While Tories in Westminster have ummed and erred about whether to stick the knife in, there’s been no such hesitation over in Kensington. A veritable orgy of executive blood-letting has engulfed the hacks at Northcliffe House as first Geordie Greig and then Martin Clarke were unceremoniously dispatched from their respective posts at the Daily Mail and Mail Online. Paul Dacre meanwhile was barely out of the building’s infamous revolving doors before he was back, re-installed as DMG Media’s editor-in-chief after just three weeks away. One Mail Man sighed to Mr S: ‘It’s all been a bit like The Sopranos.’
Long-time Dacre admirer Ted Verity has been installed as Greig’s successor in the Daily Mail hot seat. He left the Mail on Sunday last month after three years in post, leaving the editor’s chair unfilled despite the paper’s long-time status as the best-selling weekly newspaper in Britain. But now Steerpike hears confirmation that Verity’s key lieutenants at the MoS are to be promoted, with long-serving executive Dave Dillon officially running the Sunday paper and fellow deputy editor Leaf Kalfayan now weekend editor responsible for the Saturday Daily Mail – the best-selling newspaper edition on Fleet Street. Both men were by Verity’s side throughout most of his three year editorship of the MoS.
At a party this afternoon over Moet champagne and pigs in blankets, Dillon delivered his first speech to the Mail on Sunday newsroom, telling them that, with regards to future of the paper: ‘You have nothing to fear’ adding ‘We will keep doing what we do, which is being the best and leading the agenda.’ He added that the last few weeks have been ‘unsettling’ and that ‘you may feel discombobulated, I know I am.’ Let’s hope that’s the end of any more plots, coups, firing squads and executive shenanigans – for this side of Christmas, at least.
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