British satirical and current affairs magazine
Private Eye
is a British fortnightly
satirical
and
current affairs
news magazine
, founded in 1961.
[2]
It is published in London and has been edited by
Ian Hislop
since 1986. The publication is widely recognised for its prominent criticism and
lampooning
of public figures. It is also known for its in-depth investigative journalism into under-reported scandals and cover-ups.
[3]
Private Eye
is Britain's best-selling current affairs magazine,
[4]
and such is its long-term popularity and impact that many of
its recurring in-jokes
have entered popular culture in the United Kingdom. The magazine bucks the trend of declining circulation for print media, having recorded its highest-ever circulation in the second half of 2016.
[5]
It is privately owned and highly profitable.
[6]
With a "deeply conservative resistance to change",
[7]
it has resisted moves to online content or glossy format: it has always been printed on cheap paper and resembles, in format and content, a comic rather than a serious magazine.
[6]
[8]
Both its satire and investigative journalism have led to numerous
libel
suits.
[3]
It is known for the use of
pseudonyms
by its contributors, many of whom have been prominent in public life?this even extends to a fictional proprietor, Lord Gnome.
[9]
[10]
History
[
edit
]
The forerunner of
Private Eye
was
The Walopian
, an underground magazine published at
Shrewsbury School
by pupils in the mid-1950s and edited by
Richard Ingrams
,
Willie Rushton
,
Christopher Booker
and
Paul Foot
.
The Walopian
(a play on the school magazine name
The Salopian
) mocked school spirit, traditions and the masters. After
National Service
, Ingrams and Foot went as undergraduates to
Oxford University
, where they met future collaborators including
Peter Usborne
,
Andrew Osmond
[11]
and
John Wells
.
[12]
The magazine was properly begun when they learned of a new printing process,
photo-litho offset
, which meant that anybody with a
typewriter
and
Letraset
could produce a magazine. The publication was initially funded by Osmond and launched in 1961.
[13]
It is agreed that Osmond suggested the title, and sold many of the early copies in person, in London pubs.
[14]
The magazine was initially edited by Booker and designed by Rushton, who drew cartoons for it. Usborne was its first managing director.
[15]
Its subsequent editor, Ingrams, who was then pursuing a career as an actor, shared the editorship with Booker from around issue number 10 and took over from issue 40. At first,
Private Eye
was a vehicle for juvenile jokes: an extension of the original school magazine, and an alternative to
Punch
.
Peter Cook
?who in October 1961 founded
The Establishment
, the first satirical nightclub in London?purchased
Private Eye
in 1962, together with
Nicholas Luard
,
[16]
and was a long-time contributor.
[17]
Others 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 the column "True Stories", featuring cuttings from the national press. The
gossip columnist
Nigel Dempster
wrote extensively for the magazine before he fell out with
Ian Hislop
and other writers, while Foot wrote on politics, local government and corruption. The receptionist and general factotum from 1984 to 2014 was
Hilary Lowinger
.
[18]
Ingrams continued as editor until 1986 when he was succeeded by Hislop. Ingrams remains chairman of the holding company.
[19]
Style of the magazine
[
edit
]
Private Eye
often reports on the misdeeds of powerful and important individuals and, consequently, has received numerous
libel
writs
throughout its history. These include three issued by
James Goldsmith
(known in the magazine as "(Sir) Jammy Fishpaste" and "Jonah Jammy fingers") and several by
Robert Maxwell
(known as "Captain Bob"), one of which resulted in the award of costs and reported damages of £225,000, and attacks on the magazine by Maxwell through a book,
Malice in Wonderland
, and a one-off magazine,
Not Private Eye
. Its defenders point out that it often carries news that the mainstream press will not print for fear of legal reprisals or because the material is of minority interest.
As well as covering a wide range of current affairs,
Private Eye
is also known for highlighting the errors and hypocritical behaviour of newspapers in the "Street of Shame" column, named after
Fleet Street
, the former home of many papers. It reports on parliamentary and national political issues, with regional and local politics covered in equal depth under the "Rotten Boroughs" column (named after the
rotten boroughs
of the pre-
Reform Act of 1832
House of Commons). Extensive
investigative journalism
is published under the "In the Back" section, often tackling cover-ups and unreported scandals. A financial column called "In the City" (referring to the
City of London
), written by Michael Gillard under the pseudonym "Slicker", has exposed several significant financial scandals and described unethical business practices.
Some contributors to
Private Eye
are media figures or specialists in their field who write anonymously, often under humorous pseudonyms, such as "Dr B Ching" (a reference to the
Beeching cuts
) who writes the "Signal Failures" column about the railways. Stories sometimes originate from writers for more mainstream publications who cannot get their stories published by their main employers.
Private Eye
has traditionally lagged other magazines in adopting new typesetting and printing technologies. At the start, it was laid out with scissors and paste and typed on three
IBM Electric
typewriters?
italics
,
pica
and
elite
?lending an amateurish look to the pages. For some years after layout tools became available the magazine retained this technique to maintain its look, although the three older typewriters were replaced with an IBM composer. 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 typical for a modern magazine. Much of the text is printed in the standard
Times New Roman
font. The former "Colour Section" was printed in black and white like the rest of the magazine: only the content was colourful.
