Mail’s Paul Dacre delivers biting riposte to Geordie Greig

Paul Dacre, the veteran editor of the Daily Mail, has launched a verbal missile at his successor Geordie Greig, alleging that he was “economic” with the truth when he claimed the paper’s softer tone had brought back advertisers.

In a biting letter to the Financial Times responding to an interview with Mr Greig in last weekend’s edition, Mr Dacre forcefully defended his 26-year stint in the editor’s chair, pointing out that he had increased circulation “and made billions in profit”. He added that Mr Greig should avoid giving interviews until he achieves a “small fraction” of what Mail journalists accomplished under his editorship.

“Admirable chap he may be, but Geordie Greig, in his Lunch With The FT, is as economic with the actualité [news] as your paper is in reporting matters Brexit,” wrote Mr Dacre. “He claims 265 advertisers came back to the Mail in his year as editor. In fact, far more than that number left during the same period.”

The spat brings to light the seething tensions at Associated Newspapers, the newspaper division of the Daily Mail and General Trust where Mr Dacre, a prominent Brexiter, still serves as chairman and editor-in-chief.

During Mr Dacre’s tenure, the Mail was one of the most influential and divisive publications in Britain, loved as much by its loyal readers as it was feared for its coverage by politicians and celebrities.

Admirable chap he may be, but Geordie Greig, in his Lunch With The FT, is as economic with the actualité [news] as your paper is in reporting matters Brexit

But the paper’s caustic and pugnacious instincts — including a headline labelling judges “Enemies of the People” for allegedly stymying Brexit — had raised unease with both advertisers and its proprietor Viscount Rothermere, who is happy with the more upbeat tone of the Greig era.

In his FT interview, Mr Greig, a supporter of the remain campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, cast himself as “a very commercial editor” whose leadership had already wooed back advertisers including Nationwide and TalkTalk worried about the Mail’s strident coverage of politics.

The Daily Mail Group Media said: “Over the last 12 months Mail newspapers has grown its market share of UK press advertising. The advertising revenue from the 265 new advertisers in Mail newspapers more than offset the loss from those advertisers we didn’t see in the past financial year.”

In his letter, Mr Dacre argued the FT presented a “ludicrous caricature” of the Mail under his editorship, without reflecting the achievements of the campaigns he launched.

“For my part, I plead guilty to having tweaked, in my time, the Remainer nose of the otherwise admirable FT but your writer’s ludicrous caricature of the Mail, before I stepped aside at 70 after 26 years in the chair, is unrecognisable from the paper that in those years increased its circulation by nearly a million in a contracting market and made billions in profits,” he wrote.

“It also — with the selfless efforts of the magnificent team of journalists Lord Rothermere allowed me to put together — won an unprecedented number of awards for the quality of its journalism and its countless great campaigns whether launching the war on plastic, cleaning up Britain, Alzheimer’s awareness, dignity for the elderly or justice for [the murdered teenager] Stephen Lawrence.”

Mr Dacre concluded by calling on his successor to show more humility and avoid touting successes prematurely.

“As for Mr Greig, I congratulate him for making a solid start as editor and continuing so many of those campaigns but I’m sure he’ll forgive me for suggesting that he (or his PR) defers his next lunch with the FT until he has notched up a small fraction of those journalists’ achievements,” he wrote.

Mr Dacre and Mr Greig have starkly different styles and their rivalry stretches back to Mr Greig’s time as editor of the Mail on Sunday; the pair have barely spoken over the past year, according to colleagues. “He loathes Dacre,” said one acquaintance of Mr Greig. “And he was one of the very few to stand up to Dacre within the newsroom.”

During the interview, Mr Greig described how his editorship differed from his predecessor: “On day one, I go and address all the staff. This had never really happened at the Daily Mail.” He also emphasised the paper’s less abrasive tone: “We’re going to have the roll of thunder when we need to make points but it’s also going to have the embrace of compassion.”

Within the Mail, Mr Greig has also tried to break physically with the Dacre era — bringing in builders to rip out the newsroom’s woodpanelling, installing a kitchen for journalists and hanging a David Hockney work in his office.

Mr Greig declined to comment on his predecessor’s letter. “At the heart of all newspapers,” he said in his interview with the FT, “is fighting with the people to be able to express themselves how they want, within the limits of the law and good taste . . . Provocation is a good thing.”