Private Eye is a British satirical
magazine-newspaper, edited by Ian Hislop and published every two weeks. Since its first publication in 1961,
the magazine has been well-known in the UK as a prominent critic of public figures deemed incompetent, inefficient or corrupt,
and has become a self-styled "thorn in the side" of the British establishment, though it also receives much criticism and ire,
both for its style and for its willingness to print defamatory and controversial stories. This is reflected in its large volume
of libel lawsuits, for which it has also become famous. Such is the long-term popularity and
significance of the magazine that many jokes and cultural
miscellanea from its pages have entered popular culture.
History
The magazine's mascot, "Gnitty", drawn by Willie Rushton and based on John Wells
The forerunner of Private Eye was a school magazine edited by Richard Ingrams,
Willie Rushton, Christopher Booker and
Paul Foot in the mid-1950s. They met at Shrewsbury
School and after National Service Ingrams and Foot went to the University of Oxford, where they met their future collaborators Peter
Usborne, Andrew Osmond, John Wells and Danae
Brook, among others.
The magazine proper began when Peter Usborne learned of a new printing process, photo-litho offset, which meant that anybody
with a typewriter and Letraset could design a magazine.
Although Private Eye was founded amid the British satire boom and the political and
social upheavals of the 1960s, at first it was merely a vehicle for silly jokes – an extension of the school magazine and an
alternative to other humorous magazines like Punch. However, according to
Christopher Booker, its original editor, it simply got "caught up in the rage for satire".
The magazine was initially funded by Usborne and was launched in 1961. It was named when Andrew Osmond looked for ideas in the
famous recruiting poster of Lord
Kitchener (an image of Kitchener pointing with the caption "Wants You") and, in particular, the pointing finger. After the
name "Finger" was rejected, Osmond suggested "Private Eye", in the sense of someone who
"fingers" a suspect.
The magazine was initially edited by Christopher Booker and designed by Willie Rushton, who also drew cartoons for it. Its later editor Richard Ingrams was then pursuing a career as an actor, sharing the editorship
with Booker on his return around issue 10 and taking over fully only on issue 40.
After the magazine's initial success, more funding was provided by Nicholas Luard and
Peter Cook, who ran The Establishment
satire club, and Private Eye became a fully professional publication.
Other people essential to the development of the magazine were Auberon Waugh,
Claud Cockburn (who had run a pre-war scandal sheet, The
Week), Barry Fantoni, Gerald Scarfe,
Tony Rushton, Patrick Marnham and Candida Betjeman. Christopher Logue was another
long-time contributor, providing a fortnightly column of "True Stories" featuring cuttings from the national press. The
gossip columnist Nigel Dempster wrote extensively for the
magazine before he fell out with the editor and other writers, and Paul Foot wrote on
politics, local government and corruption.
In late 2006, the magazine had a total circulation of around 209,000 per issue, of which around 98,000 were by
subscription.[1]
Nature of the magazine
A local poster advertising the appearance of a local councillor in the "Rotten Boroughs" column
Private Eye is often accused of specialising in scurrilous gossip and scandal about the
misdeeds of the powerful and famous, and has been the recipient of numerous libel
writs. These include three by the late Sir James Goldsmith
and several by Robert Maxwell, one of which resulted in costs and reported damages of
£225,000 and attacks on the magazine through the publication of a book, Malice in Wonderland, and a magazine,
Not Private Eye by Maxwell[2]. But its defenders point out that it frequently carries news that the mainstream press is frightened
to use for fear of legal reprisals, or that is of minority interest. The Eye will often print a story when hard evidence
is lacking but there is an overwhelming consensus that the story is true. It is also thought that the Eye avoids breaking
stories of politicians' extramarital activities on moral grounds, but it will freely comment on such matters when they are
unearthed elsewhere.
Unearthing scandals
Many of the contributors to Private Eye are public figures or specialists in their field who write anonymously, often
under humorous pseudonyms. Many stories originate from writers for other mainstream publications who cannot get their stories
published by their employers. A financial column at the back of the magazine ("In the City", written by Michael Gillard) has contributed to a wide city and business readership as a large number of financial
scandals and unethical business practices and personalities were first exposed there.
One-offs
The magazine has published a series of independent one‑offs dedicated solely to news reporting of particular current events,
such as government inadequacy over the 2001 foot and mouth
outbreak, or the conviction in January 2001 of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al
Megrahi for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (Lockerbie: the flight from
justice, May/June 2001).
Another special issue was published in September 2004 to mark the death of long-time staff member Paul Foot.
Breaking news
Alongside jokes, the magazine frequently breaks news stories before any other outlet. It was the first outlet to name the
Kray twins as the gang leaders terrorising the London underworld in the 1960s. This only
occurred as the then editor Richard Ingrams was on holiday and proprietor
Peter Cook standing in for him thought it too good an opportunity to miss.
Running in-jokes
-
The magazine has a number of running in-jokes and convoluted references, often comprehensible
only to those who have read the magazine for many years. These in-jokes may consist of referring to controversies or legal
ambiguities in a subtle euphemistic code, such as substituting "drunk" with "tired and emotional", or using the phrase "Ugandan
relations" to denote illicit sexual exploits, or they may consist of more obvious parodies utilising easily-recognisable
stereotypes, such as the lampooning of any Conservative MP viewed to be particularly old-fashioned and bigoted as "Sir Bufton
Tufton", or a variation thereof. The first half of the issue, containing reporting and investigative journalism, tends to include
these in-jokes in a more subtle manner, so as to maintain journalistic integrity, while the second half, more geared around
unrestrained parody and cutting humour, tends to present itself in a more confrontational way.
