After yesterday’s edition on “scoops” and the condition now known as Scoop Derangement Syndrome, it was pleasing to see the s-word used in ridiculous style by former Muttley to perpetually thirsty drink driving enthusiast Paul Staines and alleged Boris Johnson’s son godfather, Alex Wickham, in today’s Politico London Playbook email. It opens with a paragraph which screams:
SCOOP: Lobby veteran Kevin Schofield is returning to journalism as the new political editor of HuffPost U.K., starting in the new year. The former PoliticsHome and Sun newsman will head up HuffPost’s new-look political team alongside deputy pol ed Sophia Sleigh, Political Correspondent Alexandra Rogers and Politics News Editor Ned Simons. Welcome back from the dark side …
Such a huge scoop that a very well-placed contact sent me the news that Schofield was returning to political journalism at 23:17 last night and that BuzzFeed/HuffPost UK sent a press release with the news at 07.07 this morning — three minutes before Wickham sent the email.
In some respects, Schofield’s “some personal news”1 is unremarkable; he was a long-time political hack with a long history of acts of stenography on behalf of Tories and the Labour Right before he sloped off to shill for the gambling industry, but in others it’s interesting (and grotesque).
Schofield, a former Sun Chief Political Correspondent, only announced that he was leaving PoliticsHome in February 2020, taking up the Betting & Gaming Council role (Director of Communications & Digital) that summer. The news that he was quitting political journalism for a lobbying payday earned him an excited headline from Press Gazette (Politics Home editor Kevin Schofield to leave journalism after 25 years) and lots of lachrymose tributes from craven hacks.
It’s the political journalism equivalent of those people who announce loudly on Twitter and Facebook that they’re quitting social media and are back within the week. Schofield and his friends made a massive deal of him leaving journalism and are now making a massive deal of his return. By the time he takes up the HuffPost UK role in the New Year, he will have been gone for less than two years.
This is not a “when I come back like Jordan wearin' the 4-5” situation. While Mike went off to play baseball — actually pretty well — and returned to win more championships, Schofield sloped off to make money from people’s misery and will now return to political journalism to contribute to our collective malaise.
As Guardian reporter Rob Davies highlighted at the time, it only took until May 2020 for an op-ed by Schofield’s boss at the Betting & Gaming Council, former Labour MP Michael Dugher, to appear on PoliticsHome.
Prohibitionists may be using Covid-19 to kick the gambling industry, but thanks to the action we’ve taken, fears are unfounded and standards are on the up… I expect prohibitionists to keep shifting the goalposts and to keep using covid as their opportunity to kick the industry.
A month before that op-ed appeared, Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the Labour Party and Michael Dugher’s successor as CEO of UK Music, quote- tweeted a Betting & Gaming Council tweet about gambling advertising, saying:
This marks a real shift in thinking by the gambling industry. Other than prohibitionists, it will be welcomed by all. The hard work of that cross party alliance of MPs is yielding positive results.
How curious that Watson, who just over a year earlier was calling for a gambling crackdown, was now using the same unusual word — “prohibitionist” — as his friend Dugher later plucked from the air for the PoliticsHome op-ed.
More recently Schofield’s former employer News UK found space for Dugher on the Red Box blog for an op-ed headlined The gambling industry is ready to play its part in the Covid recovery (September 6, 2021), which was pure propaganda and was seen as such by Times readers. The first comment beneath it reads:
A highly distasteful article which attempts to give legitimacy to an 'industry' designed to exploit the vulnerable. Giving space to such an article casts The Times in a most unfavorable light.
Just over a month later, current Labour MP, Neil Coyle, popped up in the same slot with another piece of propaganda Gambling review must not punish casual punters(October 22, 2021). While he avoided saying “prohibitionist”, he went for another p-word (“puritan”) as he argued that sport needs gambling cash:
And as well as the £350 million for racing, the industry also contributes at least £40 million a year to the English Football League and its clubs, more than £10 million to darts and snooker and over £2.5 million for rugby league — although I use my online account to bet on the superior union variety!
This funding proved vital during the pandemic, and won’t be easy to replace if the militant puritans get their way and gambling advertising is banned.