Notable columns
[
edit
]
A series of
parody columns referring to the Prime Minister of the day
has been a long-term feature of
Private Eye
. While satirical, during the 1980s, Ingrams and
John Wells
wrote an affectionate series of fictional letters from
Denis Thatcher
to
Bill Deedes
in the
Dear Bill
column, mocking Thatcher as an amiable, golf-playing drunk. The column was collected in a series of books and became a stage play ("Anyone for Denis?") in which Wells played the fictional Denis, a character now inextricably "blurred with the real historical figure", according to Ingrams.
[20]
In The Back
is an investigative journalism section notably associated with journalist
Paul Foot
[21]
(the
Eye
has always published its investigative journalism at the back of the magazine).
[22]
Private Eye
was one of the journalistic organisations involved in sifting and analysing the
Paradise Papers
, and this commentary appears in
In the Back
.
[23]
[24]
Nooks and Corners
(originally
Nooks and Corners of the New Barbarism
), an architectural column severely critical of architectural vandalism and "barbarism",
[25]
notably modernism and
brutalism
,
[26]
was originally founded by
John Betjeman
in 1971 (his first article attacked a building praised by his enemy
Nikolaus Pevsner
)
[27]
and carried on by his daughter
Candida Lycett Green
.
[28]
[29]
For four decades beginning in 1978, it was edited by
Gavin Stamp
under the pseudonym
Piloti
.
[29]
The column notably features a discussion of the state of public architecture and especially the preservation (or otherwise) of Britain's architectural heritage.
[30]
Street of Shame
is a column addressing journalistic misconduct and excesses,
[31]
[32]
hypocrisy, and undue influence by proprietors and editors, mostly sourced from tipoffs
[33]
?it sometimes serves as a venue for the settling of scores within the trade,
[34]
and is a source of friction with editors.
[33]
This work formed the basis of much of Ian Hislop's testimony to the
Leveson Inquiry
, and Leveson was complimentary about the magazine and the column.
[35]
The term
street of shame
is a reference to Fleet Street, the former centre of British journalism, and has become synonymous with it.
[9]
[36]
[37]
The
Rotten Boroughs
column focuses on actual or alleged wrongdoing in local or regional governments and elections, for example, corruption, nepotism, hypocrisy and incompetence. The column's name derives from the 18th-century
rotten boroughs
.
There are also several
recurring miniature sections
.
Special editions
[
edit
]
The magazine has occasionally published special editions dedicated to the reporting of particular events, such as government inadequacy over the
2001 foot and mouth outbreak
, the conviction in 2001 of
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
for the 1988
Lockerbie bombing
(an incident regularly covered since by "In the Back"), and the purported
MMR vaccine controversy
(since shown to be medical fraud committed by
Andrew Wakefield
) in 2002.
A special issue was published in 2004 to mark the death of long-time contributor
Paul Foot
. In 2005,
The Guardian
and
Private Eye
established the
Paul Foot Award
(referred to colloquially as the "Footy"), with an annual £10,000 prize fund, for investigative/campaigning journalism in memory of Foot.
[38]
In-jokes
[
edit
]
The magazine has many recurring
in-jokes
and convoluted references, often comprehensible only to those who have read the magazine for many years. They include euphemisms designed to avoid the notoriously plaintiff-friendly English libel laws, such as replacing the word "drunk" with "
tired and emotional
",
[39]
[40]
or using the phrase "Ugandan discussions" to denote illicit sexual exploits;
[39]
and more obvious parodies utilising easily recognisable stereotypes, such as the lampooning of
Conservative
MPs as "
Sir Bufton Tufton
". Some of the terms have fallen into disuse when their hidden meanings have become better known.
The magazine often deliberately misspells the names of certain organisations, such as "Crapita" for the outsourcing company
Capita
, "Carter-Fuck" for the law firm
Carter-Ruck
, and "
The Grauniad
" for
The Guardian
(the latter a reference to the newspaper's frequent typos in its days as
The Manchester Guardian
). Certain individuals may be referred to by another name, for example,
Piers Morgan
as "Piers Moron",
Richard Branson
as "Beardie",
Rupert Murdoch
as the "Dirty Digger", and Queen
Elizabeth II
and King
Charles III
as "Brenda" and "Brian", respectively.
The first half of each issue, which consists chiefly of news reporting and
investigative journalism
, tends to include these in-jokes more subtly, to maintain journalistic integrity, while the second half, generally characterised by unrestrained parody and cutting humour, tends to present itself in a more confrontational way.
Cartoons
[
edit
]
As well as many one-off cartoons,
Private Eye
features several regular comic strips:
- Apparently
by Mike Barfield ? satirising day-to-day life or pop trends
- Celeb
by
Charles Peattie
and Mark Warren, collectively known as Ligger ? a strip about a celebrity rock star named Gary Bloke, which first appeared in 1987. A
BBC
sitcom version was spun off in 2002.