Layout and style
Private Eye has lagged behind other magazines in adopting various typsetting and printing technologies. At the start it
was laid out with scissors and paste, lending an amateurish look to the pages, and for some years after layout tools became
available the magazine retained this technique to maintain its look. Today the magazine is still predominantly in black and white
(though the cover and some cartoons inside appear in colour) and there is more text and less white space than is normal for a
modern magazine. The former "Colour Section" was ironically named, since it was printed in black and white like the rest of the
magazine: only the content was colourful.
Regular sections
Columns
- News (previously called The Colour Section) – effectively the stories the magazine is most proud of that
week or thinks most important, placed at its front.
- Street of Shame – covering journalism, newspapers and other press stories.
The term "Street of Shame" refers to Fleet Street. Usually largely written by
Francis Wheen and Adam Macqueen.
- Hackwatch – a column highlighting and exposing recent examples of ironic inconsistencies or general poor
quality of journalists and newspapers.
- Called to Ordure – reporting from recent committee appearances by regulators or otherwise senior civil
servants.
- HP Sauce – covering politics and politicians. ("HP" refers to Houses of Parliament, as well as being an actual
brand of sauce).
- Down On The Farm – agricultural issues.
- Down On The Fishfarm – issues relating to fish-farming.
- Music notes – gossip on the artistic and political intrigues behind the scenes in the world of classical music.
Written by "Lunchtime O'Boulez". (Lunchtime O'Booze has been the resident Private Eye journalist since the earliest days; Pierre Boulez, French avant garde
composer and conductor, was a controversial choice as
Principal Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the early 1970s, a time
still remembered by many as a Dark Age of British music-making). In an earlier incarnation, the column published scurrilous and
unfounded gossip about the London Symphony Orchestra, which resulted in a
significant libel pay-out.
- Ad Nauseam – the excesses and faux-pas of the advertising industry.
- Court Circular – a parody of The Daily Telegraph and
The Times' Court Circular sections which detail the activities of the Royal Family, for
example "HRH Prince Harry attended the opening of a bottle of vodka at Slappers Niteclub in Kensington."
- Eye TV – analysis of television programmes and news/criticism of the UK television industry. (ITV is a British TV channel).
- Doing The Rounds – medical news and coverage of the National Health
Service, written by the general practitioner (and sometime comedian) Dr Phil
Hammond.
- Rotten Boroughs – a column reporting on dubious practice in local government. The name of the column is a play
on the term "rotten borough". This section is written by a number of regionally
specialist reporters, none of whom are credited, and is edited by Tim Minogue.
- Signal Failures – covering railway issues. The author name "Dr B.
Ching" refers to Dr Richard Beeching who wielded the Beeching Axe, a report that led to widespread cuts to the British railway network in the 1960s.
- High Principals – examining further and higher education issues and spotlighting individuals who might have
acted in their own best interest or those of family, friends and associates, rather than in the interest of the wider academic
community.
- Under The Microscope – looking at issues related to the scientific field.
- Nooks & Corners – architectural criticism. This is one of the magazine's
most famous sections. It was originally titled Nooks & Corners of the New Barbarism, a reference to the architectural
movement known as New Brutalism. The column was founded by John Betjeman, and is currently written by architectural historian Gavin
Stamp using the name "Piloti".
- Funny Old World – supposedly genuine news stories from around the world; compiled by Victor Lewis-Smith. Continued an earlier column, Christopher Logue's True Stories.
- Letter From... – brief column written by a native person of a particular country highlighting the political or
social situation there, the name coming from Alistair Cooke's Letter from America.
- Literary Review – book reviews and news from the world of publishing and
bookselling. The masthead from the magazine of the same name, formerly edited by
Auberon Waugh (AKA, Abraham
Wargs, "The Voice of Himself"), is lifted for this section.
- Diary – A parody of the weekly 'diary' column which appears in The
Spectator magazine, written in the style of the chosen celebrity (written by
Craig Brown).
- In The City – analysis of financial and city affairs and people.
- In The Back – in-depth investigative journalism, often taking
the side of the downtrodden. This section was until 2004 overseen by the late Paul Foot under
whose tenure it was known as Footnotes. It often features stories on potential miscarriages of justice and stories on
other embarrassing establishment misdeeds. In the Back was first used in 1999, when Paul Foot suffered an aortic aneurysm
and had to spend six months in hospital and the Footnotes name was completely dropped in 2004.
Newspaper parodies
The latter half of the magazine is taken up with parodies of newspapers; the layout and style of writing mirrors newspapers,
which serve as vehicles for parody and satire of current events, plus spoof adverts. Where further content is implied, but omitted, this is said to
continue on page 94.
- Lunchtime O'Booze has been the Eye's resident journalist since the early
days. The name is a comment on journalists' traditional fondness for alcohol, their prandial habits, the suspicion that they get
their stories by hanging around the pub and talking to people they meet there and, by
implication, the amount of reliance which might be placed upon their reports.
- Glenda Slagg – brash, libidinous and self-contradictory female reporter based on
Jean Rook and Lynda Lee-Potter.
- Sally Jockstrap – a fictional sports columnist who is incapable of correctly reporting any sporting facts. Her
articles are usually a mishmash of references with several sports, along the lines of "there was drama at Twickenham as Michael Schumacher double faulted to give Arsenal victory". Said to be inspired by
Lynne Truss.[3]
- Dave Spart – ultra-left wing activist (always of a ridiculous-sounding collective or magazine - sometimes the
New Spartsman or the Indescribably Sparty -
frequently based in Neasden) who is given free rein to express his views. These always begin
'Once again ...', before attempting to lambast the subject of his anger for allegedly constant misconduct, prejudice or general
wrongdoing. This very rarely gets further than a few words before it breaks down into a fragmented litany of 'sickening ...
totally sickening ... worse than Hitler ..." and so on, before being abruptly curtailed by
the inevitable "continued on page 94". Since he must take the alternative view on any subject, he often ends up contradicting
himself and getting stuck in logical circles, frequently stopping with "Er..." but continuing anyway.
