Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Private Eye The First 50 Years by Adam Macqueen Private Eye: The First 50 Years by Adam Macqueen - review. H aving read Adam Macqueen's commendably exhaustive encyclopaedia of Private Eye, the British satirical fortnightly, I now feel I know rather more about Lord Gnome's organ than I wish to. Still, this could be because I knew a fair bit about it to begin with, and Macqueen's book has only filled in the blanks. I've been with the Eye for nearly four of its five decades – I remember cutting out and pasting a cartoon clipped from its pages on to a school exercise book in 1972, when I was 12. As I recall it depicted Lord Longford – known for, among other things, his zealous campaign against pornography – walking past a couple of sniggering schoolboys, one of whom is whispering to the other, apropos of the bare- domed peer: "They say it makes you go bald." Needless to say, my teacher took a dim view of this decal, the creator of which I'm ashamed to say I can't remember, although it may have been the incomparable McLachlan, just one of the many great cartoonists to have found a home at the Eye over the years. My pedagogues at secondary school also took a dim view of the Eye-inspired satire rag I photocopied and distributed, and which was named – in an homage to Dave Spart, their parody Trotskyite columnist – "The Alternative Voice". I don't think I got that close to being expelled for my shameless guying of teachers, revelations of their eccentricities and outright malfeasance, but it was made fairly clear that things would go badly for me if I didn't desist. What I'm trying to say is that the Eye and I have form, and when I grew big enough not simply to be a reader and emulator but also a target of its pasquinades, I confess I felt nothing but – as the late, lamented Peter Cook, the organ's one-time proprietor, would've put it, in character as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling – "stupefying pride". I have never, ever considered cancelling my subscription – to do so would be beyond infra dig. To respond to a guying from the Eye is, as anyone in British public life should know, a very stupid thing to do, calling forth the well-attested-to "Curse of Gnome". Recipients of this inky-black spot include stellar egotists such as Piers Moron and Andrew "Brillo Pad" Neill (a deliberate misspelling of both their last names is rigorously enforced Eye house style); rampaging financiers such as the late Sir "Jams" Goldsmith and "Tiny" Rowland; press barons such as the Dirty Digger and the late "Cap'n Bob" Maxwell. Indeed, of the latter – who tried to snow the peskily truth- seeking Eye under with a blizzard of litigation during the early 90s, as his publishing empire sank into the murky waters of its own gross turpitude – it might almost be said that Lord Gnome stood behind him on the deck of his yacht and gave him a hefty shove. (That's enough Curse of Gnome, Ed.) I make no apology for lacing this review with some of the in-jokes that Private Eye has established as its stock-in-trade during the past half- century. Frankly, if you're interested in the evolution of British politics and society and haven't at least a nodding acquaintance with the City commentary of "Slicker", the poetical works of EJ Thribb (aged 17-and-a-half), the agricultural updates of "Muckspreader", the architectural ones of "Piloti", the investigative journalism of the late Paul Foot – and the very much current Francis Wheen – and the parodies by Craig Brown, then you've no real business being here at all. Private Eye is, quite simply, as integral to British public life as the Times used to be – and this parallel is deeply instructive. Founded in 1961 by a cabal of ex-public school boys – Christopher Booker, Richard Ingrams, Willie Rushton and Peter Usborne, who did their own mini-satire rags at Shrewsbury then Oxford before linking up with the nascent "satire boom" centred on Peter Cook's Soho Establishment Club – Private Eye has always had a deeply equivocal attitude towards the higher-ups it attempts to drag down. Macqueen quotes Ingrams quoting his own hero, William Cobbett, to explain the Eye's terms of engagement: "When [a man] once comes forward as a candidate for public admiration, esteem or compassion for his opinions, his principles, his motives, every act of his life, public or private, becomes the fair subject of public discussion." It's a purist satirical modus operandi, more pithily encapsulated by Ingrams as "get the shits". But what it isn't, of course, is necessarily anti-establishment. On the contrary, with his brown corduroys and his general air of tweed-on-the-brain, Ingrams, who presided over the Eye for roughly half of its half-century, would seem the very epitome of a certain kind of English gentleman. His friend – and one-time "young fogey" – AN Wilson describes Ingrams as "deeply solipsistic", and having met him on a few