[41]
- Desperate Business
by
Modern Toss
? stereotypes a range of professions, such as an
estate agent
showing a couple a minuscule house, with the caption: "It's a bit smaller than it looked on your website".
- EUphemisms
by RGJ ? features a
European Union
bureaucrat making a statement, with a caption suggesting what it means in real terms, depicting the EU in a negative or hypocritical light. For example, an EU official declares: "Punishing Britain for
Brexit
would show the world we've lost the plot", with the caption reading: "We're going to punish Britain for Brexit. We've lost the plot".
- Fallen Angels
? a regular cartoon with a caption depicting problems (often bureaucratic) in the
National Health Service
- First Drafts
by Simon Pearsell ? original drafts of popular books
- Forgotten Moments in Music History
? features cryptic references to notable songs and performers.
- It's Grim Up North London
by
Knife and Packer
? a satire about
Islington
"trendies" which has been featured since 1999.
- Logos as They Should Be
? a satire of logos from some of the world's most-known companies
- The Premiersh*ts
by Paul Wood ? a satire of professional football and footballers, in the
Premier League
- Snipcock & Tweed
by
Nick Newman
? about two book publishers
- Supermodels
by Neil Kerber ? satirising the lifestyle of supermodels; the characters are unfeasibly thin.
- Yobs
and
Yobettes
by
Tony Husband
? satirising
yob
culture, featuring since the late 1980s
- Young British Artists
by Birch ? a spoof of the
Young British Artists
movement such as
Tracey Emin
and
Damien Hirst
Some of the magazine's former cartoon strips include:
- The Adventures of Mr Millibean
? former Leader of the Opposition,
Ed Miliband
, is portrayed as
Rowan Atkinson
's
Mr. Bean
- Andy Capp-in-Ring
? a parody of
Andy Capp
, satirising Labour leadership candidate
Andy Burnham
and his rivals, portraying Burnham as Capp
- Barry McKenzie
? a popular strip in the mid-1960s detailing the adventures of an expatriate Australian in
Earl's Court
, London and elsewhere, written by
Barry Humphries
and drawn by
Nicholas Garland
- Battle for Britain
? a satire of British politics (1983?87) in terms of a
World War II
war comic
- The Broon-ites
? a pastiche of the Scottish cartoon strip
The Broons
, featuring
Gordon Brown
and his close associates. The speech bubbles are written in broad
Scots
.
- Dan Dire, Pilot of the Future?
and
Tony Blair, Pilot for the Foreseeable Future
? parodies of the
Dan Dare
comics of the 1950s, satirising (respectively)
Neil Kinnock
's time as Labour leader, and
Tony Blair
's Labour government
- Dave Snooty and his New Pals
? drawn in the style of
The Beano
, it parodied
David Cameron
as "Dave Snooty" (a reference to the
Beano
character "
Lord Snooty
"), involved in public schoolboy-type behaviour with members of his cabinet. Cameron is portrayed as wearing an
Eton College
uniform with bow tie, tailcoat, waistcoat and pinstriped trousers.
- The Directors
by Dredge & Rigg ? commented on the excesses of boardroom
fat cats
.
- The Cloggies
by
Bill Tidy
? about
clogging
dancers
- The Commuters
by Grizelda ? followed the efforts of two commuters to get a train to work.
- Global Warming: The Plus Side
? a satire of the
effects of global warming
, suggesting mock "positive" impacts of the phenomena, such as bus-sized marrows in village vegetable competitions, vastly decreased fossil prices due to melting permafrost, and the proliferation of British citrus orchards
- Gogglebollox
by Goddard ? a satirical take on recent television shows
- Great Bores of Today
by
Michael Heath
- The Has-Beano
? a pastiche of
The Beano
used to satirise
The Spectator
and
Boris Johnson
(who features as the lead character,
Boris the Menace
)
- Hom Sap
by
David Austin
- Liz
? a cartoon about the
Royal Family
drawn by Cutter Perkins and RGJ in the style of the comic magazine
Viz
(with the speech in
Geordie
dialect). Ran from issue 801 to 833.
- Meet the Clintstones ? The Prehistoric First Family
? drawn in the style of
The Flintstones
, this was a parody of
Bill
and
Hillary Clinton
during his presidency and the
2008 US presidential election
.
- Off Your Trolley
by Reeve & Way ? is set in an NHS hospital.
- The Regulars
also by Michael Heath ? is based on the drinking scene at the
Coach and Horses
pub in London (a regular meeting place for the magazine's staff and guests), and features the catchphrase "Jeff bin in?" (a reference to pub regular, the journalist
Jeffrey Bernard
).
- Scenes You Seldom See
by
Barry Fantoni
? satirising the habits of British people by portraying the opposite of what is the accepted norm.
At various times,
Private Eye
has also used the work of
Ralph Steadman
,
Wally Fawkes
,
Timothy Birdsall
,
Martin Honeysett
,
Willie Rushton
,
Gerald Scarfe
, Robert Thompson,
Ken Pyne
, Geoff Thompson, "Jorodo", Ed McLachlan, Simon Pearsall,
Kevin Woodcock
, Brian Bagnall,
Kathryn Lamb
and
George Adamson
.