- Poetry Corner – trite obituaries of the recently deceased in the form of poems from the fictional teenage poet
E.J. Thribb (17½). The poems (nearly) always have a heading "In Memoriam..." and usually
begin "So. Farewell then".
- A Doctor Writes – the fictional "A. Doctor" or "Dr Thomas Utterfraud" parodies newspaper articles on topical medical
conditions, particularly those by Dr Thomas Stuttaford.
- Polly Filler – a vapid and self-centred female "lifestyle" columnist, whose irrelevant personal escapades and gossip
serve solely to fill column inches. She complains bitterly about the workload of the modern woman whilst passing all parental
responsibility onto 'the au pair', who always comes from a less-advanced country, is paid a
pittance, and fails to understand the workings of some mundane aspect of "lifestyle" life. Her name is derived from
Polyfilla, a DIY product used to fill holes and cracks in plaster. Polly's sister
Penny Dreadful makes an occasional appearance. Like several Private Eye regulars, Polly
is based upon more than one female columnist who can be difficult to identify, but Jane Moore
of The Sun, whose remarks are often echoed by Polly or commented on elsewhere in the
magazine, is a major source. Additionally, the column is a sly dig (as opposed to the more usual Eye bludgeoning with a blunt
instrument) at the Murdoch empire in general and Sky Television in particular, as Polly's husband, "the useless Simon", is usually mentioned as
being in front of the television (wasting time) watching exotic sports on obscure satellite television channels (a
News Corporation speciality).
- Toy-town News or Nursery Times – a newspaper based on the mythology of children's stories. For example, Royal
butler Paul Burrell was satirised as the "Knave of Hearts" who was "lent" tarts "for safe keeping", rather than stealing them as in the rhyme. Nigel Dempster is referred to as "Humpty Dumpster".
- Ye Daily Tudorgraph – a newspaper written in mock-Tudor language, set in that time-period, and clearly a parody of the
Daily Telegraph. It usually suggests that former Daily Telegraph editor
Bill Deedes was a young boy at the time.
- The Has-Beano – a pastiche of Britain's long-running Beano children's comic, used
to satirise The Spectator and Boris
Johnson (who features as the lead character, Boris the Menace).
- Obvious headline – the trite and banal stories about celebrities' antics that receive extensive reporting in the
national press are often rewritten as an anonymous headline, such as "SHOCK NEWS: MAN HAS SEX WITH SECRETARY". This is usually
"EXCLUSIVE TO ALL NEWSPAPERS".
- Official Apology or Product Recall – spoofs the official apologies and product recall notices that newspapers
are mandated to print. For example, the subject might be the English national
football team.
- Gnomemart – the Christmas special edition of Private Eye includes a double page of spoof adverts for useless
mail-order gadgets, usually endorsed by topical celebrities, as being capable of playing topical songs or TV theme tunes.
- Mary Ann Bighead – A satire of The Times columnist and assistant editor
Mary Ann Sieghart. Bighead is lampooned as being pretentious, ignorant, and boastful
of her two children Brainella (3) and Intelligencia (7), her high standard of living, her travels (mainly to developing countries
where she patronises the locals) and the fact that she can speak so many languages (including Swahili, Tagalog and 13th Century Mongolian).
- Pop Scene by Maureen Cleavage – Originally a micky-take on press coverage of the music business and Maureen Cleave, who had a "pop" column on the Evening
Standard. At the time (early to mid-Sixties), popular culture was starting to be taken more seriously by the heavier
newspapers; some claim that the Eye gang considered this approach to be pretentious, and ripe for ridicule, although
others counter-argue that the Eye was in fact covering popular culture before some of the more serious newspapers did. Cleave was
supposedly a close friend of John Lennon, indeed she is often credited with bringing the
notorious "more popular than Jesus" remark to public notice. Her style was similar to the
gushing and uncritical content which now typifies "Bizarre" in The Sun and the "3am
Girls" in the Daily Mirror. This section provided an outlet for satirical comment on
the activities of popular musicians of the time. Their antics were usually attributed to "The Turds pop group" (fictional) and
their charismatic leader "Spiggy Topes". "The Turds" and "Topes" were originally based on The
Beatles and a thinly disguised John Lennon, but the names became applied to any rock
star or band whose excesses featured in the popular press (Johnny Rotten and the
Sex Pistols, for example). This section first appeared in issue Number 69 in August
1964.
- Neasden United FC, playing in the wonderfully depressingly & surreally named North Circular Relegation League, is
a football club from Neasden, North London often used to satirize the state of British football in general with the manager 'ashen-faced supremo Ron
Knee, 59' possibly from Ron Atkinson and their only two fans "Sid and Doris Bonkers"
playing on the idea of tiny devoted mindless fanbases of unsuccessful football clubs. In this case, spectacularly unsuccessful,
as they invariably lose by a double-figure margin & if they score it's "one boot", flying off the foot of their ageing
striker Baldy Pevsner, who usually chips in with several own goals. The reports are written by "E.I. Addio", a punning reference
to popular football chanting.
- Police log - Neasden Central Police Station – A fictional police station log, satirising current police policies that
are met with general contempt and/or disdain. Examples may include an incident in which an elderly woman is attacked by a gang of
youths, and is arrested (and unfortunately dies 'of natural causes' in police custody) for infringing on their right to terrorise
OAPs, or the officers who arrest themselves for ordering a Full English, in direct
contravention of the Celtic Minority (Non-Discriminatory Breakfast Provision) Regulations 2006.
