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| Richard Desmond is an endlessly mutating affliction. We must be on the fifth spike of him | Richard Desmond is an endlessly mutating affliction. We must be on the fifth spike of him |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| It’s such a tonic to see the porn publisher back in the headlines after Robert Jenrick intervened to approve his £1bn development, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde | It’s such a tonic to see the porn publisher back in the headlines after Robert Jenrick intervened to approve his £1bn development, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde |
| Richard Desmond’s autobiography is called The Real Deal: The Autobiography of Britain’s Most Controversial Media Mogul. You know it’s good because it received a five-star review in the Daily Express. Hard to pick a favourite passage, but I’d probably go with the bit where Desmond calls Rupert Murdoch “a worthy opponent”. Sad to think that Murdoch will one day go over the Reichenbach Falls at Desmond’s hand – but ultimately, that is what you get when you’re the Moriarty to Richard’s Clouseau. Imagine the show that Succession could have been, if they’d only had the ambition to be inspired by a proper magnate. | Richard Desmond’s autobiography is called The Real Deal: The Autobiography of Britain’s Most Controversial Media Mogul. You know it’s good because it received a five-star review in the Daily Express. Hard to pick a favourite passage, but I’d probably go with the bit where Desmond calls Rupert Murdoch “a worthy opponent”. Sad to think that Murdoch will one day go over the Reichenbach Falls at Desmond’s hand – but ultimately, that is what you get when you’re the Moriarty to Richard’s Clouseau. Imagine the show that Succession could have been, if they’d only had the ambition to be inspired by a proper magnate. |
| Still, it’s such a tonic to see Desmond back in the headlines. He’s resurfaced over this business of his £1bn Westferry Printworks property development that housing minister Robert Jenrick personally intervened to approve, only to later accept he acted unlawfully due to “apparent bias”. Up until Sunday, it seemed as if Jenrick was getting away with this story that we’d all be talking about if only there weren’t all the other stories. And he probably still will. | |
| He hasn’t been helped, however, by Richard claiming to the Sunday Times that he’d had shown the minister a video of it on his phone at a Tory fundraising dinner at the Savoy two months previously. Oh dear. Tory fundraisers are always touted as akin to Truman Capote’s black and white ball, but in reality offer little more than the opportunity for some of the ghastliest and most boring people in London to watch Russians bid vast sums to play tennis with one prime minister or another. All the raffle prizes sound like improv night suggestions. “Dinner with Michael Gove and Sarah Vine.” “A flight in a Lancaster bomber with Grant Shapps.” A trip to a Tory donor’s house “with shooting opportunities”. “A night out with Theresa May.” (All those are genuine, incidentally.) | He hasn’t been helped, however, by Richard claiming to the Sunday Times that he’d had shown the minister a video of it on his phone at a Tory fundraising dinner at the Savoy two months previously. Oh dear. Tory fundraisers are always touted as akin to Truman Capote’s black and white ball, but in reality offer little more than the opportunity for some of the ghastliest and most boring people in London to watch Russians bid vast sums to play tennis with one prime minister or another. All the raffle prizes sound like improv night suggestions. “Dinner with Michael Gove and Sarah Vine.” “A flight in a Lancaster bomber with Grant Shapps.” A trip to a Tory donor’s house “with shooting opportunities”. “A night out with Theresa May.” (All those are genuine, incidentally.) |
| So at some level you have to sympathise with Jenrick, who claims to have been “inadvertently” seated next to Desmond at this Savoy horror show. After all, when Desmond makes you look at something on his phone, you can only imagine the sheer relief of discovering that it’s an unsightly Docklands development, and not a lightly repackaged viewer submission titled “60-year-old gran gets a facial in Epping Forest”. Even now, I can picture Robert loosening his nervous grip on the Savoy tablecloth, as he realises it’s just a property proposal, and he can safely beckon over some major cabinet minister’s widow to rescue him without her getting an eyeful of the eyeful. | |
| Either way, Desmond really is one of the great unsinkable characters of British public life. We must be on the fifth spike of him by now, a sort of endlessly mutating affliction that we’ve had to learn to live with. By way of a recap, he has been a celebrity magazine publisher, a porn magazine publisher, a TV station owner, a porn TV station owner, and a newspaper proprietor. A dazzling sequence, whose later terms presumably include porn newspaper proprietor and chairman of the BBC. Though, as he puts it in that turbo-Partridgean autobiography: “I am, at heart, just a drummer.” | Either way, Desmond really is one of the great unsinkable characters of British public life. We must be on the fifth spike of him by now, a sort of endlessly mutating affliction that we’ve had to learn to live with. By way of a recap, he has been a celebrity magazine publisher, a porn magazine publisher, a TV station owner, a porn TV station owner, and a newspaper proprietor. A dazzling sequence, whose later terms presumably include porn newspaper proprietor and chairman of the BBC. Though, as he puts it in that turbo-Partridgean autobiography: “I am, at heart, just a drummer.” |
