The Aged P

With the sacking last month of editor Tony Gallagher the transformation of the once staid Daily Telegraph is now complete. Almost all the experienced (and expensive) hacks have gone, most of the “reporting” is being done by inexpensive and inexperienced novices, there is a lot of filler masquerading as  “comment” by a mixture of spotty youths and weird eccentrics and, of course, plenty of “lifestyle”

Which brings me to Jenna Zoe.

Earlier this year the DT began pushing this

Light Bites & Tasty Treats

Don’t miss 30 natural recipes from Jenna Zoe, including nutritious breakfasts, delicious party snacks, cookies and bakes. Free inside The Telegraph Saturday, January 18 and Sunday, January 

A few days before we had been told that Jenna Zoe was “The Complete Woman” in one of those vomit inducing puff pieces the broadsheets love so well. The idea is to give we ordinary folk a voyeuristic glimpse into the life of the beautiful people who are the movers and shakers of style.

– What you put on your body is important, so I pick organic products. I go to Content Beauty & Wellbeing in Marylebone, London, where the owner, Imelda Burke, is like an encyclopedia on the topic.

– I use Live Native skin products, which are raw and vegan. I love Oskia day moisturiser, and use coconut oil as a body cream and make-up remover. For nails,Zoya is great.

The reality is that it’s an advertising vehicle pretending to be an interview. Presumably it is hoped that we shall all be so entranced by Jenna that we will rush out and buy the stuff that makes her life so glamorous.

Normally I ignore such unsubtle garbage  – but I my curiosity was aroused by this pimping of someone who was obviously hip and cool but totally obscure…..was she a culinary Susan Boyle suddenly exploding from  nowhere by virtue of her own talent?

Alas, the truth is more mundane. Her real name, according to Lord Gnome, is Jenna Zoe Barclay and she is the daughter of DT supremo Aidan Barclay.

As they might say at Tesco “every little helps”……

It’s handbags at dawn as Peter Oborne gives Tim Montgomerie and his Ashcroft funded Conservativehome website a bitchslap in the dark alleyway behind DT HQ. Ashcroft is using Montgomerie as a sock puppet to shift Cameron & Co to the right, wails a distraught Oborne and it’s not fair because Peter wants David all to himself.

Others can dissect the root causes of this catfight better than myself but there are some observations that need to be made –the most obvious being that it’s a bit rich Oborne screeching about Ashcroft using his wealth to bankroll a media outlet in order to channel his own views. After all, he himself is obviously trousering a few sovs from the reclusive Barclay brothers who not only own the DT but also fiercely resist all attempts at invading their privacy. They say they run a hands off operation but articles about Sark politics and sycophantic features about Catholicism tend to open that claim to question.

Then this complaint about hectoring Cameron from the DT seems rather strange when one recalls the vicious guerrilla warfare waged by the paper against John Major in the 90s on behalf of….(don’t laugh)…Michael Portillo…”man of destiny” etc…

Oborne, of course, assumes, like most pundits, that we ordinary folk are incapable of drawing up our own opinions and need guidance from the pundit priesthood to make the right decisions. Hence we Tories supposedly pore over the Telegraph or Conservativehome to find out what we should be thinking today, rather like earnest Bolsheviks leafing through Pravda in the 1930s.

Cobblers

Many Tory voters don’t even read the DT – and probably a large number of those who do would not bother with Oborne. Even fewer visit ConHome (and when you read some of the comments there they seem to be mostly wearing tinfoil hats)

Peter and Tim are obviously big in the Westminster village – and that is their limit. Both of them shrink down to size when on TV…..Montgomerie is like a fairly unsuccessful insurance salesman and Oborne brilliantly fills the role of the pompous, opinionated Latin teacher at some third rate prep school.

Give me Nigel Farage or Dan Hannan any day…

And as for one person being able to influence conservatives with a tweet or a few words on Facebook there is only one person in the western world who can do that – Sarah Palin in the USA. Both Oborne and Montgomerie would view her with disdain. But then they need to ask themselves why her words have so much power.

Maybe it has to do with honesty and fearlessness – and not giving a tinker’s cuss what anyone else thinks…