Mini-sections
-
The magazine contains a variety of regular "spots", consisting of small amusing examples of different aspects of everyday
life, generally taken from everyday life themselves and sent in by readers, such as "Colemanballs", gaffes by sports commentators
with less than adequate command of the English language, or "Dumb Britain", particularly shocking examples of lacking in
knowledge taken from British quiz shows.
Prime Minister parodies
An almost constant fixture in Private Eye is a full page lampooning the prime minister of the day. The style of the page is
always the same, and tries to sum up some fundamental characteristic of the person involved. Occasionally, formerly defunct
columns of this type resurface (e.g. Dear Bill, on the death of Denis Thatcher). In
reverse historical order:
- Prime Ministerial Decree – a mock Stalinist
decree by "supreme leader" Gordon Brown. The dictator hails
the "Age of Change" and often attempts to revise history, making
harsh attacks on the "discredited regime" of "former Comrade Blair".
- St. Albion Parish News (defunct) – Tony
Blair was characterised as a sanctimonious Church of England vicar and his
government as various parish officials. Blair often received updates from his transatlantic confidant, George Bush, from the "Church of the Latter-Day Morons". From 1997-2001, during the presidency of
Bill Clinton, the correspondence was described as coming from "The Church of the 7th Day
Fornicators" in reference to Clinton's womanising.
- The Secret Diary of John Major (aged 47¾) (defunct) – A spoof weekly diary entry based on The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ in which John Major was typically characterised as being hopelessly naïve and optimistic. The diary reappears
occasionally, such as when his affair with Edwina Currie was discovered, when Major was
made a KG and after he attended the funeral of Edward
Heath.
- Dear Bill (defunct) – spoof letters from Denis
Thatcher to Bill Deedes, about life in 10 Downing
Street with Margaret. The series portrayed Denis as a sozzled rightist
alcoholic staggering between snifters.
- (There was no parody of James Callaghan)
- Heathco Newsletter (defunct) – an internal missive purportedly from the managing director of a struggling small firm
called Heathco, in which Edward Heath (managing director) keeps his staff up to date and in
high spirits with the latest company news. Cabinet ministers would be recast as petty managers and clerks in this satire. The
company's logo was a stylised yacht. The newsletters invariably ended with a request to staff which admonished them for stubbing
their cigarettes out in the plastic cups in which the canteen served them with tea.
- Mrs Wilson's Diary (defunct) – a chronicle of the events in
Harold Wilson's life, from the more down-to-earth and homely perspective of his wife,
Mrs Wilson. The series was later adapted to theatre and
television. Based on a contemporary radio soap opera Mrs Dale's Diary. Mrs Wilson's
Diary inspired a similar feature in the American magazine National Lampoon:
Mrs Agnew's Diary, purporting to be the actual journal of Vice President Spiro
Agnew's wife. Indeed, several National Lampoon features were "borrowed" from Private Eye.
Miscellanea
- The cover, with its famous speech bubble, putting ironic or humorous comments
into the mouths of the famous in response to topical events.
- Letters – readers' letters section which frequently includes letters from the famous and powerful, often so that the
Eye can print an apology and thereby avoid litigation. Some people use the page as a voice to express disgust at a recent
Eye article and, infamously (or jokingly), end by saying they will cancel their subscription. This section also prints the
lookalikes and occasionally prints the embarrassing picture of Andrew Neil described
below.
- Crossword – a cryptic prize crossword, notable for its vulgarity. In the early
1970s the crossword was set by the Labour MP Tom Driberg, under the pseudonym of "Tiresias" (supposedly "a distinguished academic churchman").
It is currently set by Eddie James under the name "Cyclops". The crossword frequently contains
offensive language and references (both in the clues and the solutions), and a knowledge of the magazine's in-jokes and slang is
necessary to solve it. The prize for the first correct solution opened, £100, is unusually high for a crossword and attracts many
entrants.
- Classified – adverts from readers. Years ago people with odd sexual tastes would make contact with others via Private
Eye's personal ads, using code words (using the names of motor cycles to describe various sexual acts, for example). However,
nowadays the classified adverts usually consist of people selling wine or websites, or conspiracy theorists promoting their
ideas. Includes the "Eye Need" adverts in which people beg for money. Spike Milligan once
placed an ad that ran: "Spike Milligan would like to meet a rich, well-insured widow – intention: murder" and reported receiving
several dozen replies.
- Old Testament parody – a spoof of the Old Testament, applying Bibilical language and imagery particularly reminiscent
of the King James Bible to current affairs in the Middle East.
Defunct sections
Apart from the former Prime Minister parodies mentioned above, several sections are no longer printed. These include:
- Auberon Waugh's Diary; Waugh wrote a regular diary for the magazine, usually
combining real events from his own life with fictional flights of fancy (i.e. pretending he had been to parties with
the Queen), from the early 1970s until 1985. It was generally written
in the persona of an ultra-right-wing country gentleman, a subtle exaggeration of his own personality. He described it as the
world's first example of journalism specifically dedicated to telling lies.
- London Calling – a round-up of news, especially of the most barking loony left
variety, during the days of the GLC. This column was retired when the GLC was
abolished.
- Sally Deedes – genuine consumer journalism column, often exposing spectacularly corrupt or improper goods, services
and/or dealings. Sally Deedes (author unknown) was the origin of the Eye's first-ever libel victory in the
mid-1990s; column was quietly ditched a few years later.