| I see Desmond’s currently a property developer. Then again: he owns a massive newspaper-printing complex. What else are you going to do with it in this day and age? You know the drill for these pivot-to-luxury-flats redevelopments. Quick nod to the heritage in the form of: a coffee shop where a cappuccino costs £4 and people can read free newspapers via gazillionaire social media networks; a blow-dry bar (“The Head-Line”); a gym (“The Print Run”); and a fauxthentic pub called Ye Olde Livere Failyure. Before you take any satisfaction from this, do please remember that we have only gone and elected a journalist to run the entire country. No wonder it’s all going so well. Got to say that it wasn’t the hugest surprise this week to read the governor of the Bank of England explaining that Britain nearly went bust in March. Plenty more where that came from. | I see Desmond’s currently a property developer. Then again: he owns a massive newspaper-printing complex. What else are you going to do with it in this day and age? You know the drill for these pivot-to-luxury-flats redevelopments. Quick nod to the heritage in the form of: a coffee shop where a cappuccino costs £4 and people can read free newspapers via gazillionaire social media networks; a blow-dry bar (“The Head-Line”); a gym (“The Print Run”); and a fauxthentic pub called Ye Olde Livere Failyure. Before you take any satisfaction from this, do please remember that we have only gone and elected a journalist to run the entire country. No wonder it’s all going so well. Got to say that it wasn’t the hugest surprise this week to read the governor of the Bank of England explaining that Britain nearly went bust in March. Plenty more where that came from. |
| As for Desmond, his unflushable nature gives a powerful sense of the circle of life. Back in 2001, Tony Blair’s Labour party accepted a £100,000 donation from Desmond, shortly after the then trade secretary Stephen Byers, following the advice given to him, had decided not to refer Desmond’s bid for Express Newspapers to the Competition Commission. I see I wrote a column at the time marvelling at the cheapness with which they’d allowed themselves to be bought. Or as Desmond himself crowed: “I gave a cheque for £100,000 and they spent £113,000 or £114,000 on advertising [in the Express titles]. So I made money on the deal.” Nineteen years later, with those same Express newspapers now sold off, Desmond is left with the printing plant, the £1bn redevelopment of which was approved by Boris Johnson’s housing secretary, who decided to overrule the objections of the planning inspectorate. This time, Desmond’s subsequent donation to the governing party was a mere £12,000. I guess there’s cheap and there’s cheap. Then again, you’d expect nothing less from “the party of business”. | As for Desmond, his unflushable nature gives a powerful sense of the circle of life. Back in 2001, Tony Blair’s Labour party accepted a £100,000 donation from Desmond, shortly after the then trade secretary Stephen Byers, following the advice given to him, had decided not to refer Desmond’s bid for Express Newspapers to the Competition Commission. I see I wrote a column at the time marvelling at the cheapness with which they’d allowed themselves to be bought. Or as Desmond himself crowed: “I gave a cheque for £100,000 and they spent £113,000 or £114,000 on advertising [in the Express titles]. So I made money on the deal.” Nineteen years later, with those same Express newspapers now sold off, Desmond is left with the printing plant, the £1bn redevelopment of which was approved by Boris Johnson’s housing secretary, who decided to overrule the objections of the planning inspectorate. This time, Desmond’s subsequent donation to the governing party was a mere £12,000. I guess there’s cheap and there’s cheap. Then again, you’d expect nothing less from “the party of business”. |
| Naturally, there is the odd modification to the cycle. At the end of the New Labour years, Desmond relieved himself of his first marriage and began another with his current wife, Joy – a couple of decades his junior, but very much capable of slotting into the old grooves. A cosy Sunday lunch with her husband and Tony Blair has still been an occurrence. And when Johnson won last December’s election, Joy tweeted a lovely shot of Johnson with his arm around Desmond, and the words: “Congratulations Boris. Good luck running this country and all the negative people.” Not sure luck plays a huge part in these events, all things considered, but on and on they do go. | Naturally, there is the odd modification to the cycle. At the end of the New Labour years, Desmond relieved himself of his first marriage and began another with his current wife, Joy – a couple of decades his junior, but very much capable of slotting into the old grooves. A cosy Sunday lunch with her husband and Tony Blair has still been an occurrence. And when Johnson won last December’s election, Joy tweeted a lovely shot of Johnson with his arm around Desmond, and the words: “Congratulations Boris. Good luck running this country and all the negative people.” Not sure luck plays a huge part in these events, all things considered, but on and on they do go. |
| • Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist | • Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist |