Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr has had her contract “cancelled” by the Guardian following the Sunday newspaper’s controversial sale to Tortoise Media.
Ms Cadwalladr, an investigative journalist who has written several high profile stories on Brexit, wrote on social media site X that the Guardian was “cancelling my contract after 19 years continuous employment with no pay-off”.
Zero hours contracts – there’s no guarantee of getting space in the paper. You only start to rack up payment possibilities when an editor says “Yes, write that.” If you do and they don;t use it you’ll probably get a half fee. But that’s it.
And given that she’s been happily working on such a contract for 19 year obviously it’s a type of contract that people are happy enough to work to.
Oh poor Carole ( smirk ) she was always acting on the best intentions ( chuckle ) and in good faith ( laughs ) it wasn’t her fault that the whole thing was a pack of lies ( guffaw ) and eventually one of her targets had enough, sued her and won, despite the judges being biased towards her ( falls on floor in apoplexy ).
Apparently they get a gig for a year with Tortoise Media on the same basis. I wonder if Tortoise will commission anything from her in that time?
I guess if she wants to waste her money on enriching the lawyers then by all means take on GMG. It’ll be some light entertainment for us.
She has a contract which should therefore set out any entitlement to a severance pay-off.
If it doesn’t she gets nothing.
Why is this even a story?
The father of the late journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once advised him: ‘Never work for a liberal newspaper. They’ll give you the sack on Christmas Eve.’
Some things never change!
investigative journalist really?
Ho ho ho.
That has amused me almost as much as this, which – if true – is the funniest thing I’ve read in years:
Trump set to veto Starmer’s ‘horrible, arrogant’ pick for US ambassador
The government may have to fall on Nigel Farage for help after the choice of Peter Mandelson as the new US ambassador did not go down well. One of president elect Donald Trump’s team publicly described him as an ‘absolute moron’, while an insider described told the Independent it was a ‘horrible, arrogant’ choice.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/trump-set-to-veto-starmer-s-horrible-arrogant-pick-for-us-ambassador/ss-AA1wmyeO?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=a275b9ec54364f398971c491d9357f8f&ei=12
I don’t think it works like that, Interested. An ambassador presents their papers. In the US, would that be to State? I suppose State could reject them. Then the UK wouldn’t formally have an embassy in the US. POTUS can’t veto whoever’s the UK choice for ambass.
@BiS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrément, from which it’s clear that letters of credence are presented to the head of state (in this case, the Donald), and may be rejected by him. If Mandelslime were rejected (make a wish, all good children), the UK would have an embassy, but no ambassador for the time being.
BiS, how you think it works is irrelevant as to how it works.
19 years as a ‘contracted freelancer’? Sounds like a tax dodge. Surely she should have been made an employee?
Marius, I was thinking the same. Freelancing for 19 years for the same client probably creates an employment relationship, whatever any written contract (or absence thereof) says. With, of course, the interesting tax and NI implications.
@Chris
I’d disagree with that. It might still have the building, but the ambassador embodies the embassy.
In practical terms, I’d imagine if Trump’s really pissed off with Mandleslime he can sideline him & use other avenues of communication. Shows what a bunch of idiots now comprise HMG. Starmer, Lammy & the Slime amongst others thought it was clever to run their mouths off about US internal politics. Believing there was no chance of what has happened, happening. Not very clever. So they should prepare themselves for a great deal of humiliation. And I’d reckon Trump knows just how to do that. And it certainly wouldn’t be by interfering in UK internal politics over its choice of ambassador. Trump’s too clever for that.
It’s a basic principal. If you’re going to have to work with someone, you can disagree with their opinions. But never ever make it personal.
Of course you can have an embassy headed by a chargé d’affaires. At a pinch you can have representation by placing staff in the embassy of a friendly or neutral state as a “political interests” section.
If the toolmaker’s son doesn’t rescind the appointment of the almond’s son, Trump and his State Dept can simply PNG him on the basis of something unpleasant and unsavoury which doesn’t bear close scrutiny. It could be entirely trumped up, of course and a Nutella trap.
