Vijay Vaghela & newspaper cost cutting

Who is Vijay Vaghela?

I am intrigued because he gets a mention in Street of Shame, my favourite section in Private Eye where readers learn what is going on behind the scenes in the newspaper world (“Fleet Street” was once the home of Britain’s national newspapers).

And newspapers still matter because they collectively shape the way British Asians are perceived by society at large.

Referring to the financial problems at the Standard (once known as the Evening Standard), Private Eye reports: “In 2024 financial adviser Vijay Vaghela was given £702,000 to come up with a plan that ended with the closure of the daily paper in favour of a once-a-week effort that few Londoners are aware still exists.”

The Evening Standard was once a great newspaper, where Sam White wrote a column, Sam White’s Paris, for 41 years, on French politics, society and diplomacy.

According to the online only i newspaper, Russian origin owner Evgeny Lebedev, who acquired the Evening Standard in 2009, closed the daily paper after pressure from Saudi investors. “With the new Saudi influence also pushing for radical plans to rescue it, a team including external consultants was brought in. Vijay Vaghela, the former chief operating officer at the National World newspaper group, and Evening Standard chairman Paul Kanareck, worked on different options.”

Private Eye also comments on job cuts at the Telegraph: “The Guardian reported last week that Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner plans to make between 50 and 100 Telegraph journalists redundant – and the Eye is told the chopping is imminent. That’s rather a change in tone from April, when Axel Springer ended the broadsheet’s almost three-year limbo by pledging to ‘invest significantly in the Telegraph’s editorial excellence and international growth.’ ”

The grim reaper has now struck. “In an all-company briefing and email on Friday morning, staff were told the title would rely increasingly on technology, data and AI to ‘reinvent the reader experience’. Newsroom insiders said they expected as many as 100 people to lose their jobs,” the Guardian reported, adding, “A source from inside the Telegraph said the atmosphere in the newsroom was ‘like a morgue’.”

Senior Telegraph journalists might have made a mistake in previously turning down the offer of Arab money from International Media Investments (IMI), an investment fund controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice president and deputy prime minister of the UAE. They felt culturally more comfortable with German owners.

Truss on Tory traitors

Cover of Liz Truss' Bank Job Eastern Eye

Most commentators usually use the word “delusional” to describe Liz Truss. She has written another book, Bank Job: A short book on how the Bank of England broke the bond market and brought down the government (Free Speech Press), alleging that Michael Gove, Mel Stride and James Cartlidge plotted to remove her as prime minister because they were “probably promised jobs” under Rishi Sunak.

In Bank Job, Truss has a chapter titled “Tory Traitors”, in which says: “A large share of the Conservative parliamentary party had voted for Rishi Sunak in the summer 2022 leadership election. They regarded my victory among members as an error to be corrected. The self-appointed ‘compassionate Conservatives’ could not bear to touch welfare.”

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph before the book’s release on Monday (26), Truss elaborated: “All three of those people [Gove, Stride and Cartlidge], and there are many more, I was just naming them as examples, but all three of those people, either on the media, in Parliament, or in meetings like the 1922 committee, attacked me rather than holding the system to account. And the fundamental problem was that not all of the Conservative Party, but a lot of people in the Conservative Party sided with the system. These were people who had backed Rishi Sunak, who probably had been promised jobs under Rishi Sunak, and that was their motivation.”

How seriously should one take Truss, whose premiership lasted only 45 days?

She is the one who said US President Donald Trump is “right about everything”.

Hanif Kureishi on a Shattered life

Lunch with Hanif Kureishi doesn’t come cheap. The Financial Times had to pick up a bill for nearly £400 for the privilege of interviewing Kureishi, who has written a new book, Are You with Me Now?, as a sequel to Shattered.

The bill at the River Café on the Thames Wharf for “Squid £36; Mozzarella £35; Carpaccio £37; Pappardelle £42; Cappellacci x2 £68; John Dory £68; Mixed leaves £16; Glass Pinot Bianco x2 £26.50; Fresh lemonade £6; Fresh mint tea £4; Cappuccino x2 £10” came to £392.08.

Of course, Kureishi, who has been tetraplegic since an accident on December 26, 2022 while on vacation in Rome, had to be helped by his son, Carlo Kureishi.

“Waking up one day to find out you’re tetraplegic: it’s completely devastating and sort of unbelievable, ” said Kureishi. “The writing was an attempt to reconstitute myself as a person, as opposed to a body that was severely damaged and would never recover. To try and work out what that means, and who I am.”

Asked how he channelled his rage, the author of The Buddha of Suburbia and Oscar-nominated screenwriter of My Beautiful Laundrette said: “I remember discussing this with Salman Rushdie [who was attacked the same year as Kureishi’s accident], and he said, ‘Well, you have to learn to be patient.’ And I think of that when I’m lying there . . . there’s a lot of rage about your lack of agency, your impotence, your failure all the time, the fact that you’re a burden.”

Most people probably don’t realise that a life changing accident could happen to anyone. Both Kureishi and Rushdie have shown remarkable – and inspiring – strength of character in dealing with their respective tragedies.

Pinto turns Pirelli girl

Freida Pinto in 2027 Pirelli calendar Pirelli

The Slumdog Millionaire actress Frieda Pinto, who turned 42 last week, features in Pirelli’s 2027 calendar.

In fact, the whole calendar has an Indian theme, which is probably a reflection of the country’s growing prominence in the global economy.

Frieda is one of nine women in the calendar, Beyond a Single Gaze, which presents a multifaceted portrait of India.

The others are models Bhavitha Mandava and Lakshmi Menon, musician Anoushka Shankar, poet and performer Rupi Kaur, actresses Aditi Rao Hydari and Avantika Vandanapu, and cookery writer Padma Lakshmi, who also happens to be one of Salman Rushdie’s four ex-wives.

All eight have been photographed by Norwegian artist Sølve Sundsbø at Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur and Ajabgarh village in Rajasthan. She photographed Freida in a fuchsia mini dress against a backdrop of bougainvilleas. Freida expressed pride in the project, noting that the calendar helps dismantle stereotypes by portraying Indian women with complexity and diversity.

The other images were taken in the streets of Old Delhi by Avani Rai, who appears both behind and in front of the camera. Her father was the late photographer Raghu Rai, whose books can be seen in all the luxury hotels shops in India.

The glamour girls in Pirelli calendars are normally admired in working men’s changing rooms. This is the first time in the calendar’s 53-year-history that an entire calendar has been devoted to India. The guiding idea is to show India’s “civilisation, the multitude and the multi-existence of life itself” — avoiding reduction to a single narrative by embracing what Avani calls “the contradictions and multiple coexisting universes” of the country.

I suppose it is just a coincidence that the Indian women picked by Pirelli all happen to be glamorous.

Emergency store in case of war

Now that the government has urged people to stockpile three days’ worth of stores for emergencies, what should British Asians get?

It might be useful to include turmeric, ginger, cumin and chilli powder, along with masala chai and the right flour for samosas.