Celebrity power: Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan save the New Statesman

Jemima and Hugh save mag

Even the ancient legend that is Madame Arcati finds herself astonished. I thought I'd heard and seen it all. Hugh Grant - yes, the man who is the current incarnation of British movie upper class cock-cunter - has saved the New Statesman. His naughty article on how he stitched up a former News of the World hack (see previous post) on illegal phone hacking in the Murdoch empire is now trending on Twitter. This is thanks to the feature going online (not from purchase!) - drawing in tens of thousands of new readers and reinventing the magazine in the process.

The mag now understands that celebrity power is its future, particularly since it is Stephen Fry who's leading the battle tweet (with a link to the mag that doesn't work). I tweeted first, natch. Also, countless people now know of the skulduggery at the Screws even though much of Hugh's nuggets are not new.

And all this occurred on guest editor and socialite Jemima Khan's watch. Frankly, if you haven't done a Hello! spread, just fuck off. Celebrities' low carbon spotlights make a spectacle of everything adjacent. NS ed Jason Cowley must stand down in favour of Jemima. Now. She can make him travel or beauty ed or whatever. Keep him 'appy, as they mispronounce in northern soaps.

BJ (Before Jemima), the NS squeaked. AJ, it roars. I do not recommend a BJ situation.

Now, it is true I ran a very rude piece about Jemima only the other day. But part of my function is to fill the sails of the zeitgeist so that we may journey forth. Suzanne Moore was right to highlight the total neglect of editorial low-class urchins without a job or famous parent. Jason was right to bring in Jemima. This paradox must not cause us sleepless nights. Jemima can be installed and she will hire more under-privileged urchins.

Problem solved.

PS My thanks to the New Statesman's Helen Lewis and Duncan Robinson for giving me the precise figure of Hugh Grant hits on the NS website: 'A lot'.

Hugh Grant, the former Screws hack and the haunted pub in Dover

The Castle Inn, Dover

It's certainly the most delicious media story of the year (to date). A major British actor bugs the hack who once bugged him. Their topic of conversation: illegal phone hacking. Part of the transcript of Hugh Grant's highly revealing taped conversation with former News of the World whistle-blower Paul McMullan is now online at the New Statesman website: click here.

Priceless nuggets include Andy Coulson's alleged complicity in phone hacking, the PM's unhealthy proximity to Rupert Murdoch moll Rebekah Brooks (who, as one witty Arcatiste has pointed out to me, looks more like Robert Plant every day) and how Murdoch wickedly plays his multi-media games with celebrity pawns - the Nicole Kidman/Moulin Rouge! tale is a thing of beauty.

Grant travelled to the Dover pub/hotel McMullan runs, The Castle Inn, where all was revealed; and he generously encourages readers to pay the establishment a visit. It sits on the corner of Dolphin Lane and Russell Street. Click here to read about the colourful history of the 18th century coaching inn: it is of course haunted, and the medium Derek Acorah will want to know about the 'creaks, icy blasts and apparitions' should he ever be called in for a spot of exorcism.

I only mention all this because I want to see Mr McMullan safe and secure in his new business, out of harm's way and solvent. He is a very important source for future scholars of the worst scandal ever to hit British newspapers. Long may he thrive.

Andy Coulson recruited by organisation that wants media to 'protect truth'

Sheer bliss that Andy Coulson, lately of 10 Downing St's spin dept (and ongoing cynosure of phone hacking claims [denied] arising from his tenure as editor of the never-boring News of the World) has been recruited by the One Young World organisation as a media consultant. No, I'd never heard of it either.

Apparently it encourages young people to think they are world leaders and arranges conferences where they can meet actual world leaders, like Desmond Tutu, to talk about whatever. Provided you were born in or after 1985 and have €3,000 to spare, you, too, could attend its Zurich summit in September if lucky to talk about whatever.

Its global aims appear laudable. With Coulson in mind, I was particularly drawn to its media mission statement which reads: 'In the belief that freedom of speech promotes a successful society, we call upon: The media to use its influence and power to help protect truth and personal freedom.'

Protect truth? Ah yes, Coulson will know all about that.

Andy Coulson and a 'noxious odour' from Number 10

Andy Coulson

The Daily Telegraph's inestimable chief political commentator Peter Oborne turns his attention once again to the matter of Andy Coulson.

Oborne identifies the former News of the World editor, and now the Prime Minister's head of communications, as one of the sources of a "noxious odour" emanating from Number 10 - a stench renewed by a claim that a senior Screws' editor appointed by Coulson is allegedly implicated in the illegal phone tapping of actors Sienna Miller, Jude Law and others.

Against experience and logic, Coulson maintains he had no personal knowledge of phone hacking at his paper, a claim which as Oborne puts it, "makes no sense to anybody with experience of how newspapers work." He adds: "This situation is very serious because it has the potential to do grave damage to the Prime Minister’s reputation not just for sound judgment, but also for probity."

An excellent commentary. Read here.

Andy Coulson: 'Top News of the World exec approved illegal phone hacking'

Lawyers have secured startling new evidence that 'implies' that a senior editorial executive at the News of the World approved the illegal hacking of voicemail messages from the phones of Sienna Miller, Jude Law and others. The Guardian publishes details of these fresh claims and more: click here.

Former Screws editor Andy Coulson, who is now the Prime Minister's media boss at No 10, and others at News International, have always contended that only Clive Goodman, the Screws' former royal correspondent, used private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack mobiles.

The Guardian reports that Scotland Yard has had this new evidence in its possession for years but failed to investigate it. Only a few days ago the Yard gave Coulson the all-clear.