BIS,
Are these proper jobs now? Like back in the era when it took someone 5 days to get over the Atlantic, you needed a serious bloke in Washington, but Keir can just give Trump a call, or have Lammy over in a few hours. It feels to me like it’s going to be someone to do the routine nonsense like ceremonial dinners.
That said, I can understand why someone would find Mandelson objectionable.
BiS is right. President Trump is a businessman, not a revolutionary. He’s not going to do something daft like refuse to recognise a foreign ambassador, which would just help his domestic enemies.
Apparently Mandelson is a “heavy hitter” (of what, young men’s bottoms?) and that’s why he was chosen. The competency crisis is real. People like Mandelson, Kinnock, Starmer, and all the other muppets have a perfect net zero record of achievements in real life, all they know how to do is fluently tell lies while slobbering over donor knobs.
“ She has a contract which should therefore set out any entitlement to a severance pay-off.
If it doesn’t she gets nothing.
Why is this even a story?”
It’s the Telegraph so they obviously think schadenfreude drives clicks.
As for her contract status, she only needs to demonstrate that she can reject commissions and that she is feee to take commissions from other organisations as she pleases.
The arrogance and stupidity of our world class governing class:
Former British ambassador to the US Lord Kim Darroch said today that this was unlikely to be the only controversy, as Trump’s return to the White House will be ‘like a 24/7 bar-room brawl’. His advice to the next ambassador would be to watch out for Donald Trump’s ‘5am tweet storm’
“Lord” (lol) Kim Darroch disgraced himself by being too arrogant and stupid not to make vituperative comments about the government you’re supposed to be diplomatising with. An office junior knows that you don’t write offensive comments about your customers, even in private letters and emails, because what is private can be made public. But “Lord” Kim Darroch rejects this lesson, because he’s a confident bluffer and credentialed fuckwit who was raging at having to be polite to someone he – on the basis of no logic or evidence – considers beneath him.
No, the British ambassador to the United States should not be obsessed with Donald Trump’s tweets, you’re supposed to be there to persuade the Americans to do things that are good for us.
Nigel Kim Darroch, Baron Darroch of Kew, KCMG
All those letters and titles for nothing. Toom tabards, the lot of them. We might as well stick a bunch of medals on a scarecrow and call it Lord Fucklington of Strawarse.
A 19-year ‘freelance’ contract with GMG, eh? I wonder what her IR35 status is?
President Trump is a businessman, not a revolutionary.
That’s how I see him, Steve. Also as a poker player. Where you don’t, like chess, see the pieces on the board, to determine future strategy. But just the indeterminate back of the cards.
@WB it’s going to be someone to do the routine nonsense like ceremonial dinners.
Indeed. And the seat placings. And I can see Mandy’s being done to humiliate him. Between two people he really doesn’t get on with. Or are too insignificant to bother with. That’s the sort of tricks you play in business.
BiS – That’s how I see him, Steve. Also as a poker player. Where you don’t, like chess, see the pieces on the board, to determine future strategy. But just the indeterminate back of the cards.
100%. Poker is a better metaphor, because chess players have perfect information about the composition and disposition of the other side’s forces, something that never happens in real life.
Poker players navigate the Rumsfeldian zone of known and unknown unknowns, make educated guesses based on the strength of their own hand, and try to flush out the truth through a series of bets, calls, raises and folds. It’s a proper sport, and bears a lot of similarities with business, politics and war.
Cause every hand’s a winner
And every hand’s a loser
@Steve
With poker, you’re playing the man sitting across the table. The cards are only there for an excuse.
“Never make it personal.”
With Trump, everything is personal. Look at how he’s treating Canada, mostly because of Trudeau. Send us a disrespectful-to-Trump ambassador . . . well, might as well keep him there. He’ll never see anyone but doormen here.
Talk to Trump seriously and respectfully, and he works with you. Play snide games, win snide prizes.