occasions I can testify to his almost pathological reticence; but while he's inclined to style himself as an anarchist, what I suspect has always animated Ingrams is a desire not to destroy the state but purify it. And what infuriates him is not the exercise of power per se – let alone the existence of hierarchies and their ideologies of tradition – but the abuse of that power. He, like his successor Ian Hislop (also ex-public school and Oxford), is a regular Anglican communicant. The Eye has thus always been a fairly broad church in terms of its political spectrum, stretching all the way from Foot's revolutionary socialism to Christopher Booker's flat-earth conservatism. But what all Eye-types evince – and Macqueen, who works there, is no exception – is a love of their own clique. Ingrams conceived of the Eye as "journalism done by a gang of friends", and since those friends shared the prejudices of their class-of-origin they were writ large over the years. Perhaps the most egregious example of this was the late Auberon Waugh. Defenders of his rather vicious attacks always pointed to their fantastical contextualisation as if this rendered them inert, but while personally Bron – as he was known – would never have been as crass as he was in print (and he did have redeeming features, including tireless campaigning for the victims of the Biafran war), he nonetheless exhibited all the de-haut-en-bas of his fictive alter-ego. I always suspected – and I knew him slightly – that his ill- repressed rage was actually a function of his status as the epigone's epigone. After all, it can never have been easy stepping into his father's shoes, Evelyn having been an incomparably greater misogynist, antisemite and homophobe. To be fair to Hislop, in recent years the Eye has mostly been purged of its bigotry, while its record of speaking truth to power remains intact. To look back over the catalogue of its stories, from the Profumo scandal, to Deepcut, from T Dan Smith to Trafigura, is to turn back the pages of a book of wholly honourable revelation. That Private Eye shares many of the characteristics of the establishment it lampoons – male and Oxbridge- dominated – is perhaps inevitable, such is the way of a body politic that renews itself organically rather than through the violent purgation of regime change. However, there are signs that the Eye is in danger of becoming a less bilious organ and lapsing into the condition of an inert growth. Hislop himself is a distinctly cosy figure, what with his heart-warming TV doccos and long-term residency at Have I Got News for You . He is also, I suspect, a fairly wealthy man, and while this in and of itself shouldn't put him in danger of full co-option as National Treasure, it puts him on the at-risk list. Then there are those in-jokes, which may have entered the lingua-franca of pol' speak in the Westminster village – and the wider world – but precisely because of that now seem like so much arcana. The joke-writing team at the Eye still defers to the arch-Oldies, while even Hislop and his writing partner Nick Newman have been at it for over a quarter-century. I seldom bother with the humorous pages of the Eye any more – nothing is that funny even twice, let alone 1,250 times. But when all is said and done, while Private Eye may not be perfect, it's the only Private Eye we have, and for its unrivalled contribution to keeping the nation's candidates for public admiration on their toes, we should remain very grateful indeed. Private Eye The First 50 Years by Adam Macqueen. About The Author. Adam Macqueen is the author of Private Eye: The First 50 Years, an A-Z. He joined Private Eye on work experience in 1997, and has been there ever since, apart from two years when he ran away to become deputy editor of the Big Issue. He writes mostly for the Street of Shame and Media News pages, as well as compiling the Number Crunching Column. His previous book, The King of Sunlight: How William Lever Cleaned Up The World , was a chosen title on both Simon Mayo’s book club on Five Live and A Good Read on Radio 4. *Blows away dust and cobwebs, has coughing fit* The companion volume to Private Eye: The First 50 Years, an A-Z is now out, and it’s a thing of beauty. Private Eye: A Cartoon History is a comprehensive catalogue of the best cartoons printed in the magazine from 1961-2013, compiled by cartoonist Nick Newman, with an introduction by editor Ian Hislop. If you’d like to see a preview of some of its contents, click on this link to Waterstones, where you can also buy a copy. Also out this week is The Prime Minister’s Ironing Board and Other State Secrets by Adam Macqueen, who wrote the 2011 bestseller Private Eye: The First 50 Years, an A-Z. It’s a romp through declassified government documents from the last century, detailing some of the surprisingly intimate correspondence between the royal family, prime ministers of every hue and the civil servants who kept the whole show on the road as their political masters fretted about such vital issues as how to persuade Imelda Marcos that she had to curtsey to the Queen (and not the other way round), whether Clement Attlee would be able to move out of Downing Street in time for Winston Churchill to hold his first cabinet meeting, and whether Prince Charles might be a terrorist. Sadly,88 one item I couldn’t find room for was this draft of a diplomatic note for Harold Wilson from 1964, complete with an extraordinarily Private-Eyeish turn of phrase: “Among Liberal Democrat MPs, the most popular titles were Private Eye: The First 50 Years , the A-Z of the satirical magazine’s first half century…” Amazon are claiming not to have any copies of Private Eye: The First 50 Years in stock till after Christmas. Waterstones have still got plenty. Here’s what the Ephraim Hardcastle column in today’s Daily Mail had to say about my appearance at the Oldie Literary Lunch to talk about the book: Private Eye founder Richard Ingrams, 74, ridicules the £25 book launched to mark the magazine’s 50th anniversary this year, calling it a ‘scrapbook’ full of mistakes rather than a history. He made his remarks – which will anger Ian Hislop, 51, the Eye editor – while introducing the book’s author, Adam Macqueen, at an Oldie literary luncheon yesterday. Poor Macqueen looked mortified. Ingrams also claims that Macqueen was instructed not to discuss Private Eye’s finances in his book. And here’s what I had to say in an email to the column’s editor, former Eye hack Peter McKay, this morning. Hello Peter, That really was the biggest load of old bollocks in your column this morning about my appearance at yesterday’s Oldie literary lunch. Richard didn’t say a word about mistakes in his introduction, and I’m hardly likely to take offence at him describing it as a scrapbook when that was exactly how I described the effect I wanted to the book’s designer while we were putting it together. Far from being mortified, I thought his introduction was very funny, and we had a very warm and friendly conversation afterwards (and another one this morning about your piece, as it happens!) More seriously, I didn’t have any instructions from anyone as to what was discussed in the book, financial or otherwise, and I wouldn’t have accepted the commission if any conditions like that had been put on it. Perhaps you’re getting muddled with your own position – I remember when I interviewed you for the book you talked very entertainingly about the Mail’s own failure to cover Private Eye’s revelations about Lord Rothermere’s tax arrangements. Still, I suppose I should say thanks for plugging the book… Yours aye Adam. In the Dark. A couple of days ago I bought a copy of Private Eye: The First 50 Years by Adam MacQueen, which I’ve been dipping into from time to time. This is in an A-Z format that encourages one to sample rather than read straight through like a history book. I think it’s excellent: not only great fun, with several “laugh-out-loud” passages, but also a very interesting piece of social history. Last night I came across the book’s account of the famous episode of Arkell versus Pressdram , one of the Eye ‘s many brushes with libel law, Pressdram being the name of the company that publishes said organ. I thought I’d post it here for those who haven’t heard of it because I find it quite inspirational. It’s actually been a while since anyone threatened me with a libel action but when that did happen, many moons ago, my response was similar in spirit (though not in form) to the memorable reply given by the Eye in the correspondence below (with, I might add, the same result): Solicitor’s Letter to Private Eye : We act for Mr Arkell who is Retail Credit Manager of Granada TV Rental Ltd. His attention has been drawn to an article appearing in the issue of Private Eye dated 9th April 1971 on page 4. The statements made about Mr Arkell are entirely untrue and clearly highly defamatory. We are therefore instructed to require from you immediately your proposals for dealing with the matter. Mr Arkell’s first concern is that there should be a full retraction at the earliest possible date in Private Eye and he will also want his costs paid. His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply. Response from Private Eye : We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off. No further letters were received from Mr Arkell’s solicitors. This legendary exchange of letters has now become a well-known in-joke for solicitors. So if you ever get a letter from a solicitor trying to frighten you with threats of libel, or simply want someone to fuck off for some other reason, I suggest you refer them to the Reply Given in Arkell versus Pressdram . Private Eye and public scandals. Since its early days, it has built a reputation for breaking stories that other papers will not print - taking on the rich and powerful and risking expensive libel actions that have threatened to close the magazine down. Those whose misdemeanours have been exposed by the Eye include politicians of all parties, business tycoons, corporations, lawyers, civil servants and media personalities. The stories go back as far as August 1963, when the Profumo scandal was at its height, and the prime minister Harold Macmillan was fighting for his political life. Veteran journalist Claud Cockburn produced a string of exposes about politicians' private lives and espionage. In issue 43 he revealed, among other things, that the prime minister's wife, Lady Dorothy Macmillan, was having an affair with Tory MP Bob Boothby and shattered all protocol by naming the head of MI6. "It was the birth of serious journalism in Private Eye," says Adam Macqueen, author of Private Eye: The First 50 Years. Another key figure was Paul Foot, whose Footnotes section became a byword for exhaustively researched investigative articles which other titles would not print. Foot found the freedom at Private Eye liberating, after writing for newspapers. In a 1976 Radio 4 programme called Private Eye, Public Interest?, he said: "I was drawn to it like a bee to a honeypot. "It's independent of any kind of profit motive or shareholders' interference or advertising pressure. That's very important." In 1972, the home secretary Reginald Maudling was forced to resign over his links with a millionaire property developer, John Poulson, who was involved in a corruption scandal in North-East England. Two years earlier, Foot had revealed that Maudling had once been on the board of one of Poulson's companies, and they were now in financial trouble. But no-one followed it up. "It was our first experience of a familiar pattern," recalls the then editor Richard Ingrams, in Private Eye: The First 50 Years. The Eye had exposed "what looked like a truly sensational story, only for us to find that it was completely ignored by the national press, which only began to take an interest in Poulson when he was later declared a bankrupt". Some think the Eye is at least partly to blame. Its jokey, satirical format - and willingness to take legal risks that others won't - makes it easier to dismiss its stories as unreliable. And, because it rarely seeks to be balanced or give a right of reply, its stories often don't produce results till they are picked up by other media. Not everyone feels they can afford to ignore the Eye. In the 1970s and 80s, tycoons Sir James Goldsmith and Robert Maxwell both tried to close it down with a string of libel actions. Goldsmith even launched a criminal libel case, which could have put the editor in jail, over allegations that he had been one of a group who helped Lord Lucan flee after Lucan had murdered his family nanny. In 1986, the Eye was faced with one of the highest libel awards in British legal history when Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, was awarded £600,000 in damages. Ian Hislop had just been made editor and famously said: "If that is justice, I'm a banana." Fortunately for the magazine's survival, the damages were reduced to £60,000 on appeal. Some say the Eye no longer breaks stories, or risks legal challenges, as it once did. That's denied by members of the current reporting team, who point to a string of stories where the Eye has been ahead of the rest of the media, from the hugely expensive failures of government computer programmes and private finance initiatives to corporations ripping off the public sector. "The Eye has a tolerance for long, detailed articles about things that seem dull but are very important," says Solomon Hughes, who writes business stories for the Eye and the Guardian. "Being fortnightly helps, in that we're not tied to the same news deadlines as other media - and Ian Hislop likes using journalists from non- traditional backgrounds, who enjoy delving into reports of the National Audit Office and company accounts." Richard Brooks is one. He was a tax inspector for 16 years, and spent a year at the Treasury giving policy advice to ministers. He discovered his own tax office had been contracted out to a Bermuda-based company under a private finance initiative: "I thought: 'Whoa - the bloody tax office is going to a tax haven!" Brooks has been writing regularly for the Eye since 2004, making expert use of the Freedom of Information Act to uncover documents government departments would rather keep secret. Last year, one of his stories about Vodafone's tax liability led to High Street protests (and denials from the company and HM Revenue & Customs). And Private Eye still occasionally finds itself in the law courts, sometimes of its own volition. Earlier this year, Ian Hislop led the battle against super-injunctions, challenging gagging orders taken out by the former Independent editor and BBC political editor Andrew Marr. He said he thought Marr had been "a touch hypocritical", because he'd written an article saying Parliament - not judges - should determine privacy law. Private Eye: The First 50 Years. Published to celebrate the satirical organ’s half-century in 2011, this lavishly-illustrated book contains extensive and exclusive interviews with contributors past and present, including editors Richard Ingrams and Ian Hislop, as well as a wealth of never-before-seen photos, unpublished cartoons and archive material. A top ten bestseller! REVIEWS. “A cracking new history of the magazine.” – Sunday Times. “ Book of the week: A volume of gloriously prescient send-ups… There are many gems in this sumptuous coffee-table production, which is arranged as one huge index, with articles on the first edition, its founders (Paul Foot, Richard Ingrams, Christopher Booker and Willie Rushton), and the origins of just about every spoof byline and column for which the paper is famous.” – Edwina Currie, the Times. “Tremendously interesting and might even be an Important Social Document. EJ Thribb, ‘talking about Uganda’, Dave Spart, Glenda Slag, the origins of all are explained, and the Eye’s truly poisonous streak in the late 1970s owned up to. Not everyone on the staff is a hero. There’s never a dull page.” – Ian Jack, Guardian. “One of the best books about journalism” – Press Gazette. “The spankingly appealing and classy new anniversary biog by Adam Macqueen is a rewarding must for any Eye devotee.” – Frank Keating, Guardian. “Eschewing yet another dry weighty tome on the satire boom, Macqueen opted to write a casual-reader-friendly A-Z which can be perused cover-to-cover or kept beside the toilet and dipped into as and when. Despite being self-published by the Eye after the initial co-publishers dropped out (‘libel fears’ says Macqueen) the A-Z is no puff piece. Macqueen was able to write the book free from editorial control, and when he did finally present the proofs to Ian Hislop for approval, the editor ‘simply pointed out three typos’… We should also point out that it is very, very funny.” – Wayne Gooderham, Time Out. “So glossy it dazzles the eye and packed with coloured pictures, unlike the magazine, it is different from the publications that are satirised as littering the ‘lounges’ of suburbia. The beautifully written commentary which holds the book together contains less than complimentary stories about the men and women who made the magazine it celebrates. And the text dares to offend against even the most sacred of taboos. One entry in its alphabetical list of published features is headed: ‘Diana – Princess, death of and subsequent lunacy.’ If there is a hero, it is Peter Cook, Private Eye’s occasional proprietor and constant help in times of trouble…” – Roy Hattersley, Times. “It’s gorgeous. A recommended read.” – Shaun Keaveny, BBC 6 Music. “What is the secret behind the institution described in this enjoyable if slightly self-congratulatory tribute as ‘Britain’s first, most successful and indeed only fortnightly satirical magazine’?… Adam Macqueen joined the little gang on work experience in 1997, and has been there pretty much ever since. His book is an A-Z encyclopaedia based on research and interviews with contributors. All the Eye’s great scoops are listed, including the first mention of the scandal that would end the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe’s career in disgrace. It was the Eye that first reported the unusual number of child deaths at a Bristol heart unit; it was the first to reveal that prime minister Harold Macmillan’s wife was having an affair with a Tory MP, and that Cecil Parkinson’s secretary was pregnant with his child. In 1972, Reggie Maudling resigned as home secretary after the Eye revealed his links to a corrupt property developer.” – Roland White, Sunday Times. “An A-Z of the paper’s triumphs and defeats, its luminaries and hangers-on, its enemies and bêtes noires. The in-house author Adam Macqueen recycles many of the good old stories and tells us much new about the comings and goings at the magazine.” – Jeremy Harding, London Review of Books. “Having read Adam Macqueen’s commendably exhaustive encyclopaedia of Private Eye, the British satirical fortnightly, I now feel I know rather more about Lord Gnome’s organ than I wish to. Still, this could be because I knew a fair bit about it to begin with, and Macqueen’s book has filled in the blanks… To look back over the catalogue of its stories, from the Profumo Scandal, to Deepcut, from T Dan Smith to Trafigura, is to turn back the pages of a book of wholly honourable revelation.” – Will Self, Guardian. “The book I’d like in my stocking… The Eye has given me more consistent pleasure, pain and provocation than any other publication in my lifetime.” – Michael Palin, Observer. “Sometimes the most serious messages are best expressed with humour… The book I’d love to receive.” – Shami Chakrabarti, Observer. “I was instantly addicted and have just devoured this fabulous, gossipy 310-page history by Adam Macqueen.” – Kelvin McKenzie, Daily Mail.