Media - Bill Hagerty predicts Jim Davidson will edit the Express and Lord Archer the Mirror
Unlike those columnists who each Christmas produce a boring review of the past year, I here offer a boring, but hopefully not too much so, review of the year to come.
Some may feel many of these prophecies are far-fetched. But any suggestion a year ago that a power-hungry, egotistical tough guy with no experience of newspaper proprietorship might try to buy the Express Group would have been met with sneers from most media commentators. As it was, Andrew Neil didn't succeed, but it was a darned close-run thing. Instead of Neil, the upfront honcho for the Barclay Brothers, the luckless Express employees got the girlie magazine magnate Richard Desmond, the first sight of whom for many around the Express newsroom was when he swanned in with his friends Posh and Becks, promising them immunity from any editorial piss-taking. Desmond swears like a football hooligan, allegedly has a penchant for ordering employees at Northern & Shell to shut themselves in cupboards, and promised to spend "whatever it takes" on the papers just before starting to cut costs and sprinkle P45s like confetti.
As Richard Littlejohn would say, you couldn't make it up. But oh yes I can . . .
January: The Department of Trade and Industry announces its inspectors are to interview another 200 Trinity Mirror employees in connection with the City Slickers share-buying scandal. Its findings will be announced "soon", reports the DTI. Rosie Boycott complains to Desmond by e-mail at more editorial cuts. Desmond cuts Boycott's e-mail address.
February: David Sullivan's new tabloid, Sex on Sunday, launched. Associated Newspapers responds by offering an Ann Summers sex shop to every new reader of the Mail on Sunday. In the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh advocates fitting the British Isles with giant jet engines to thrust it further away from mainland Europe. Sales of the paper fall and Rebekah Wade is spotted driving up and down outside David Yelland's office in a Pickford's van.
March: British Press Awards include the Mirror Saturday columnist James Whitaker (Fantasist of the Year), Simon Heffer of the Mail (the Enoch Powell Memorial Prize for calm and rational argument) and the Guardian's Polly Toynbee (Columnist Best Loved by Other Journalists).
April: General election called. On the morning of polling day, the Mail, Telegraph, Times and Sun urge readers to vote Tory, the Guardian, Independent and Mirror support Labour and the Express and Daily Star come out for Candy, a topless model from Basildon. The opposition and the Tory-supporting papers make Europe the centre-point of their campaigns, warning of pestilence, famine, adulterated beer and the probable rape of every woman in the country if Britain accepts the euro. Labour promises no increase in basic rate of income tax. Labour wins by a landslide. Euan Blair appointed chairman of the governors at the BBC.
May: Andrew Neil says the Barclay Brothers are interested in buying Exchange & Mart. DTI inspectors interview everyone living within the vicinity of Canary Wharf. Report "imminent", it claims. Rebecca Hardy fires everyone at the Scotsman.
June: Paul Raymond buys the Express Group from Desmond, paying £100m and trading his Soho Revue Bar to clinch the deal. Associated Newspapers offers a bar of gold bullion to every Express reader who switches to the Mail. Rosie Boycott gets a peerage. Jim Davidson replaces her as editor of the Express.
July: Hardy fires everyone at the Scotsman again. DTI inspectors interview anyone who has ever visited Canary Wharf. Report on the brink of publication, it claims. Neil announces Barclay Brothers are interested in buying Loot.
August: Piers Morgan, the only Trinity Mirror employee not to have been interviewed by the DTI, resigns to become an independent financial adviser. Lord Archer appointed editor of the Mirror. New News of the World campaign decries incest. Readers set fire to two churches.
September: Mohamed Al Fayed buys the Express Group for £100,000 and merges it with Punch. Associated Newspapers offers a country cottage to every reader who switches to the Mail. Neil announces Barclay Brothers have bought the Beano from D C Thomson. Hardy appointed editor of the Beano.
October: Plunging ratings cause BBC2 to cancel new series of The Weakest Link. Thousands join queue to tell Anne Robinson: "You are the weakest link. Goodbye." Al Fayed announces a return to Beaverbrook traditions for the Express and appoints Jonathan Aitken editor. Hardy sacks Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids.
November: Lord Archer resigns editorship of the Mirror due to pressing business elsewhere. Gerald Ronson replaces him. Alastair Campbell gives up position as the Prime Minister's chief press secretary to run Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson quits United to take over in Downing Street. David Beckham complains at being called a dim git by the Express. Delighted Express hacks tell him to eff-off, because Richard Desmond doesn't own the paper any more.
December: Desmond buys the Express Group for £1,000 and merges the Daily Express with Big Ones International and Asian Babes. Lord Rees-Mogg appointed editor. Greg Dyke resigns as director general of the BBC to spend more time with his money. Cherie Blair succeeds him at the BBC. Lord Hollick appears on the steps of Ludgate House on Christmas Day and distributes hampers, fat geese and mulled wine to much-abused staff of the Express Group.
And, instead of reindeer, pigs fly.
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