Other products
[
edit
]
Private Eye
has, from time to time, produced various spin-offs from the magazine, including:
- Books
, e.g. annuals, cartoon collections and investigative pamphlets;
- Audio recordings
;
- Private Eye TV
, a 1971 BBC TV version of the magazine; and
- Memorabilia and commemorative products, such as Christmas cards.
- Page 94, The Private Eye Podcast
since Episode 1, 4 March 2015,
[42]
named after the running joke
continued on page 94
and hosted by
Andrew Hunter Murray
.
- Eyeplayer
(see
iPlayer
) Videos and Audio since 2008.
[43]
Flash
, hosted
MP3s
, and
YouTube
videos. Including phone-related pieces,
[44]
audio performances at the
Lyttelton Theatre
, and
Private Eye: A Review Of
2016, 2015 and 2014.
- Covers Library
[45]
? Issue 1 ? 25 October 1961 to present
- Councillors Map
[46]
? interactive map of local councillors who have not paid their
council tax
- UK Tax Haven Map
[47]
? searchable map of properties, in England and Wales, owned by offshore companies
- The Eye At 50 Blog
[48]
? February 2009 to September 2013
- Cyril Smith
[49]
? Archive of the original stories that ran in
Private Eye
454 and the Rochdale Alternative Press (RAP), in 1979, involving the establishment of cover-up child abuse by the late Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith. In May 2022,
[50]
in an article titled "Cesspit News",
Private Eye
reminded readers that the late anti-gay "God's Cop" Sir
James Anderton
had ignored the decades-long abuse by Smith of boys in care.
Criticism and controversy
[
edit
]
Diana, Princess of Wales
[
edit
]
Some have found the magazine's irreverence and sometimes controversial humour offensive. Following the death of
Diana, Princess of Wales
in 1997,
Private Eye
printed a cover headed "Media to blame". Under this headline was a picture of many hundreds of people outside
Buckingham Palace
, with one person commenting that the papers were "a disgrace", another agreeing, saying that it was impossible to get one anywhere, and another saying, "Borrow mine. It's got a picture of the car."
[51]
Following the abrupt change in reporting from newspapers immediately following her death, the issue also featured a mock retraction from "all newspapers" of everything negative that they had ever said about Diana. This was enough to cause a flood of complaints and the temporary removal of the magazine from the shelves of some newsagents. These included
WHSmith
, which had previously refused to stock
Private Eye
until well into the 1970s and was characterised in the magazine as "WH Smugg" or "WH Smut" on account of its policy of stocking pornographic magazines.
Other complaints
[
edit
]
The issues that followed the
Ladbroke Grove rail crash
in 1999 (number 987), the
September 11 attacks
of 2001 (number 1037; the magazine even included a special "subscription cancellation coupon" for disgruntled readers to send in) and the
Soham murders
of 2002 all attracted similar complaints. Following the
7/7 London bombings
the magazine's cover (issue number 1137) featured Prime Minister
Tony Blair
saying to London mayor
Ken Livingstone
: "We must track down the evil mastermind behind the bombers...", to which Livingstone replies: "...and invite him around for tea", about his controversial invitation of the Islamic theologian
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
to London.
[52]
MMR vaccine
[
edit
]
During the early 2000s
Private Eye
published many stories on the
MMR vaccine controversy
, supporting the interpretation by
Andrew Wakefield
of published research in
The Lancet
by the
Royal Free Hospital
's Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group, which described an apparent link between the vaccine and
autism
and bowel problems. Many of these stories accused medical researchers who supported the vaccine's safety of having conflicts of interest because of funding from the pharmaceutical industry.
Initially dismissive of Wakefield, the magazine rapidly moved to support him, in 2002 publishing a 32-page
MMR Special Report
that supported Wakefield's assertion that MMR vaccines "should be given individually at not less than one-year intervals." The
British Medical Journal
issued a contemporary press release
[53]
that concluded: "The
Eye
report is dangerous in that it is likely to be read by people who are concerned about the safety of the vaccine. A doubting parent who reads this might be convinced there is a genuine problem, and the absence of any proper references will prevent them from checking the many misleading statements."
In a review article published in 2010, after Wakefield was disciplined by the
General Medical Council
, regular columnist
Phil Hammond
, who contributes to the "Medicine Balls" column under the pseudonym "MD", stated that: "
Private Eye
got it wrong in its coverage of MMR" in maintaining its support for Wakefield's position long after shortcomings in his work had emerged.
[54]
Accusations of hostility against unions
[
edit
]
Senior figures in the trade union movement have accused the publication of having a
classist
anti-union bias, with
Unite
chief of staff
Andrew Murray
describing
Private Eye
as "a publication of assiduous public school boys" and adding that it has "never once written anything about trade unions that isn't informed by cynicism and hostility".
