Newton Dunn - Still A Bully

It was no surprise at all today to pick up the latest issue of Private Eye magazine (Issue 1397, available at all good news outlets) and see another story about the bad behaviour of not just any old hack, but the Super Soaraway Currant Bun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn, who, as the Eye has pointed out, is the kind of “man of the people” who attended Marlborough College at the same time as the likes of Samantha Cameron.

Far more unpleasant than he looks

Nor was it in any way surprising to see that the bad behaviour allegedly exhibited by Newton Dunn, whom the Eye describes, with unusual restraint, as an “Arch snob”, consisted of an act of forthright bullying directed at a waitress in Moncrieff’s Bar, where not only hacks, but many others who work in and around the House of Commons, congregate in order to refresh themselves. The story is straightforward.

Newton Dunn ordered a coffee. When the waitress “told him the price, [he] lost his rag and accused her of cheating him. He cried that she had charged him more the last time he had bought a coffee - why was coffee cheaper now? Clearly, she had cheated him before and pocketed the extra money. The waitress explained that the reason she had charged him more before was that he had a coffee and a banana. This time he had ordered just a coffee, so obviously the bill was lower”.

The waitress, according to the Eye account, took the phone numbers of everyone who witnessed the Sun hack’s outburst, but declined to make a formal complaint as she did not want to be branded a troublemaker. Clearly, some of those present were so unimpressed with Newton Dunn’s behaviour that one or more of them told the Eye.

Here on Zelo Street, while that kind of behaviour is automatically assigned to the “Well out of order” category, especially as it seems Newton Dunn could not be arsed to apologise, it comes as no surprise. That is because of the case of former Sun hack Clodagh Hartley, who told a trial at the Old Bailey last November that she was “frightened” of Newton Dunn, and that “Pretty much after I started, he was bullying”.

Tom Watson, Labour MP and scourge of the Murdoch empire, went further back in 2012, when he told that “Whitehall editor at The Sun Clodagh Hartley, has recently had a complaint of bullying upheld by an independent adjudicator. According to a number of credible sources, the adjudicator found that her line manager, Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn, was guilty of bullying”. There was more.

“When asked about the matter … Mr Newton Dunn said that he was unable to comment on the allegations. Warning me to be very careful what I publish, he claimed that all enquiries should be directed to a company press officer”. Trying to put the frighteners on Tom Watson is never a good idea: the West Bromwich East MP also let it be known that he’d been told Newton Dunn had been given a final warning over the affair.

Will the Sun’s management take any action over the alleged incident in Moncrieff’s Bar? Don’t hold your breath.