- Illustrated London News – a digest of news and scandal from the metropolis, parodying (and using the masthead of) the
defunct gazette of the same name. Usually written by the radical pioneer journalist Claud
Cockburn. Later replaced (c.1984) with -
- Grovel – a 'society' column, featuring gossip, scandal and scuttlebutt about the rich and famous, and probably the
most-sued section in the whole magazine. The character and style of Grovel (a clearly tired and emotional man with a monocle, top hat and cigarette holder) was based on former GLE
(Greatest Living Englishman), Nigel Dempster, lampooned as 'Nigel Pratt-Dumpster'.
Grovel was replaced in about 1996 with –
- Hallo! – the 'heart-warming column' purportedly written by The Marquesa, practically identical in content but
with a new prose style parodying the breathless and gushing format established by magazines such as Hello, in which
celebrities showed reporters around their lovely houses, etc. Hallo! itself disappeared in about 2000.
- Thomas, The Privatised Tank Engine – a parody of Rev. W. Awdry's Railway Series, by Incledon Clark published at the time of the debate over railway privatisation in 1993-4. The criticisms of the privatised railway that was being
created turned out to be prescient to an astonishing degree.
- Wimmin – a regular 80s section featuring quotes from feminist writing deemed to be ridiculous (similar to
Pseuds Corner).
Cartoons
Private Eye is also home to many of Britain's most highly regarded humorous cartoonists. As well as many one-off
cartoons, the magazine features several comic strips:
- Bores (defunct) – Michael Heath
- Yobs and Yobettes – Tony Husband Satirising yob (Chav) culture (or lack thereof)
- Supermodels – Neil Kerber satirising their
lifestyle – the characters are infeasibly thin
- The Commuters (defunct) – Grizelda - follows the efforts of two commuters to get a train to work.
- It's Grim Up North London – Knife & Packer satire about Islington trendies
- Young British Artists – Birch - a spoof of artists such as "Tracey" (Emin) and
"Damien" (Hirst).
- Off Your Trolley (defunct) – Reeve & Way - set in an NHS hospital
- Apparently – Mike Barfield
- The Premiersh*ts – Paul Wood (cartoonist) - about the state of professional football
and footballers
- Celeb – Charles Peattie and Mark Warren
- Snipcock & Tweed – Nick Newman - two book publishers
- The Directors – Dredge & Rigg – comments on the excesses of boardroom fat
cats
- The Cloggies (defunct) – Bill Tidy – an
everyday story of clog-dancing folk
- Hom Sap (defunct) – Austin
- Scenes you seldom see
- Battle for Britain (defunct) – a satire of British politics
(1983-1987) in terms of World War II
- EUphemisms – Features a European Union (EU) official making a statement, with
the caption giving what it means in real terms, generally depicting the EU in a negative light. An example:, a French Minister
(indicated by the French Flag behind him) declaring "The Euro is not a failure" with the caption reading "I'm using the word
"not" in its loosest possible sense".
- Barry McKenzie (defunct) – was a very popular strip in the mid-Sixties
detailing the adventures of an expatriate Aussie at large in Earl's
Court and elsewhere, written by Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage) and drawn by Nicholas Garland, later a
political cartoonist in the heavyweight dailies.
- Dave Snooty - A recent addition to the magazine. Drawn in the style of The Beano,
it parodies David Cameron as “Dave Snooty” (a reference to the character ‘’Lord Snooty’’
from The Beano); who ends up involved in all kinds of public schoolboy-type antics (Often
involving members of his shadow cabinet).
- The Broon-ites - A parody of Scottish cartoon strip The Broons, featuring Gordon
Brown and his close associates. The speechbubbles are written in broad Scots dialect.
Additionally, currently and in the past it has used the work of Ralph Steadman,
Wally Fawkes, Timothy Birdsall, Martin Honeysett, Willie Rushton, Gerald Scarfe, Bill Tidy, Robert
Thompson, Ken Pyne, Geoff Thompson, "Jerodo", Ed
McLauchlan, "Pearsall", Kevin Woodcock, Brian
Bagnall and Kathryn Lamb.
Frequent targets for parody and satire
While politicians are frequent and easy targets for the magazine, there have been other figures singled out for various kinds
of treatment.
The Royals
Prime Ministers
- Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister when the magazine began publication. His
popular soubriquet was Supermac. This nickname was coined in the 1950s when the cartoonist Vicky on the News Chronicle first depicted Macmillan dressed
as the comic character Superman. The original intention was a put-down, but the image became to
be seen as an affectionate portrait in the "you've never had it so good" (a misquote) era. By the time Private Eye began
publication, Macmillan had been mistreated by the newspapers for years, but the late Cabinet
reshuffle often dubbed the Night of the Long Knives and the
shenanigans surrounding the succession, with the status of R.A. Butler and the will he/won't
he of Quintin Hogg (an ongoing topic) providing much
material for mirth and merriment.
- Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Macmillan's successor, was heavily lampooned after
Scottish newspaper The Aberdeen Evening Express accidentally used a photograph of Home to illustrate a June 1964 story
about a Scottish Baillie named Vass. The Baillie Vass
episode gave the magazine an opening to exploit, but the image of an aristocratic earl who was obviously ill-at-ease on
television, then emerging strongly as the primary medium for political communication, made Home a common target. Private
Eye thereafter affected to believe that 'Home' had been unmasked as an impostor, a position it maintained until Home's death
in 1995.
