Wes Streeting’s Middle England offensive

To Kensington, where the masters of Fleet Street now ply their trade. Just a mile away from Northcliffe House – home of the Mail newspaper empire – the hard-working hacks who staff those papers gathered last night at the Royal Geographical Society. They were there to toast the man who started it all – Alfred Harmsworth, better known as Lord Northcliffe, founder of the Daily Mail.

Lord Rothermere, the descendant and modern-day equivalent of that great press baron, laid on a lavish drinks reception to mark the publication of Andrew Roberts’ book The Chief – a weighty tome on Northcliffe’s life. But while the assembled big wigs, flunkeys and satraps were there to remember the past, conversation soon turned to questions of the future.

And the gossip centred on the presence of Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary and apparent ‘guest of honour’ according to one attendee. The Ilford MP held court all night, to the approval of senior executives, amid mutterings about him being the ‘heir to Blair.’