Neil Coyle was a rather reliable source/subject for Kevin Schofield during the Corbyn years as his Twitter account reveals:
Labour MP Neil Coyle responds to Jeremy Corbyn’s New Year message:
[Dec 31, 2019]
Momentum boss Jon Lansman attended tonight’s North Bermondsey branch meeting in Neil Coyle’s CLP and spoke in favour of an open selection. Lansman was defeated by 30 votes to 10. [Sept 10, 2019]
Labour MP Neil Coyle: ""This is hugely disrespectful to the leader. Jeremy has said there is a problem, and Len is saying he is wrong." [Apr 25, 2018]
Not saying this hasn't been a great Jeremy Corbyn performance, but Labour MP Neil Coyle just stormed out as he was asking a question. #pmqs [Jan 25, 2017]
Labour MP Neil Coyle on John McDonnell's latest Grenfell comments: "It's not language I would use." [Jul 16, 2017]
At meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Neil Coyle, Andy Slaughter and Ben Bradshaw ask chief whip Nick Brown what action will be taken against Shadow Cabinet members Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett for abstaining on second referendum vote. [Apr 2, 2019]
Hearing that Len McCluskey's own Labour branch in Bermondsey and Old Southwark voted to reselect Neil Coyle on Saturday. The Unite boss wasn't present. [Sept 9, 2019]
Would it be terribly cyncial to think that Coyle owed the Betting & Gaming Council’s Director of Communications & Digital a few favours?
What isn’t up for questioning, however, is that there are some choice deleted tweets — preserved in the digital amber of screenshots — that Schofield would rather we forgot and his colleagues and compatriots studiously ignore.
Screenshots of tweets allegedly sent from @schofieldkevin2 — the handle he used during his time at The Sun — include:
Rumours that an annexe to the Israeli Emabassy is currently being built in David Miliband’s back garden are yet to be confirmed.
At event warning England fans about AIDS risk in South Africa. Knowing some of my mates, it’s as well Scotland didn’t qualify.
So how long before some women’s mag has a “Secrets of the Chandlers’ Incredible Somali Diet Plan’ feature.
Of course, you can dimiss those tweets as jokes and say that they were posted a long time ago (10 years ago, in fact) but do the pillars of British journalism apply the same principle to the tweets of people who aren’t their colleagues?
The same applies to Wickham phrasing his ‘scoop’ as “lobby veteran Kevin Schofield is returning to journalism” without mentioning where he’s returning from as well as the list of prominent hacks lining up to congratulate Schofield on his new job without the merest hint of a qualm about a gambling lobbyist leaping straight back into journalism.
Still, it should be no surprise that Schofield is so warmly and uncomplicatedly welcomed back by the rest of the establishement — press and politicians alike — given the last time he appeared in the Politico London Playbook he at the Betting & Gaming Council-sponsored Spectator shindig at Conservative Party Conference. This was the guestlist as featured in that email:
SPOTTED: At last night’s Spectator Champagne reception at the Midland … Pretty much the entire Cabinet including Chancellor Rishi Sunak … Home Secretary Priti Patel … Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove … Foreign Secretary Liz Truss … Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, Tory Chair Oliver Dowden … Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis … Health Secretary Sajid Javid … Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi … his predecessor Gavin Williamson … Wales Secretary Simon Hart … Scotland Secretary Alister Jack … Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg … Cabinet Office Minister Nigel Adams … No. 10 Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield … SpAds Hudson Roe … Hugh Bennett … Rhiannon Padley … Cameron Brown … Tory MPs Chris Pincher and Matt Warman, among others … the BBC’s Nick Robinson … Times Deputy Editor Tony Gallagher … the Spec’s Katy Balls and co … ITV’s Robert Peston … the Sun’s Harry Cole … the i’s Hugo Gye … the Sunday Times’ Caroline Wheeler … the Times’ Steve Swinford … Henry Zeffman … Matt Dathan and Mhari Aurora … Sky’s Sam Coates … U.K. Music’s Jamie Njoku-Goodwin … bash sponsored by the Betting and Gaming Council, represented by Michael Dugher … Gary Follis … Kevin Schofield and Michael Denoual.
What good would it do for any prominent political journalist to stand up and object to Schofield’s shilling for the gambling industry? They might want to take a trip through the revolting revolving door themselves in the near future.
As I’ve written time and time again, British journalism refuses to transparently declare conflicts of interest and to ask tough questions about hacks sources, biases, and connections. I suspect that won’t be any different as Schofield returns to polticial journalism with his lobbying holiday studiously ignored by everyone else, in case they face a similar temptation.
