What a treat for regulars at Wetherspoon pubs as they sink a cheap pint and wait for the weigh-in for the 2.10 at Kempton. Boss Tim Martin has produced a special 20-page edition of his Wetherspoon News magazine, devoted to all the times his much-maligned firm has been slighted in the national press!
The journal is usually used to trumpet the awards the company has won for the cleanliness of its toilets, but the latest issue is headlined “Does truth matter?” and is a rebuke for all the times newspapers have been forced to apologise for stories about the chain.
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“Never, in the history of business, we surmise, has a single organisation sought, and obtained, so many apologies and corrections from so many iconic media organisations,” writes Brexiteer Martin in his introduction. “Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Sky News, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, the Times and even America’s prestigious Forbes magazine have all, sometimes grudgingly, had to admit that they got it wrong. C’est la vie, as the Chuck Berry song goes.
“No hard feelings, folks. Yes, some people were horrid to us, but we bear no grudges.” And nothing says “we bear no grudges” like detailing every single slight and plonking copies of the mag across 800+ branches of your pub chain!
The issue also includes a column by Toby Young, of the rightwing Free Speech Union, speaking out after Martin took umbrage with comments made by “Conservative MP and Oxford graduate Neil O’Brien”. Alas, space constraints prevent it from mentioning that Toby Young, AKA Baron Young of Acton, is a Conservative peer and Oxford graduate.