[55]
The
Socialist Worker
also wrote that "For the past 50 years, the satirical magazine
Private Eye
has upset and enraged the powerful. Its mix of humour and investigation has tirelessly challenged the hypocrisy of the elite. ... But it also has serious weaknesses. Among the witty?if sometimes tired?spoof articles and cartoons, there is a nasty streak of snobbery and prejudice. Its jokes about the poor, women and young people rely on lazy stereotypes you might expect from the columns of the
Daily Mail
. It is the anti-establishment journal of the establishment."
[56]
Blasphemy
[
edit
]
The 2004 Christmas issue received many complaints after it featured
Pieter Bruegel
's painting of a
nativity scene
, in which one wise man said to another: "Apparently, it's
David Blunkett
's" (who at the time was involved in a scandal in which he was thought to have impregnated a married woman). Many readers sent letters accusing the magazine of
blasphemy
and
anti-Christian
attitudes. One stated that the "witless, gutless buggers wouldn't dare mock
Islam
". It has, however, regularly published Islam-related humour such as the cartoon which portrayed a "Taliban careers master asking a pupil: What would you like to be when you blow up?".
[57]
Many letters in the first issue of 2005 disagreed with the former readers' complaints, and some were parodies of those letters, "complaining" about the following issue's cover
[58]
?a cartoon depicting
Santa
's sleigh shredded by a
wind farm
: one said: "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."
"Fake news"
[
edit
]
In November 2016,
Private Eye
's
official website appeared on a list of over 150
"fake news" websites
compiled by Melissa Zimdars, a US lecturer. The site was listed as a source that is "purposefully fake with the intent of satire/comedy, which can offer important critical commentary on politics and society, but have the potential to be shared as actual/literal news."
[59]
The
Eye
rejected any such classification, saying its site "contains none of these things, as the small selection of stories online are drawn from the journalism pages of the magazine", adding that "even US college students might recognise that the Headmistress's letter is not really from a troubled high school".
[60]
Zimdars later removed the website from her list, after the
Eye
had contacted her for clarification.
[60]
Israel-Hamas war cover
[
edit
]
In 2023,
Private Eye
published a satirical cover on the
Israel?Hamas war
, reading "This magazine may contain some criticism of the Israeli government and may suggest that killing everyone in Gaza as revenge for Hamas atrocities may not be a good long-term solution to the problems of the region." The magazine was both criticized and praised for its stance, with some accusing the magazine of
antisemitism
, while others applauded its bravery in criticizing the Israeli government. Critics such as investigative journalist David Collier condemned the magazine, while supporters defended its critique as not antisemitic but a legitimate questioning of the proportionality of Israel's response.
[61]
Libel cases
[
edit
]
Ian Hislop is listed in the
Guinness Book of Records
as the most sued man in English legal history.
[62]
[63]
[64]
[65]
- AM: (Adam Macqueen)
- IH: (
Ian Hislop
)
- AM: There’s this fact floating around about you that you’re ‘the most sued man in history’…
- IH: Says who?
- AM: Says
Wikipedia
, I think.
- IH: Yeah, yeah. Must be true!
- AM: In terms of libel cases, would you say the Eye is below or above average?
- IH: In terms of everyone else, or generally? Well, you know, libel collapsed completely. Members of the libel bar had to retrain! The great old days went. It was partly our fault, for whingeing about the need to change the law and then it got changed. Sutcliffe
[66]
[67]
[68]
was the turnaround, it meant the court of appeal could cap libel damages, the judge was allowed to direct the jury as to amount, everything that had been mad about it started to be changed… It created a real sea change: there was a feeling that if you went to court you might lose. For most of the 80s, you just won, or you settled. So the actual number of libel actions went way down for us. And partly I feel because the journalism was more robust, and stouter. And we did a lot more telling people to fuck off at an early stage, and a lot more winning outside the court. I think at the moment we’re all worried about injunctions and privacy, the whole new game seems to be occupying vast amounts of time and money. And libel has become, touch wood, less of an issue.
[69]
[70]
Private Eye
has long been known for attracting
libel
lawsuits which, in
English law
, can easily lead to the award of damages.
[71]
The publication "sets aside almost a quarter of its
turnover
for paying out in libel defeats"
[72]
although the magazine frequently finds other ways to defuse legal tensions, such as by printing letters from aggrieved parties. As editor since 1986,
Ian Hislop
is one of the most sued people in Britain.
[65]
From 1969 to the mid-1980s, the magazine was represented by human rights lawyer
Geoffrey Bindman
.
[73]
The writer
Colin Watson
was the first person to successfully sue
Private Eye
, objecting to being described as "the little-known author who ... was writing a novel, very
Wodehouse
but without jokes". He was awarded £750.
[74]
The cover of the tenth-anniversary issue in 1971 (number 257) showed a cartoon headstone inscribed with an extensive list of well-known names, and the
epitaph
: "They did not sue in vain".
[75]
In the 1971 case of
Arkell v Pressdram
,
[76]
Arkell's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: "His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply."
Private Eye
responded: "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off."
[77]
The plaintiff withdrew the threatened lawsuit.
