed'

1704826 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:36:00 GMT

I happen to like Boris Johnson. I think he provides a bit of much-needed colour to the political scene, and he seems better at his job than that annoying nasal Red Ken but I don't live in London so what do I know.

But is he worth £250k for a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph? Yes - if they are stupid enough to pay it.

With typical Johnson disregard and seemingly oblivious to the prevailing mood of the nation, Johnson describes this as 'chicken feed'. Well it's not - even when compared to some of the eye-watering salaries available at ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC.

Finally some sense seems to be emerging - the BBC has suspended bonuses for its top execs (quite why they or anyone else on the public payroll needs bonuses I've never been sure) so DG Mark Thompson will only draw a basic of £647k. Similar moves have been made over at 'cash-strapped' Channel 4 - chief exec Andy Duncan has agreed to get out of bed for £600k a year - down nearly £300k on 2008. Which is nice of him.

But Johnson's burden on the taxpayer is just £140k for his salary as London mayor and I don't really care how much PLCs pay in salaries or columnists (and there are some shockingly bad ones on payrolls) as market forces will prevail.

So I suggest that given that the Daily Telegraph's parent company Telegraph Media Group has just posted a loss of £15.7m for 2008, Johnson enjoys the 'chicken feed' for as long as they are stupid enough to pay it. Soon, he may have to revert to newt feed rations.

Which is a better public school educational resource? Big Brother or the Daily Telegraph?

1704826 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:50:00 GMT

The headmaster of Repton School, a minor public school in Derbyshire built for the sons of businessmen from the Midlands, thinks that Big Brother 'distorts reality for children', according to today's Daily Telegraph.

What's more, he opines that reality television as a genre leaves the impression 'that the world beyond a small area or community has no impact on people's lives. That particularly insight alone is clearly worth forking out 24k a year to send your child to his school.

But Robert Holroyd has a remedy to this malaise that I'm A Celebrity and Big Brother has on the minds of the young - they should take a 'reality check' and read..... the Daily Telegraph.

Brilliant. Much as I'm aware of the limitations of reality TV shows as en aducational tool, I think force-feeding public schoolboys the Daily Telegraph is potentially more damaging.

Where does the Telegraph go now?

1704826 — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:17:00 GMT

All credit to the DailyTelegraph for blowing the gaffe on MPs' expenses but I'm getting a bit bored of reading that our political class is corrupt - I think the point has been hammered home enough now and I expect that the uplift in sales that it enjoyed will begin to tail off.

So when normal service resumes, which it surely must eventually do, what is the Telegraph going to do to keep up its momentum? Will we see a return to its usual dismal fare - pictures of pretty A-Level students getting their results, disgraced Church of England vicars running off with parishioners, scare stories about gypsies or Europe?

I used to like the Telegraph under the former ownership of disgraced Tory peer Lord Black but now, other than it doing a good job ploughing through the expenses file, it is in danger of returning to being rather irrelevant.

Andy Duncan would do well to learn from greedy MPs

1704826 — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:10:00 GMT

So the Lib Dems use their expenses on biscuits and trouser presses, the Tories on chandeliers and moats and Labour on loo seats and damp rot.

While the revelations in The Daily Telegraph have caused acute ambarrassment to all MPs, they also go to prove that most political stereotypes are in fact correct. They have also helped lift the paper's sales by nearly 100,000 copies a day according to reports so all in all it's been the story of the year.

Nonetheless it was difficult not to have some sympathy with Labour peer Lord Foulkes who got in a bitter argument with a BBC News 24 presenter about her own remuneration - 92 grand of licence fee money to read the autocue on an obscure digital channel seems equally excessive. Today we learn that 80 members of staff at Channel 4 get paid over 100k a year, for which Andy Duncan put up a rather lame defence.

While the politicians have moved quickly to acknowledge that they are over-paid, wouldn't it be nice if this started a wider debate and that the BBC and C4 start cutting their cloth accordingly. If the Daily Telegraph achieves that then it will have done a greater service then it initially set out to do.

'It's not my fault - it's the cistern'. Daily Telegraph busts MPs

1704826 — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:56:00 GMT

Full marks to the Daily Telegraph for exposing the absurd expenses claims from MPs of which Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy and our very own beloved Culture Secretary Andy Burnham have surely come up with the most ridiculous.