- Harold Wilson was the first elected PM to receive the Private Eye treatment
from scratch, as it were. Calling him Wislon, partly because of its sinister sound, but mainly to avoid retribution in the
libel courts, the Eye portrayed him as a relentless chancer, climber and self-promoter, for whom being Prime Minister was
infinitely more important than anything he might achieve in the office. In a retrospective for The Life and Times of Private
Eye the editors compared him to David Frost, who was always accused by the
Private Eye crowd of sharing these same motivations, though this was undoubtedly more to do with the pique felt by
Peter Cook when Frost became the star of television satire while Cook, who felt himself
(probably justly) a better candidate, was tied up with Beyond the Fringe in the
United States. Wilson's name tended to be preceded by expressions such as "sensitive",
"versatile" and particularly, "pragmatic", suggesting that he would keep changing his positions to please those around him. In
later years, after the jailing of the fraudster Emil Savundra, he was referred to as
Wilsundra. One front cover parodied the horror movie Willard, with a
Wilson-faced rat, and the title Wislard. A major part of the Eye's assault on Wislon was the celebrated
Mrs Wilson's Diary, supposedly the memoirs of his wife, written in the style
of the then-popular radio drama series Mrs Dale's Diary. More seriously, the
magazine was a major outlet for MI5 smears in the 1970s[4].
- Edward Heath gained the nickname The Grocer from his role in negotiations
over the EEC food policies under the Conservative administration before the Wilson
government. When elected PM himself, he was portrayed as a hopeless waffler, mostly interested in sailing his yacht Morning
Cloud, and ignoring the corruption of some of colleagues such as Reginald
Maudling. Heath's unusual status as a bachelor inevitably gave rise to homosexual innuendo.
- James Callaghan inherited the role of PM from Wilson in 1976. However, he was
not subject to a specific parody, and the times were arguably too dark for a good lampooning.
- The Falklands war and high levels of unemployment in 1980s Britain made Margaret
Thatcher a popular target for Private Eye. She was also the subject of an ironic piece where she was described as
"bewitching... sexual and political power combine to create the perfect woman." The piece continued in a similar vein before
ending with the inevitable "That's enough. Ed."
Other politicians
- Jeffrey Archer, the former Conservative MP (for Louth, Lincolnshire) who was Deputy Chairman of the party
under Margaret Thatcher and who later served time in prison for perjury, is usually
referred to as Lord Archhole. The Eye has occasionally thrown the spotlight on his wife, the "fragrant" Mary Archer.
- Reginald Maudling was one of the Heath administration's prime targets for
contributors to the Eye. The volume rose following news about his role in the Real Estate Fund of America, with its connections
to shady Italian-Americans and even to friends of Richard Nixon. His fondness for fine
dining led him to be caricatured as a "bloated voluptuary", usually dressed in a nightshirt and sleeping cap, waking only to eat.
The constant sleeping symbolized his inaction over the Ulster situation, when he was Home
Secretary. There was a famous cartoon in the Eye following Bloody Sunday,
which showed Maudling and another, the bubble from the other said "Six-and-a-half brace" and the one from Maudling said "Not bad
for the time of year", and this played a part in the flaying which Maudling received in the media and elsewhere over his
semi-comatose handling of the episode. Another Eye item featured a spoof dictionary and its definition of the verb "maudle" ("to
prevaricate, procrastinate etc.").
- Ian Paisley (or his Spitting Image
puppet) has featured on the cover of Private Eye several times.[5] He is also referred to on the front cover of Issue 202 (12
September 1969) which showed the young Bernadette Devlin flashing her knickers (an embarrassing picture for Ms Devlin) with the
balloon saying "This should get a rise out of Paisley". He is usually referred to in connection with events in Northern Ireland, whether or not he was directly involved in the issues raised. On the 1967 Christmas
record, The Abominable Radio Gnome, the announcer says, "And now a comment from Father Palsy", (to a Protestant, a
gratuitously offensive Catholic mode of address) to which the response, in a camp Ulster accent, is, "Begorrah, bejabers and sod
the Pope" - "begorrah and bejabers" are phrases only used by stage and comic-book Irishmen, though
the phrase "sod the Pope" recurs with monotonous regularity in Private Eye references to Ian Paisley. Consistent with the
Eye treatment of Mohamed Fayed and his affected name, Private Eye seldom
calls Paisley "Reverend" (he is, but only in the Free Presbyterian Church of
Ulster, in which the Paisley family has always had the predominant influence) or "Doctor" (it is an honorary degree of the type not usually bestowing the right to be addressed as "Doctor",
awarded by Bob Jones University of South
Carolina, a private institution outside the US mainstream which reflects an
uncompromising Protestant viewpoint). This is part of a wider Private Eye dislike for Bob Jones University and similar US
institutions, criticising them by making a comparison with e.g. McDonald's, which calls its
principal training establishment "Hamburger University".
- The former Foreign Secretary,
Margaret Beckett, was always named Rosa Klebb after
the villain of the James Bond film From
Russia With Love.
Prominent figures
- Solicitor-to-the-rich Lord Goodman, a member of Harold Wilson's
circle was a favourite target, and he was usually referred to as Lord "Two Dinners" Goodman and also Lord Badman. The Eye saw him
as a latter-day Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the throne, especially when the
Conservatives held power. From the negotiations over the status of Rhodesia, to his central
role in many sources of public money, such as the Arts Council, to the many high-profile
lawsuits his firm filed, including those against the Eye itself, it seemed he was the true ruler of the country. One cartoon
showed him as a spider at the centre of a web of money and influence. Another demonstrated his apparent role in making sure that
money always found its way to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, seen as an elite institution catering mainly to the upper crust, when the public money was
intended to bring art to the masses. Goodman's obesity and hangdog looks made him easy to ridicule. There was however, always the
uneasy feeling that the Eye might be right about him.
