Watching brief - Amanda Platell worries about Paul Burrell
Published 11 November 2002
Michael Portillo planned his putsch with military precision. "I'll stand if 100 MPs beg me," sang one headline. What is it with this guy, that he wants all before him on their knees?
The sorry search is on for Angus Deayton's replacement on Have I Got News for You?. Paul Merton was first out of the blocks and immediately stumbled at the autocue hurdle, his eyes lolling madly from side to side like a man in the throws of a rather severe epileptic fit. Funny it wasn't. And although the episode still managed to pull in an audience of more than six million, one felt viewers were motivated by the same urge that makes people rubberneck a car crash on the M25.
The BBC and Hat Trick, makers of the long-running hit series, are understandably desperate to find a replacement who will ensure the continued success of this profitable show.
The reality is that Deayton is irreplaceable. An Angus-less Have I Got News for You? is unthinkable - like Richard without Judy, or Peter Snow without his swingometer, Wimbledon without the rain, or Charles and Diana's marriage without Camilla.
Delighted to Start the Week to the dulcet tones of Andrew Marr on BBC's Radio 4 as he proved yet again that you don't have to be obnoxious to your guests to give good radio. In her profile of the BBC's political editor in the Guardian, Emma Brockes described Marr as having "excited peculiar levels of dissent and devotion" and of being something akin to a sex symbol. A cross between Woody Allen and Alan Rickman perhaps?
It was on Marr's programme that we witnessed stage four of the magnificently executed Portillo putsch.
Stage one was Michael Portillo's astonishing attack on Iain Duncan Smith on Five News the previous Wednesday. Stage two was marked by the strategically placed stories in the Sundays, which caused the Mail on Sunday to run the headline: "I'll stand if 100 MPs beg me." What is it with this guy, that he wants all before him on their knees?
Stage three was the mysterious leaking of John Bercow's resignation to the BBC in time to lead its morning television and radio news bulletins, and the pre-lunch quote from Portillo that he, too, would defy the three-line whip.
And, finally, on Start the Week, Portillo said: "I don't think I would ever convince the party that I was the person to lead them and I don't think I would ever take the media with me."
The media sting was executed with military precision and had the desired effect of capturing all the headlines the next day. The front page of the Times read: "Tories in revolt as Portillo turns the knife", shattering the deceit that he has extinguished all hope of becoming leader of the party.
Let's face it, Michael Portillo is just the kind of guy who says no when he means yes.
For a brief moment, 72 hours in fact, we glimpsed a noble man - one who placed love, loyalty and discretion above all else, a man who could not be bought. In the face of the worst the establishment could throw at him, Paul Burrell triumphed over the police, the judiciary, the monarchy and one of the most powerful families in the country.
When Princess Diana's sister warned the butler to "never forget where [he] came from", the irony was that he had never forgotten. That was his strength. That was why Diana trusted him and called him her "rock". The servant put his masters to shame and exposed the Spencer family for what it is - a bunch of arrogant, self-seeking, self-serving peasants, the worst of British.
For a while there, Burrell not only got the better of them all, he was better than all of them. Then he sold out for £300,000 to the Daily Mirror. Diana kissed and he told.
That places him somewhere on the cad scale between Charles Spencer and James Hewitt. And suddenly Burrell had lost his tabloid immunity. Diana's "rock" had become Brighton rock. The red top feeding frenzy began the day he announced his deal with the Mirror - and it will not stop until there is no flesh left on his bones. I wouldn't be surprised if the Sunday newspapers turn against him. Let us all hope that he has no skeletons in his own closet.
I hope for her sake that Ulrika "I'll shame but I won't name" Jonsson really did make millions from her autobiography, Honest, as signs are that her star is dropping faster than John Major's pants at a whiff of curry. Ulrika's new TV show, the unfortunately named Mr Right - like, how long have you got? - has been such a flop that ITV is dumping it for a gardening show. So Gardeners from Hell is to replace the Gold-digger from Hell in a sweet Swedish slice of schadenfreude.
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