Even by Daily Mail standards, today’s front page is low. Jeremy Heywood was principal private secretary to Tony Blair, left to work for Morgan Stanley, and is now back in Downing Street as No 10 permanent secretary at the centre of David Cameron’s coalition government.
So the strap above the headline reads: “Blair aide’s key role at bank that oversaw sale of troubled Southern Cross empire.”
He is a civil servant, therefore, not an “aide”. He was also a civil servant when Blair was Prime Minister. And he had nothing to do with the flotation of Southern Cross, the company that runs old people’s homes (well, as far as anyone can tell) and which has now run into financial crisis.
All that the Daily Mail can rest its front-page lead story on is that Heywood “may have indirectly benefited” from the fees Morgan Stanley earned on the deal.
When John Bercow described the Mail as a “sexist, racist, bigoted cartoon strip”, he could also have added some other words.
Eagle Eye 