Former Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow
(Picture: PA Media)Ex-Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow is set to give the station’s bosses headaches with his new book. He tells us he is “off the leash” and plans to “go for goal”. The State of Us, out next year, will survey politics and “criticise Brexit”.
Channel 4 News is supposed to be impartial. But Snow, who stepped down late last year, was accused of bias, reportedly joining in with chants of “F**k the Tories” at Glastonbury festival in 2017.
Ex-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries planned to privatise C4 and claimed it was biased against the Conservative government. Dorries has been replaced this week by Michelle Donelan, but Snow fears the policy could go ahead. “I should think it’s more likely if anything,” he said.
Earlier this week, former C4 Head of News Dorothy Byrne told us a successful year for the channel could make the new Government put the idea to “one side”.
Literary prize accused of snobbery
The Booker Prize is being accused of snobbery for its treatment of local book groups who’ve been invited to help judges this year. At the shortlist party this week, held at the Serpentine Gallery, host Gaby Wood praised a Scunthorpe group for having “a steelworker and a dinner lady among your midst”.
Some online are angry at her apparent surprise that such people are readers. To be fair to Wood, she added: “And a man! That’s the other thing — much more rare.”
Tracey Emin turns on the Tories
TRACEY Emin once backed David Cameron, but she isn’t a fan of the Tories today. The last five years since Brexit have been a “disaster for culture,” the artist told us last night. Emin, who got the all-clear from cancer last year, said she keeps going by playing with her cats and swimming in the sea in her Margate home town. But the Government’s sewage management has even ruined that. “Southern Water has to clean the s**t up and clean its act up,” she says.
News too depressing for jokes, says Charlie Brooker
BLACK Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, right, says making satire is harder now because the world is “more depressing”. “I’m glad I’m not doing a topical show series at the moment because I’d probably be crying for 30 per cent of it,” Brooker said at a preview for Cunk On Earth at the BFI last night. Brooker said making shows for Netflix about Trump’s America made him have “a bit of a breakdown on camera”.
Last night’s biggest parties
GEORGE and Amal Clooney dazzled at last night’s premiere of George’s film Ticket To Paradise in Leicester Square, a short drive from barrister Amal’s office in Doughty Street Chambers. Daisy Lowe wore her new engagament ring as she visited an “experiential centre” at Selfridges with fiancé Jordan Saul. Betty Bachz and Mary Charteris were there too. Katy Hessel launched a book about women artists in Angel, and Jaime Winstone had a birthday bash in honour of her podcast in Soho. She said it was one of the “greatest nights”, rivalling the birth of her son Raymond, named after her dad.
