Nepo babies take over at the Telegraph and Spectator

Over the past couple of years, the Daily Telegraph has been very exercised about nepo babies – children of famous or wealthy people – who benefit from family connections to get ahead.

Back in 2024 hack India McTaggart fretted that Labour’s “benches are awash with so-called nepo babies”, pointing to MPs such as Georgia Gould (daughter of Tony Blair’s polling guru Philip), Liam Conlon (son of Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Sue Gray) and Hamish Falconer (son of former lord chancellor Charlie).

“The fresh set of faces sworn into Parliament this week includes an impressive roster of qualifications and expertise – but many also belong to miniature political dynasties,” noted McTaggart.

This summer football reporter Sam Dean was casting his eye over Norway’s successful World Cup squad – in particular their parentage. Under the headline “Nepo babies and artificial turf: how Norway ended 28 years away from World Cup”, he raised an eyebrow while noting that “six members of Ståle Solbakken’s World Cup squad have fathers who played at the top level of Norwegian football”.

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And as recently as last month senior news reporter Patrick Sawer was turning his attention to rock. Under the headline “Nepo babies take over music festivals”, he remarked how: “It’s a long-held music industry adage that old rockers never die, they just fade away. But now it seems that they are simply being replaced onstage by their offspring.”

He pointed to musicians such as Gene Gallagher (lead singer of Villanelle and son of Liam from Oasis), Moses Martin (vocalist with People I’ve Met and son of Coldplay’s Chris), Violet Grohl (singer and daughter of the Foo Fighters’ Dave) and Cruz Beckham (singer with The Breakers and son of David).

“While the families of nepo rockers say their offspring deserve their place on the bill on merit, others within the music industry have questioned whether they have what it takes,” said Sawer.

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Might the Telegraph soon turn its attention to nepo babies in journalism? If so, perhaps they could ask their latest recruit, Sapphire Hope, who has joined the paper’s politics team as part of a graduate scheme. Her father, Christopher, is political editor at GB News, and until 2023 was the Telegraph’s assistant editor and chief political correspondent. He continues to edit the paper’s weekly Peterborough diary column.

Meanwhile, over at the Spectator, views on nepo babies are a bit more nuanced. In 2022, staff writer Kara Kennedy wrote an article headlined “A staunch defence of ‘nepo babies’,” while the same year John Sturgis penned a piece titled “There’s nothing new about ‘nepo babies’.”

Just last year Jonny Ford wrote a piece with a very similar title to Kennedy’s – “In defence of nepo babies” – and, in fact, only one has really attacked them, and a very specific subset: a column by Julie Burchill headlined “Blairite ‘nepo babies’ are the worst of the lot”.

That’s good news for one of their most recent hires – Ivo Delingpole, who has become an increasingly regular contributor over recent months. On the one hand, yes, his dad is Spectator TV critic James Delingpole. But on the other, he’s no Blairite – Delingpole Junior was the student who, in 2021, took the picture of Keir Starmer drinking a bottle of San Miguel during lockdown in the pathetic so-called “Beergate” scandal.