Former Mirror editor Piers Morgan has described his 2005 decision to invest in Press Gazette together with PR man Matthew Freud as one of the worst investments of his life — along with his purchase of £67,000 worth of Viglen shares before the Mirror’s City Slickers column tipped the stock.

Morgan told the Sunday Times: “We revitalised the magazine and transformed the British Press Awards into a great event again. The only problem was that many of my old Fleet Street mates decided to knife us squarely in the back, for which I will be eternally ungrateful”

Morgan lost about £250,000 on the Press Gazette venture, he told the Sunday Times.