But another Foot friend thinks Foot might have had mixed feelings about the choice. Sweeney uncovered the wrongful imprisonment of three women convicted of “shaken baby syndrome” and exposed the chief prosecution witness in the cases, the paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow. Don’t expect to read too many searing expos?in the Standard of Messrs Greg Hands, Peter Bottomley, Mike Penning and Bob Spink.Loud inquirerThe choice of John Sweeney as winner of the first Paul Foot award for investigative journalism last week was unanimously endorsed by the judges, although not by everybody. They call upon the House authorities to “ensure newspaper racks around the parliamentary estate are well stocked with copies of the Evening Standard”, adding quite unnecessarily, “the nation’s premier evening newspaper”.

Needless to say, this continues to be just a touch too fluffy for the paper’s old guard.Four on all foursShameless plugs department: four Tory MPs have put down an early day motion in the Commons lamenting the reduction in the number of copies available to MPs of London’s Evening Standard. The latest plan is for one big news story on the front, plus a handful of short “nibs” on the day’s news along the bottom. The “something lovely” that editor Sarah Sands is promising will include two new magazines – Grace, a style magazine, and a culture mag called Seven. The masthead is to change (the colour “blue” has been mentioned), and will feature an icon of Canary Wharf between the words “Sunday” and “Telegraph”.

We have two million ABC1 readers and we make huge amounts of money. We just have to safeguard that commercial base.”MEDIA DIARYSands makes wavesMore waves at The Sunday Telegraph, where a relaunch is due on 6 November. It’s become fashionable to talk of us as if we’re the leper of Fleet Street, but in fact we’re the market leader. The Telegraph has always been known for news, but now it’s being treated terribly badly.”Newland, however, claims splashier headlines and eye-catching pages are the way ahead: “Prospective readers have less time now to be grabbed.” And, bullishly, he pledges to stop short of following the rest of the broad-sheets in going tabloid.”We don’t have to be dramatically different.

The biggest mistake is to try to move to the Daily Mail agenda with its bastardised news features. “No one’s mentioned anything about a relaunch to us,” grumbled one staffer, “but then we never get told anything any more.”To some, this is proof that upheaval is coming from two directions at once – Newland himself and also group chief executive Murdoch MacLennan, formerly of Associated Newspapers, who is seen by some staff as importing a Daily Mail agenda. MacLennan has been integral in hiring new columnists, such as Simon Heffer and Roy Green- slade, for six-figure salaries previously unknown at the paper.Greenslade, a long-time Guardian media commentator, New Labour supporter and former Mirror editor, whose line on Northern Ireland has always been pro-Republican, is particularly seen as at odds with the Telegraph’s constituency.”I think they’ve buggered it,” complains one ex-staffer “The Telegraph’s identity has been eroded. “A paper’s character exists in spite of editors and proprietors who come and go – it’s to do with a political outlook, prejudices and personality.