[78]
The magazine has since used this exchange as a euphemism for a blunt and coarse dismissal, i.e.: "We refer you to the reply given in the case of
Arkell v. Pressdram
".
[79]
[80]
As with "
tired and emotional
" this usage has spread beyond the magazine.
In 1976
James Goldsmith
brought
criminal libel
charges against the magazine, meaning that if found guilty, editor
Richard Ingrams
and the author of the article,
Patrick Marnham
, could be imprisoned. He sued over allegations that he had conspired with the
Clermont Set
to assist
Lord Lucan
to evade the police, who wanted him in connection with the murder of his children's nanny. Goldsmith won a partial victory and eventually settled with the magazine. The case threatened to bankrupt
Private Eye
, which turned to its readers for financial support in the form of a "Goldenballs Fund". Goldsmith was referred to as "Jaws". Goldsmith's solicitor
Peter Carter-Ruck
was involved in many litigation cases against Private Eye; the magazine refers to his firm as "Carter-Fuck".
[81]
[82]
Robert Maxwell
won a significant sum from the magazine when he sued over their suggestion that he looked like a criminal. Hislop claimed that his summary of the case: "I've just given a fat cheque to a fat Czech" was the only example of a joke being told on
News at Ten
.
Sonia Sutcliffe
, wife of the "Yorkshire Ripper"
Peter Sutcliffe
, sued over allegations in January 1981 that she had used her connection to her husband to make money.
[83]
Outside the court in May 1989, Hislop quipped about the then-record award of £600,000 in damages: "If that's justice then I'm a banana."
[84]
The sum was reduced on appeal to £60,000.
[84]
Readers raised a considerable sum in the "Bananaballs Fund", and Private Eye donated the surplus to the families of Peter Sutcliffe's victims. In Sonia Sutcliffe's 1990 libel case against the
News of the World
, it emerged that she had indeed benefited financially from her husband's crimes, although the details of
Private Eye
'
s article had been inaccurate.
[83]
In 1994, retired police inspector Gordon Anglesea successfully sued the
Eye
and three other media outlets for libel over allegations that he had indecently assaulted under-aged boys in
Wrexham
in the 1980s. In October 2016, he was convicted of historic sex offences.
[85]
Hislop said the magazine would not attempt to recover the £80,000 damages awarded to Anglesea, stating: "I can't help thinking of the witnesses who came forward to assist our case at the time, one of whom later committed suicide telling his wife that he never got over not being believed.
Private Eye
will not be looking to get our money back from the libel damages. Others have paid a far higher price."
[86]
Anglesea died in December 2016, six weeks into a 12-year prison sentence.
[87]
In 1999, former
Hackney London Borough Council
executive Samuel Yeboah won substantial damages and an apology after the
Rotten Borough
column "at least 13 times" described him as corrupt and claimed he used "the
race card
" to avoid criticism.
[88]
A victory for the magazine came in late 2001 when a libel case brought by
Cornish
chartered accountant
John Stuart Condliffe was dropped after six weeks with an out-of-court settlement in which Condliffe paid £100,000 towards the
Eye
's
defence.
[89]
Writing in
The Guardian
, Jessica Hodgson noted, "The victory against Condliffe?who was represented by top media firm Peter Carter-Ruck and partners?is a big psychological victory for the magazine".
[89]
In 2009,
Private Eye
successfully challenged an injunction brought against it by
Michael Napier
, the former head of the
Law Society
, who had sought to claim "confidentiality" over a report that he had been disciplined by the Law Society for a conflict of interest.
[90]
The ruling had wider significance in that it allowed other rulings by the Law Society to be publicised.
[91]
Ownership
[
edit
]
The magazine is owned by an eclectic group of people and is published by a limited company, Pressdram Ltd,
[92]
which was bought as an
"off the shelf" company
by Peter Cook in November 1961.
Private Eye
does not publish a list of its editors, writers, designers and staff. In 1981 the book
The Private Eye Story
stated that the owners were Cook, who owned most of the shares, with smaller shareholders including actors
Dirk Bogarde
and
Jane Asher
, and several of those involved with the founding of the magazine. Most of those on the list have since died, however, and it is unclear what happened to their shareholdings. Those concerned are contractually only able to sell their shares at the price they originally paid for them.
Shareholders as of the annual company return dated 26 March 2021
[update]
, including shareholders who have inherited shares, are:
- Jane Asher
- Elizabeth Cook
- The executor of the estate of Lord Faringdon
- Ian Hislop (also a director)
- Private Eye (Productions) Ltd
- Anthony Rushton (also a director)
- The executor of the estate of Sarah Seymour
- The Private Eye Trust
- Peter Usborne
(1937?2023)
- Brock van den Bogaerde (a nephew of Bogarde)
- Sheila Molnar
- Geoff Elwell (also the company secretary).
Within its pages, the magazine always refers to its owner as the mythical proprietor "Lord Gnome", a satirical dig at autocratic press barons.
Logo
[
edit
]
The magazine's masthead features a cartoon logo of an armoured knight, Gnitty, with a bent sword, parodying the "Crusader" logo of the
Daily Express
. During the
COVID-19 pandemic
, Gnitty was pictured wearing a
mask
.