Businessmen
- Mohamed Al-Fayed is routinely referred to as "The Phoney Pharaoh". Much jest
is made of his mispronunciation of the word "fuck" as "fugg", and conspiracy theories concerning the deaths of his son
Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana. He is
also referred to simply as Mohamed Fayed on the basis that the 'Al-' was added to his name by
Fayed himself.
- Richard Branson, the Virgin entrepreneur is a frequent target for his
train services and his capacity for self publicity. Usually referred to as 'Beardie'.
Journalists
- Nigel Dempster, a former gossip columnist for the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, He received much attention,
especially in the Grovel gossip section, including a picture of him in flagrante with an admirer. Later it was
revealed that he was the major contributor to Grovel at the time. Referred to in the Eye as "Nigel Pratt-Dumpster",
"Humpty Dumpster", or "Former GLE (Greatest Living Englishman) Nigel Dempster".
- Peter Hitchens, the journalist's nickname of "Bonkers" was popularised by the
Eye
- Derek Jameson, former tabloid journalist, aka "Sid Yobbo" for the manner of his
speech and his populist attitudes.
- Paul Johnson, the conservative polemicist and historian was once a
regular target and was referred to as "loonybins". During the Sixties, the US President Lyndon Baines Johnson was dubbed Loony Bins Johnson, and the nickname has been applied to other
Johnsons. Targeting Paul Johnson was once a favourite tactic of deputy editor Francis
Wheen, but deprecating references to Johnson predated his involvement in the Eye by some years. References to
Johnson are now rare.
- Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily
Mirror, is still a regular target. He is usually referred to as Piers "Morgan" Moron, as if Moron was really his
surname, and Morgan merely a nickname.
- Andrew Neil, Scottish broadcaster and journalist, is usually referred to as
'Brillo Pad'. Since the early 1990s, a picture taken of him aside a young, attractive Asian
model has featured in nearly every issue, as seen below.
- Peregrine Worsthorne, the former editor of The Sunday Telegraph is consistently referred to as 'Sir Perishing Worthless'.
- Peter McKay, Scottish journalist was a regular target with variants of a story of his
attempts to seduce junior female members of staff. Usually referred to as "McLie" or "McHackey" McKay was the editor of
Punch magazine when it was relaunched by Mohamed
Fayed as a Private Eye spoiler in 1996.
Entertainment and media
- Lady Antonia Fraser, a sometime actress but now a biographer and wife of
Harold Pinter, her high-profile divorce brought her into the public eye, and her views on
sex kept her there. She will always be Lady Magnesia Freelove to Eye aficionados.
- Sir Paul McCartney is one of the rock music stars whose deeds and misdeeds are
most often reported and attributed to "Spiggy Topes", in his case the attribution is to "Sir Spigismond Topes".
Newspapers
- The Guardian is inevitably The Grauniad (for its reputation for
misprints). After a rebrand where the paper's logotype became lowercase, this became the grauniad (minus caps).
- The Daily Telegraph is either The Torygraph (for its
support for the Conservative Party), The Hurleygraph (for regularly
printing photos of Elizabeth Hurley on its front page), The Hello!graph, or
as discussed below The Telavivagraph. The Eye has more recently coined the name the "Maily
Telegraph" to mark the hiring of a number of ex-Daily Mail employees.
- The Daily Express was called the Titsbychristmas in 1978;
afterward it became the Daily Getsworse or the Daily Getsmuchworse, and recently the Daily Sexpress (its
owner, Richard 'Dirty' Desmond, also owns or owned several pornographic magazines and
satellite pornography channels). Currently the paper is lampooned as The Di-ly Express due to the perceived obsession of
the paper with conspiracy theories regarding Diana, Princess of Wales and her
death in 1997, and the volume of weekly, front-page coverage it has given to her.
- The Independent (widely called the Indy) is described as the
Indescribablyboring while its sister paper, The Independent on Sunday, is known as the Sindie (cf.
Sindy).
- The News of the World is known as The Screws of the World, The News of the Screws, or simply The Screws.
- The Daily Mail is usually spoofed for its obsession with property prices,
asylum seekers and scare stories. Sometimes referred to as The Daily Lie. In one cartoon in 2004 the magazine published a
Mail-style, scare-story cartoon of a newspaper whose headline was 'what kind of society lets the Daily Mail be published EVERY
DAY?'
- The Daily Mirror is known as The Moron. This is probably a pun on
the Eye's nickname for former Mirror editor Piers ("Moron") Morgan (often written as Piers "Morgan" Moron). It may also refer to
Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke's description of the Mirror as "a paper read by
Morons" in an education debate in 1988.
Other media and merchandise
Private Eye has from time to time produced various spin-offs from the magazine:
Criticism and controversy
Overall, criticism of the Eye should perhaps be viewed in the light of a remark made to the editors by the director and
satirist Jonathan Miller: "When are you lot going to develop a point of view?" Miller
once described the Eye's editorial conference as like watching naked, anti-Semitic public schoolboys in a changing room,
flicking wet towels at defenceless victims.[citation needed] However, (as per the remark by Jonathan Miller) the magazine is something
of a moving target, which always maintains a fog of irony, making it hard to discern if it is
being serious or joking in intent. This even applies to readers' letters, which might be published because they make a valid
point, or because the editor believes that the writer is so misguided as to be ridiculous. Many such letters are from irate
readers who claim they are so disgusted with a particular article or cartoon in a previous issue that they announce the
cancellation of their subscription.
