Daily Bread would have very little time for anything else if we pointed out every national newspaper ‘exclusive’ that comes from The Grocer’s archives. But there’s a particularly egregious one in today’s Daily Mirror.

The paper trumpets the exclusive news that Gordon Ramsay has been “axed” as the face of Gordon’s gin in favour of another TV hardman, Philip Glenister – DI Gene Hunt from Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes.

That might conceivably come as news to you if you’ve not already seen the advert on TV, or if you didn’t read The Grocer on 30 July. Or our Ad of the Week column last weekend.

The paper’s line that the potty-mouthed chef was responsible for a drop in sales is even harder to sustain. It cites figures from November 2009, when in fact the Mirror’s reporter could easily have looked in our 100 Biggest Alcohol Brands supplement, published a few weeks back, for a more up to date picture. That would have shown sales of the brand up more than 10% for the previous 12 months.

It’s pretty obvious the purpose of the story is to bash the beleaguered Ramsay, with the final line admitting that his fixed-term deal had actually expired.

Meanwhile, Kantar figures show the gin category as a whole is up more than 8% by value in the year to 12 June, even if volumes are up only marginally. That rise in the category has been helped by the resurgence of Greenall, which this week parted company from parent the De Vere Group.

Still, never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh? DI Hunt would have their guts for garters.

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