Glen Owen
Mail on Sunday
His weekly Gatling gun of exclusive stories, insightful analysis and interviews set the standard for his rivals.
Leading his team, Owen’s journalism dominated the news agenda with scoops that charted the demise of the Tories and shook the Labour Party. Few were spared as he pricked the hypocritical under-belly of politicians of all parties.
Chief among his exposés and investigations was his ceaseless hunt for the truth about Angela Rayner’s use of the council house Right to Buy policy to pocket a £48,500 profit while planning to stop others from benefiting from the same scheme.
Owen’s exclusive revelations about her unorthodox living arrangements – based on meticulous reporting, including the forensic analysis of social media photos, electoral rolls and council records – triggered a major police investigation into the woman now forever known as ‘Two Homes Rayner’. Owen’s lead was followed by every media outlet for months.
Her critics say she remains tarred by the stain of hypocrisy, despite escaping criminal sanction after a police investigation.
Owen’s splash story on August 11 exposed one of the biggest fault-lines in the new government, with feuding in No.10 involving Chief of Staff Sue Gray. High level security sources told Owen how Gray had prevented the PM from receiving vital intelligence briefings, and accused her of ‘thinking she runs Britain’. Even Cabinet Secretary Simon Case was obliged to ask permission from the all-powerful Gray to see Starmer. The story detonated widespread coverage of the lethal struggle between Gray and Starmer’s powerful adviser Morgan McSweeney, with Owen again leading the way. Within weeks, Gray was ousted from her job.
A classic Owen scoop, too, was The Mail on Sunday’s publication of a secret recording of toxic, anti-Israeli remarks by the Labour candidate in the Rochdale by-election which torpedoed Sir Keir Starmer’s hopes of winning the seat. The tape revealed how the would-be Labour MP claimed that Israel had deliberately allowed Hamas’s October 7 massacre of 1,400 of its citizens so as to give it the ‘green light’ to invade Gaza. Owen’s scoop sent Labour into turmoil, forcing its candidate to stand down, destroying its chances of keeping the seat, and leading directly to George Galloway overturning a near-10,000 Labour majority in the by-election.
The Mail on Sunday’s readers’ postbag is refreshing proof how grateful people are to Glen Owen successfully taking his journalistic broom every week to clear some of the more dishonourable and messy Augean stables housed in today’s Westminster.