[93]
The logo for the magazine's news page is a naked
Mr Punch
caressing his erect and oversized penis while riding a donkey and hugging a female admirer. It is a detail from
a frieze
by
"Dickie" Doyle
that once formed the masthead of
Punch
magazine, which the editors of
Private Eye
had come to loathe for its perceived descent into complacency. The image, hidden away in the detail of the frieze, had appeared on the cover of
Punch
for nearly a century and was noticed by
Malcolm Muggeridge
during a guest-editing spot on
Private Eye
. The "
Rabelaisian
gnome", as the character was called, was enlarged by
Gerald Scarfe
and put on the front cover of issue 69 in 1964 at full size. He was then formally adopted as a mascot on the inside pages, as a symbol of the old, radical incarnation of
Punch
magazine that the
Eye
admired.
The masthead text was designed by
Matthew Carter
, who would later design the popular web fonts
Verdana
and
Georgia
, and the
Windows 95
interface font
Tahoma
.
[94]
He wrote, "Nick Luard [then co-owner] wanted to change
Private Eye
into a glossy magazine and asked me to design it. I realised that this was a hopeless idea once I had met Christopher Booker, Richard Ingrams and Willie Rushton."
[95]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Private Eye ? circulation"
.
Audit Bureau of Circulations
. 20 February 2024
. Retrieved
29 May
2024
.
- ^
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.
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.
Archived
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.
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a
b
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. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
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"
.
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b
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.
- ^
Anthony, Andrew (9 April 2000).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
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.
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- ^
Neal, Toby.
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.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2023
.
- ^
"Peter Cook"
.
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. Retrieved
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2022
.
- ^
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"
.
vice.com
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. Retrieved
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2022
.
- ^
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.
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0307-1235
. Retrieved
5 September
2023
.
- ^
"Press Conference With...(or without) RICHARD INGRAMS"
.
Press Gazette
. 15 December 2005.
- ^
Ingrams, Richard (12 June 2005).
"Diary: Dishonourable, dishonest"
.
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.
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. Retrieved
15 August
2013
.
- ^
McGreevy, Ronan (19 July 2004).
"Paul Foot, crusading journalist, dies at 66"
.
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.
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0140-0460
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
"Publish and be damned"
.
eyemagazine.com
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
Walker, James (6 November 2017).
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. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
Peck, Tom (17 November 2017).
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.
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.
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.
architecture.com
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
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Raw concrete: the beauty of brutalism
. London. p. 331.
ISBN
9781448151295
.
OCLC
1012156615
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
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. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
"British architecture historian Gavin Stamp passes away at 69"
.
Archpaper.com
. 31 December 2017
. Retrieved
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2019
.
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b
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.
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.
ISSN
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. Retrieved
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2019
.
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. London: Bloomsbury. 29 November 2018. pp. Introduction, note 6.
ISBN
9781350022782
.
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1030446818
.
- ^
"I wish we had gone harder, earlier on hacking story, says Times Editor"
.
The Times
. 17 January 2012.
ISSN
0140-0460
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
"UK satire's scourge of power: Private Eye hits 50"
.
Reuters
. 20 October 2011
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
a
b
Sabbagh, Dan (17 January 2012).
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.
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.
ISSN
0261-3077
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
McCormack, David (16 May 2006).
"Private Eye: more than a gossip rag"
.
PR week
. Retrieved
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2022
.
- ^
Castella, Tom de (30 October 2013).
"Press regulation: The 10 major questions"
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
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"Second Shoe Drops in Fleet Street Phone-Hacking Scandal"
.
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.
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. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
"The Street of Shame responds"
.
The Economist
. 21 January 2012.
ISSN
0013-0613
. Retrieved
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2019
.
- ^
"The Paul Foot Award for campaigning journalism"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 4 March 2016
. Retrieved
16 June
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Kelly, Jon (15 May 2013).
"The 10 most scandalous euphemisms"
. Retrieved
13 August
2019
.
- ^
"Where does the term "tired and emotional", meaning drunk, originate?"
. Retrieved
13 August
2019
.
- ^
"Celeb rocks on and on"
.
BBC News
. 6 September 2002
. Retrieved
15 August
2013
.
- ^
Sawyer, Miranda (12 April 2015).
"The week in radio: Codes that Changed the World; Page 94, The Private Eye podcast; The Casebook of Max and Ivan"
.
The Guardian
.
Archived
from the original on 24 January 2018
. Retrieved
23 January
2018
.
- ^
"Eyeplayer Archive 2008"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 16 June 2017
. Retrieved
16 June
2017
.
- ^
"Vodafone's Swiss Swizz"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 16 June 2017
. Retrieved
16 June
2017
.
- ^
"Covers Library"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 26 June 2017
. Retrieved
25 June
2017
.
- ^
"Pay up, pay up and play the game!"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 28 June 2017
. Retrieved
25 June
2017
.
- ^
"Selling England (and Wales) by the pound"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 28 June 2017
. Retrieved
25 June
2017
.