Murphy claimed 3k for a new plumbing system because the water from his old boiler was 'too hot' while, among other things, Burnham claimed for a bathrobe. John Prescott meanwhile claimed for mock Tudor beams and two loo seats. The PM says that MPs are not to blame - it is, of course, the fault of the system.

The Daily Telegraph may have paid for these revelations (something that MPs appear to be strangers to) and although cheque book journalism has got a bad reputation in reality it's just an explicit acknowledgment of a transaction that usually works on a 'you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours' basis.

Look forward to more revelations to come.

We're all pleased about the Gurkhas but steady on Dave Cameron

1704826 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:33:00 GMT

Victory! There's something particularly sweet when the House of Commons defies the will of the Government (probably because it's such a rare occurrence) and genuinely Does The Right Thing, so the vote on the Gurkhas yesterday was electric.

I realise that I've been a little unfair - unlikely bedfellows the Daily Telegraph and the Mirror both campaigned for fair treatment for former soldiers, a subject that also united MPs from all political persuasions who understand the simple principle that if you are good enough to die for this country then you are good enough to live here.

Dave Cameron however seems to have got a bit carried away with it all judging by this clip from Sky News's website when he appears to make a lunge at national treasure Joanna Lumley. While not quite tongue against teeth, it's embarrassing enough.

Sink some Bombardier for St George. And to defy Brown

1704826 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:24:00 GMT

Happy St George's Day.

According to today's Daily Telegraph, Brown's Scottish Raj is spending just £116 to mark St George's Day. They are buying a flag. This contrasts with the £600,000 they spent to mark the day of their own patron saint.

While not surprised with the Government's lacklustre response, I am continually disappointed that more brands haven't embraced St George's Day other than Latymers, our grim 70s local in Hammersmith, and Dr John Sentamu.

I'm so depressed by this that I can't think of anything else to write. Goodbye.

Wombles bleed, truncheons and shields. Good

1704826 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:16:00 GMT

Given some of the violent scenes today, it's odd that the BBC has excitedly reported that the demonstrations have ‘the atmosphere of the Glastonbury festival'.

Aside from the fact that it's probably easier to get drugs in the City of London today and that Moby isn't playing, I thought Glastonbury was full of middle-class people these days rather than the 4000-odd anarchists, crusties and wombles attacking buildings and police while the grateful media looks on.

The G20 rabble has chosen ‘climate, justice, peace' as its rallying epithet and while these three apparently disparate demands fail to have the same resonance as ‘peace, bread, land' and ‘liberty, equality, fraternity' from previous (and more successful) uprisings, they do seem to cover many bases and should therefore attract a wide range of agitators.

The media has devoted wall-to-wall coverage of the riots and reported with glee that bankers have been told not to dress in their business attire but perhaps given the breadth of their grievances, people who work for the electricity board and solicitors should also consider dressing down.

While I have no desire to see St Peter's Field recreated in East London, I can't help but hope that tomorrow they meet a more resolute response. Anyway, we'll soon find out - I'll be on the 7.26 from Berkhamsted with a pin-striped suit, rolled-up umbrella and copy of the Telegraph.

A message to Jacqui Smith - Face, book? Bothered?

1704826 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:53:00 GMT

Should we be worried that the Home Office plans to keep details of the contacts and details of users of social networking sites as part of its plan to store records of all phone calls, emails and websites visited, ostensibly in the name of ‘national security'?

Aside from the issue of civil liberty, this is from a department, remember, that has managed to lose the details of 84,000 prisoners and 3000 migrant seasonal workers - including their passport numbers - in a government that has also mislaid information on among others 25m people's child benefit claimants, 3m learner drivers and banking details on a further 600,000.

Nonetheless the answer is no.

If some civil servant or half-witted minister chooses to leave in a pub or a train a disc containing the usual banal information available on social networking sites, such as ‘...is looking forward to the weekend!', ‘...can't wait for payday!', ‘....has a hangover!', that's fine by me. I very much doubt that there are many Islamic groups that use Facebook to plan attacks with updates such as ‘...is plotting a jihad'.

So go for it Jacqui.

Incidentally the difference between our government and that of Nicolas Sarkozy was thrown into sharp relief on the front page of today's Daily Telegraph. He has appointed Guadeloupe-born TV presenter Christine Kelly as his minister of overseas territories. Hazel Blears she is not.