One of the best things about Private Eye are the stinging barbs thrown at the Dailies and Sundays of the dead tree press in regular features like Street of Shame and Hackwatch. We learn of the shameless plagiarism, the mafia-like nepotism, the corruption, the lies and, above all, the incredible incompetence that seems to be embedded in the DNA of hacks and their managers. After you have read the Eye you can never read another newspaper article solemnly pontificating about politician’s financial fiddles, ministerial inefficiency and celebrity scandals without thinking of that sharp little riposte in Luke’s gospel – “Physician, heal thyself…”
I particularly savour the hypocrisy when the press goes into one of it’s regular puritanical onslaughts on binge drinking and the drug culture when you know that some hacks should never be allowed near a naked flame in case the alcoholic fumes emanating from their drink sodden bodies ignite in a bonfire worthy of a brandied Christmas Pudding…and any drug dealer with a Dyson could source his clients for a week with the detritus of powder left on the floor after any gathering of certain scribblers.
Rarely, however, do these stories appear outside the Eye’s pages for the sound reason that dog does not eat dog so a veil of secrecy surrounds the denizens of Fleet Street – and their bosses, surprising really when you know how much the papers love to run exposures of any other mortal hapless or stupid enough to have got caught up in a financial or sexual scandal.
So imagine our delight when the rather scurrilous blogger Guido Fawkes brought out into the sunlight, not just the vicious attempt to smear rival politicians by Damian McBride and Derek Draper but also the shady, shifty manner in which The Daily Telegraph tried to play down the story at the behest of the Brown regime.
Many were shocked at the conduct of the DT in this matter but to some of us it came as no surprise. The staunchly conservative broadsheet with an enviable reputation for hard news and serious analysis has been going downhill since being taken over by the secretive and mysterious Barclay Brothers in 2004.
To be fair the rot had begun under the colourful and self publicising convicted criminal Conrad Black who seemed at one stage to be recruiting his staff exclusively from the Catholic press. But nowadays, under the leadership of Will Lewis, the Black period almost seems like a golden age, best remembered for a harmless devotion to lingerie.
Lewis (the Eye always calls him Will “Thirsty” Lewis) has culled almost all the most experienced hacks from every desk in an attempt, obviously to cut costs although, strangely enough, he is quite willing to hand huge bundles of crisp fivers to Boris Johnson for a weekly blathering of “cripes” and latin tags. George Jones, the doyen of political reporters, had to go plus whole swathes from the foreign and sports desks as well as Jan Moir who was developing into a sharp tongued and prickly latter day version of Marge Proops.
Thankfully, however, the long established traditions of Telegraph totty were maintained with the elevation of the vapid, Polly Filler lookalikes Celia Walden and Bryony Gordon. Hackette Gordon, indeed, has apparently been described as a “star” by Lewis and she might well be if she were writing the back cover blurbs for Ladybird books but Jan Moir she certainly isn’t.
Many have long suspected that Lewis, a close friend of Ed Balls, has been quietly positioning the DT closer to the Brown regime by appearing, on the surface, conservative, but quietly undermining Cameron from the right (Simon “Hardman” Heffer) and from the left (Mary Riddell) though the number of people who can actually follow the argument in any of Riddell’s weird pieces probably equals the readership of The Morning Star.
Private Eye has much scorn for many lobby correspondents including those from the Telegraph stable.
The old Telegraph stalwart Bill Deedes must be turning in his grave – he certainly was never one for turning down a drink but I doubt he would have anything more than icy contempt for the way Lewis is sucking the soul out of a once great newspaper.