- ^
"The Eye At 50 Blog"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 25 June 2017
. Retrieved
25 June
2017
.
- ^
"Cyril Smith Archive"
.
Private Eye
.
Archived
from the original on 28 June 2017
. Retrieved
25 June
2017
.
- ^
Private Eye
issue 1574
- ^
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.
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.
Archived
from the original on 26 September 2007
. Retrieved
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2007
.
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.
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.
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from the original on 26 September 2007
. Retrieved
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2007
.
- ^
Elliman, David; Bedford, Helen (18 May 2002).
"Private Eye Special Report on MMR"
.
The BMJ
: 1224.
doi
:
10.1136/bmj.324.7347.1224
.
S2CID
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.
Archived
from the original on 7 March 2007
. Retrieved
28 April
2010
.
- ^
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.
Private Eye
(1256). Pressdram Ltd: 17. February 2010.
Archived
from the original on 15 August 2011
. Retrieved
24 May
2010
.
- ^
Blackleg (15 April 2016). "TUC News".
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. No. 1416. p. 20.
Unite chief of staff Andrew Murray made much of the Eye's coverage of [the expulsion of David Beaumont from Unite], telling the panel:
'
Private Eye
is
... a publication of assiduous
[sic]
public school boys which has never, never once written anything about trade unions that isn't informed by cynicism and hostility.'
- ^
Ward, Patrick (1 November 2011).
"Private Eye: The First 50 Years"
.
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. No. 2276. Socialist Workers Party.
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. Retrieved
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2016
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.
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. 14 January 2014.
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from the original on 15 January 2014
. Retrieved
14 January
2014
.
- ^
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.
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.
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from the original on 26 September 2007
. Retrieved
15 June
2007
.
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Hughes, Owen (16 November 2016).
"Breitbart and Private Eye among websites accused of false, misleading, clickbait or satirical 'news'
"
.
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.
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. Retrieved
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b
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. No. 1432. Pressdram Ltd. November?December 2016. p. 16.
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.
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2023
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.
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.
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.
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2024
.
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- ^
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.
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. 19 October 1989.
- ^
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.
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. 26 July 1990.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. No. 263?264, 266?283, 286?288. 1972. p. ccxxvii.
- ^
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. Chronicle Books. p. 110.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 4 November 2016.
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. Retrieved
5 November
2016
.
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"
.
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. 24 October 2016.
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. Retrieved
5 November
2016
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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2017
.
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.
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. 19 February 1999.
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b
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.
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.
Private Eye
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- ^
Gibb, Frances (21 May 2009).
"Failure to gag Private Eye clears the way to publication of rulings against lawyers"
.
The Times
. London. Archived from
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- ^
"Pressdram"
.
GOV.UK ? Find and update company information
.
Companies House
.
Archived
from the original on 16 August 2022
. Retrieved
3 January
2024
.
PRESSDRAM LIMITED
C/O MENZIES LLP
LYNTON HOUSE
7?12 TAVISTOCK SQUARE
LONDON WC1H 9LT
Company No. 00708923
Date of Incorporation: 24 November 1961
- ^
"Boris Urges Spending Spree"
.
Private Eye
. No. 1524. Pressdram Ltd. 19 June 2020
. Retrieved
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2024
.
- ^
Walters, John.
"Matthew Carter's timeless typographic masthead for Private Eye magazine"
.
Eye
.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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2015
.
- ^
Carter, Matthew.
"Carter's Battered Stat"
.
Eye
.
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. Retrieved
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2016
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Bryant, Mark (January 2007).
"The Satirical Eye"
.
History Today
. Vol. 57, no. 1.
- Carpenter, Humphrey
(2002).
That Was Satire That Was
. Phoenix.
ISBN
0-7538-1393-9
.
- Carpenter, Humphrey. (2003)
A great, silly grin: The British satire boom of the 1960s
(Da Capo Press, 2003).
- Hislop, Ian
(1990).
The Complete Gnome Mart Catalogue
. Corgi.
ISBN
0552137529
.
- Ingrams, Richard
(1993).
Goldenballs!
. Harriman House.
ISBN
1897597037
.
- Ingrams, Richard (1971).
The Life and Times of Private Eye
. Penguin.
ISBN
0-14-003357-2
.
- Lockyer, Sharon. (2006) "A two-pronged? Exploring Private Eye's satirical humour and investigative reporting."
Journalism Studies
7.5 (2006): 765?781.
- Macqueen, Adam (2011).
Private Eye: The First 50 Years ? An A?Z
. London: Private Eye Productions.
ISBN
978-1-901784-56-5
.
- Marnham, Patrick (1982).
The Private Eye Story
. Andre Deutsch/Private Eye.
ISBN
0-233-97509-8
.
- Wilmut, Roger (1980). "The Establishment Club, 'Private Eye', 'That Was The Week That Was'
".
From fringe to flying circus: celebrating a unique generation of comedy, 1960?1980
. Eyre Methuen.
ISBN
9780413469502
.
External links
[
edit
]
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