Watching brief - Amanda Platell enjoys a great Fleet Street scoop
Published 03 November 2003
The Mirror's serialisation of the Paul Burrell book is right up there with the biggest Fleet Street scoops of all time. And it was good old-fashioned journalism that secured it
Three months ago, the odds on the survival of Piers Morgan as editor of the Daily Mirror were slightly higher than those recently on offer for Iain Duncan Smith. A misjudged war in Iraq and a price war in the UK had left Morgan badly battered.
What a difference a butler makes. And the continuing elusiveness of any weapons of mass destruction has rather vindicated Morgan's stand on Iraq.
Unofficial figures reveal the Mirror has enticed more than a million extra readers during the first week of its serialisation of Paul Burrell's book, A Royal Duty. It is up there with the biggest scoops in Fleet Street's history, although whether it will be the book of the century, we will have to wait and see.
It is such a cliche, but in this case it is true that it was good old-fashioned journalism wot won it for the Mirror. First, Burrell's long relationship with the paper's reporter Steve Dennis led him to cement the original deal with the Mirror after the court case against him collapsed. Burrell went with the person he trusted, rather than with the highest bidder, lending some credibility to the claim that he wasn't just in it for the money.
Then, Morgan was able to do what the royal family never could: put an arm around Burrell and make him feel loved, again giving some credence to his claims that all he wanted was a bit of TLC.
For those republicans who thought The Revenge of the Butler was good sport, wait for The Return of the Spin-doctor.
The menacing presence of Mark Bolland, former deputy private secretary to the Prince of Wales, first in the Daily Mail, then in the Mirror, Guardian and Sunday Times was warning enough to the royals that whatever the butler saw, it was nothing compared with what Bolland witnessed. No one has done more to improve the image of a member of the royal family than Bolland, yet Prince Charles and his advisers appear now to have completely cut him off.
What is it with these royals that they expect undying loyalty from their staff, yet extend none to them? Even friendship is beyond them, outside the magic royal circle. Bolland was the only man capable of making the British public accept that Camilla could marry into the royal family. How quickly they forget. Charles's popularity soared as quickly under Bolland as it has nose-dived since his departure.
Most worrying for the Prince is that Bolland is a highly respected, intelligent and articulate man, not a mincing little back-door Billy. Heaven help the monarchy if he turns against Prince Charles. As they say, all it takes is one little phone call to stop it.
One can't help but suspect Bolland's choice of vehicle in writing a column for the News of the World. With his burgeoning PR business he can't need the money. It must be maximum impact he's after. I bet you wish now you'd been a bit more protective of him, eh Camilla?
Well done Michael White, political editor of the Guardian, for outing the Tory plotters. He argued: "If the 25 names fail to emerge . . . the press will be seen as a willing accomplice in the political equivalent of share-ramping in the City - all whispers and no fingerprints." He then went on to name a variety of malcontents, from Francis Maude and Nick Gibb among the Portillistas through to David Curry and Ian Taylor on the left.
Many observers would argue that even with the 25 names, the press has been complicit in the plot against Duncan Smith. At the end of all this, the parliamentary lobby needs to look long and hard into its modus operandi.
There is only one thing worse than a columnist abusing their space to flog their own television projects, as Anne Robinson regularly does, and that is using it to flog their children's TV projects, as Robinson did this week in the Telegraph. Can there be a sentient being remotely interested in daughter Emma's fly-on-the-wall documentary about Mummy?
And I suspect the rumours that Robinson had been offered Michael Parkinson's Saturday night chat show were wide of the mark. To be a successful chat show host, you have to be able to do more than sneer at people from an autocue, which rules out Robinson immediately. And any woman who admits that her biggest worry is an injury to her hairdresser's wrist which might prevent him flying to New York to cut her hair is unlikely to have much in common with the common man.
Question Time's experiment with its avant-garde guests reached an all-time high and low with Richard Branson and Julian Lloyd Webber. Branson was brilliant, articulate and interesting,
Lloyd Webber whining and self-righteous.
"Second-rate, no charisma, arrogant, dull," he droned. It took me a while to realise he was talking about IDS and not about himself.
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