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Commons Confidential
The latest whispers from Westminster
By Iain Dale Published 02 July 2009
Early in the week Jacqui Smith gave me her first print interview since she resigned. In close on two hours we covered a lot of ground, but I like to end up with quick-fire questions. “What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done?” I asked. Quick as a flash, she replied: “Not make my husband sleep on the sofa for the last six months.”
***
I was up in my old stomping ground of Norwich at the weekend, sniffing the by-election air. The Lib Dems had achieved the remarkable feat on the same day of writing to the Tory candidate, Chloe Smith, saying they wanted a good clean campaign and, in the next breath, smearing the Green candidate, Rupert Read, as an “extremist”. How did they get a reputation as the nice guys of British politics? Most locals I spoke to reckoned Ian Gibson would stand as an independent, yet few said they would support him. He may have been treated badly, but his endorsement of Labour’s new standard-bearer, Chris Ostrowski, was quick and without caveat. What a paradox that Ostrowski works for John Lewis. Wasn’t it their “list” that sparked off the expenses furore in the first place?
***
Over the past few months the holidaying Kevin Maguire has been toying with the former shadow home secretary David Davis like a cat toys with a mouse. Davis’s famous ice pick went missing during an office move and in recent NS columns our intrepid reporter appeared to know more about its whereabouts than he was letting on. He kept hinting that it was to be found above a wardrobe. Last week Davis was peering at his new office cupboard and decided on a whim to clamber up and look on top. And what should he find? Yup, the missing ice pick. When he returns from his hols, Maguire had better watch his back.
***
I wonder what Polly Toynbee will make of this. Emap has announced 35 redundancies. What it hasn’t said is that four of them are women on maternity leave. Nice. David Gilbertson, Emap’s CEO, has developed a truly terrible company motto: “ABCDE-map”. A = accountable, B = brave, C = collaborative, D = decent, E = essential. The “D” in particular might be questioned by the editorial staff of the three public sector titles (Health Service Journal, Nursing Times and Local Government Chronicle) who were told six posts were being cut (two of them occupied by women on maternity leave), but alas the group director and editor, Alastair McLellan, couldn’t tell them in person because he was driving his new camper van down to Glastonbury. Why should Toynbee care? Because Guardian Media Group owns 30 per cent of Emap.
***
It is 20 years since the National Dock Labour Scheme was abolished, bringing joy and relief to many a port employer. On Monday, a motley crew of port bosses and Tory politicians will celebrate the occasion by holding a dinner at which the former employment secretary Norman (now Lord) Fowler will be the “star” attraction. The lead civil servant at the transport department at the time, John Dempster, will also be there, gathering anecdotes for his new book on the fall of the dockers. The trade union leader Ron Todd will be turning in his grave.
Kevin Maguire is away. Iain Dale is publisher of Total Politics
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7 comments
I work for Emap (at least until the next in what seems to be a six-monthly round of redundancies), and from what I hear on the public sector titles Eyebrows O'Reilly's assumption that there would be lots of suits and line managers on hand to deal with the situation in Alastair's absence is wide of the mark. People were given the news by Alastair's boss Claudia Arney - who most people had never even met before. I assume she is well-paid enough that they could have expected her to have got to grips with what she was telling them, instead of having to read from a script. It would also have been nice if she had bothered to clarify whether individual staff members' jobs were at risk before she took them off for individual meetings (again with script in hand).
Alastair's decision not to delay his drive to Glastonbury by a few hours so he was there to support the people who report to him was poor, but the way the situation was handled in his absence was utterly inept and from what I saw seemed to cause as much distress on the day as the detail of the cuts.
Still, things aren't all bad. Staff were heartened to read in big boss David Gilbertson's weekly message yesterday that two new senior appointments have been made (both CEOs - how many does one company need?). There will eventually come a point where these people are left with no one to manage.
I work at emap and the ABCDE which you have sidelined as terrible is actually something which alot of journalists and politicians should take notice of. Also did you stop to ask whether those on maternity leave were consultated about this, i believe it would have been illiegal to make them redundant because they were on leave, so maybe the redundancy has nothing to do with the birth of their children.
I believe Polly Toynbee is a journalist and not on the board of GMG or Apax who have also bought us, so why would she be interested in what emap does with its employees??
Lastly, even directors are entitled to go on holiday, but judging by your sloppy journalism i think you should stay at home!
Thought this column was meant to have gossip in rather than plugs about yourself. Shoot, sorry just realised who the author was.
Perhaps this is the reason I've stopped reading your organ in print. Tories I can cope with. Small minded, self serving and long winded placemen I can do without. Diary's are meant to be gossipy and fun not a platform for the mildly brown shirted and dull.
I too work at emap and I actually thought the D stood for despicable but even if not I would have thought that the Accountable, Brave, Collaborative, Decent and .....ahem.....Essential group director, Mr McLellan would have been brave and decent enough to tell those earmarked for redundancy - including the two women on maternity leave - face to face, instead of badgering away for a weekend in Somerset to show off his new camper van.
I work at Emap also, and whilst I think the company had a lot dead wood. The 4th wave of redundancies are a joke! People who make a lot of money for the comapny have been let go on the sales side of things. Systems are out dated and the morale is really bad. All media is going through this, however after spending a mint on consultants and re-assuring staff it is to try and make systems better, they basically told management that we waste 70% of our time. This is crap and these suits from America failed to really see what the staff do. We all basically want to know when it will stop. The heart and soul of emap is being torn out and I sincerley believe that when the economy gets better, alot of people with years of expertise in their chosen markets would have already left and those remaining, feed up with the cold corporate nature of our new management will also seek to exit to a better media comapny!
Since this is becoming the Emap forum... I used to work at Emap and since Alastair has been singled out in this very public way it's only fair to say that he is thoroughly decent and I've never known him take his responsibilities lightly.
Knowing how Emap works, I would expect that the decision to make redundancies - which are spread across the whole division and not just Alastair's part of it - will have been made at CEO / MD level (Alastair reports to an MD who reports to a divisional CEO who reports to the main CEO). I don't know who the people are who have taken redundancy but they may well report to managers other than Alastair - in other words Alastair is part of the chain but not necessarily the crucial part. There will no doubt be plenty of suits and line managers on hand to deal with the situation.
However, Iain, as you are a politician who may well hold ministerial office over the next few years, I am reassured by the implication that you won't be initiating any redundancies yourself, and that if circumstances conspire to make redundancies unavoidable, you'll be personally on hand to deal with the individuals concerned - however small in number and wherever in your department they are located.