"Public-school racism"
Critics of the magazine have in the past suggested it has an antisemitic tone, perhaps[original research?] because it regularly features a
publisher called 'Snipcock', refers to the Daily Telegraph newspaper as the
Telavivagraph (but also as the Tehranagraph), and
frequently lampoons events in the Middle East by writing them up into mock KJV Biblical verse ("And first they visited upon the city of Jen-in in a terrible plague
of fire and brimstone, so that many of the Araf-ites and Hamas-ites were slain, even men, women and children"). The fact that the
previous owner of the Telegraph, Conrad Black, and his wife and contributor
Barbara Amiel, are both vocal supporters of Likud party
policies is a possible explanation for the Telavivagraph jibe. [citation needed] There has indeed been a regular column entitled 'The Book of Amiel', a
pseudo-Biblical spoof of her allegedly extreme views on the Israel Palestine. The purpose was not to be anti-semitic but to
lampoon the allegedly partisan nature of the reporting of the Telegraph under Lord Black.
The cover of issue 256 from 1971 showed Emperor Hirohito visiting Britain with the caption
"A nasty nip in the air" (subhead: "Piss off, Bandy Knees").[6] Idi Amin also was characterised speaking in Pidgin English. In the 1960s and 1970s the magazine mocked the gay rights movement
as "Poove Power". In recent years, some have accused the "Dumb Britain" section of cultural snobbery, and of sneering at the working class.
Public offence
The magazine's irreverence and occasional tastelessness offend some while delighting others. Upon the death of
Diana, Princess of Wales, it printed a cover headed "MEDIA TO BLAME". Under
this headline was a picture of many hundreds of people outside the gates of Buckingham Palace with one person commenting he
couldn't get hold of a newspaper, and another saying, "Borrow mine. It's got a picture of the car.".[7] The issue also featured a mock retraction of everything negative that the
magazine had ever said about Diana. This was enough to cause a flood of complaints, many cancelled subscriptions, and the
temporary removal of the magazine from the shelves of several newsagents. On the other hand, the Diana issue is now one of the
most highly sought after back issues. The newsagents who removed the magazine included W H
Smith, which had previously refused to stock Private Eye until well into the 1970s. (W H Smith was usually
characterised in the paper as "WH Smugg", or "WH Smut" on account of its contemporary policy of stocking pornographic
magazines.
Similar complaints were received about the issues that followed the Ladbroke Grove
rail crash, the September 11, 2001 attacks (the magazine even
including a special "subscription cancellation coupon" for disgruntled readers to send in) and the Soham murders. Following the 7 July 2005 London
bombings the magazine's cover featured Tony Blair saying to Ken Livingstone "We must track down the evil mastermind behind the bombers...", to which Mr. Livingstone
replies "...and invite him around for tea", in reference to Ken Livingstone's controversial invitation of Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London.[8]
Blasphemy
The 2004 Christmas (issue 1121) issue received an unexpected amount of complaints and
subscription cancellations after it featured Pieter Brueghel's painting of a nativity
scene, in which one wise man was saying to another: "Apparently, it's David
Blunkett's" (who at the time was involved in a scandal where he had
got a married woman pregnant). Many readers sent letters accusing the magazine of blasphemy and anti-Christian attitudes, and one stated
that the "witless, gutless buggers wouldn't dare mock Islam", an observation later vindicated when the magazine declined to
publish the Danish Mohammed cartoons for fear of
firebombs. Many letters in the first issue of 2005 disagreed with the former readers' complaints, and some were even parodies of
those letters, 'complaining' about issue 1122's cover[9] -
a cartoon depicting Santa's sleigh shredded to pieces by a wind
farm: "To use a picture of Our Lord Father Christmas and his Holy Reindeer being torn limb from limb while flying over
a windfarm is inappropriate and blasphemous."
Hypocrisy
The magazine, in particular Francis Wheen, has also been accused of hypocrisy regarding the high standards of journalistic integrity it demands from other publications. For
example, an article in Private Eye by Wheen in August 2007 vehemently attacked a critical review by Johann Hari of the book 'What's Left' by Nick Cohen, impugning Hari's
journalistic standards. Wheen did not declare that he is a close personal friend of Cohen's and thanked at length in the book
under discussion. Critics charged that this is the sort of unethical behaviour that Private Eye condemns so often in others.
[10][11] Wheen has been dubbed "the Rottweiller of Decency" [12] for his alleged pushing of a "pro-war left" point of view in the magazine's Street of Shame
section, where they claim he smears anyone who criticises this particular political ideology.[13]
Litigation
The magazine is sued for libel on a regular basis and maintains a large quantity of money as a "fighting fund" (although
experience has taught those behind the magazine quick ways to defuse legal tensions, usually by printing a letter from those
concerned). As editor, Ian Hislop has become one of the most-sued men in Britain.
Those who have sued the magazine include many famous names, though as the editors noted, while politicians are a prime target
they "tend to take their medicine like men", and the largest number of lawsuits issue from journalists. For the tenth anniversary
issue, the cover showed a cartoon headstone inscribed with a long list of well-known names, and the epitaph "They did not sue in
vain".[1]
An unlikely piece of British legal history occurred in the case Arkell v. Pressdram. The plaintiff was the subject of
an article relating to illicit payments, and for a change the magazine had ample evidence to back up the article. Arkell's
lawyers wrote a letter in which, unusually, they said: "Our client's attitude to damages will depend on the nature of your
reply". The response consisted, in part, of the following: "We would be interested to know what your client's attitude to
damages would be if the nature of our reply were as follows : Fuck off". This caused a stir in certain quarters. In the
years following, the magazine would use this case as a euphemism for an obscene reply: In subsequent cases, instead of using the
obscenity, Private Eye (and others) would say something like "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram",
or perhaps "His reply was similar to that given to the plaintiff in Arkell v. Pressdram ". Like "tired and emotional" this usage has spread far beyond the magazine.
The most famous litigation case against the magazine was initiated by