The paper also reveals that 'The new evidence discloses that it was Neville Thurlbeck who signed the formal contract paying Mulcaire £2,019 a week to work exclusively for the News of the World.' Amazingly, Coulson knew nothing of this, or so he claims.

More than 20 former News of the World employees have alleged to the Guardian, the New York Times and Channel Four's Dispatches programme that Coulson knew of the use of phone hacking at the paper - which he still denies. And more than 20 celebs are now in various stages of litigation against the Screws and Mulcaire over breach of privacy.

If the paper settles each of these claims as generously as it did Max Clifford's then it faces a £20m legal bill before costs.

Andy Coulson: The endearing qualities of No 10's man-child

Andy Coulson: The PM's Forrest Gump

Let it not be said Madame Arcati is mean-minded.

Allow me to be among the very few (outside No 10 or Wapping) to congratulate the Prime Minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, on his exoneration by Scotland Yard from any complicity in the News of the World's ongoing phone hacking scandal: he may have once been the paper's control-freak editor, who diligently and sensibly close-questioned his journalists on story sources, but somehow or other he never got wind of the fact that many of their exclusives came courtesy of illegal phone tapping.

I am awe-struck by the subterfuge of his former staff. How they must have laughed behind their editor's back in night-time pub marathons. What a push-over! So naive! Born yesterday! I am almost tempted to think well of David Cameron for taking pity on such a dickhead: I didn't realise the Tories practised positive discrimination for the, er, incognisant. Coulson is now arguably one of the most powerful unelected members of the Old Etonian plutocracy. I have a fond regard for pet owners of underdogs.

Scotland Yard proved to be slightly more than helpful in threatening to put on criminal caution any witness against Coulson. No wonder Sean Hoare, a former Screws hack, declined to repeat the claims he made to the New York Times - that Coulson well knew of the phone hacking and authorised it. Why should Hoare expose himself to prosecution in the face of No 10's media machine, their many friends in the compliant Tory print press or rent-a-quote bloated bigmouth Kelvin MacKenzie? No reason at all.

I note also that the wrongly maligned Coulson, in Tommy Sheridan's ongoing perjury court case in Glasgow, has denied ever being a bully at the Screws. I have no reason not to believe him except that last year one of his former sports hacks, Matt Driscoll, won a record £800,000 at an east London employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. A major cause of Driscoll's woe was Coulson, apparently - a claim evidently believed by the tribunal.

After the case, Driscoll reportedly said:  "If I were him [Coulson], I would find it very hard to look in the mirror. I was subjected to unprecedented bullying and he did nothing to stop it, if anything he accelerated it. I didn't do anything wrong."

If I were Coulson I'd take steps to win back that £800k for his former boss Rupert Murdoch given his now established blamelessness, his utter Forrest Gump-like obliviousness to abuses at the News of the World.

To have such a man-child at the heart of government endears him to me in a way that is hard to express. I just hope he gets wise to Nick 'dead' Clegg before the rest of us do.

Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson to earn £2,375,000?

Yes, why did the Prime Minister omit his spin doctor Andy Coulson's salary from his latest stunt - the listing of the earnings of public sector drones on more than David Cameron himself? As Lord Prescott points out in a letter to No 10, it is said that Coulson is on £475,000 a year, dwarfing any other figure disclosed today. Over five years he will take home £2,375,000 - not bad for a man who cost his last employer Rupert Murdoch about £1m for bullying a member of his News of the World staff (£800k damages alone, a record sum for the type of case), and presided (while mentally absent) over the paper's illegal tapping of hundreds of celebrity phones - with another £1m loss to Murdoch when Max Clifford was bribed to go away.

Screws gives Max Clifford £1m+ to go away - relief for Andy Coulson

The News of the World has paid Max Clifford over £1m to drop his legal action over alleged phone hacking by the paper. As the Guardian reports, "The settlement means that there will now be no disclosure of court-ordered evidence which threatened to expose the involvement of the newspaper's journalists in a range of illegal information-gathering by private investigators."

That's Andy Coulson off the hook again. The Tories' chief spinner would have been dragged into court and subject to rigorous cross-examination on the topic of what he knew or what he claimed not to know as the Screws' editor about the illegal activities of his own scurvy, lying crew.

I don't blame Clifford for taking the bribe - there's no other word for it. He's inflicted damage. Why would a newspaper part with yet more substantial cash to shut someone up? This "donation" to the Tories saves the Murdoch paper embarrassment. It saves the Tories embarrassment.

The Murdoch newspapers will keep quiet on this episode praying no other big name follows the Clifford example. If this isn't corruption at the heart of our media I don't know what is.

A 'bullying' Prime Minister, but what of Andy Coulson?

Tory leader David Cameron calls for an inquiry into Gordon Brown's "bullying" conduct towards his staff with the suggestion he's unfit for high office. Quite right. But what a pity Cameron didn't call for an inquiry into - and has not publicly addressed once - the bullying conduct of someone very close to himself, the Tory media boss Andy Coulson. Last year, the former editor's bullying of a sports reporter cost the News of the World £800,000 before costs - a record award for workplace bullying.

Sadly The Times, which laudably publishes a leader today on the bullying claims against the PM - labelling bullies "weak" - was not moved to comment on Coulson's offence at the time.

Come to think of it, why hasn't the National Bullying Helpline - which has confirmed Number 10 staff concerns about the PM - made an issue of Coulson? Questions, questions. Rhetorical.

Dapper Dicks: The penis gets the Barbie treatment

The first thing I heard today was the president of Mattel telling me that Barbie was aspirational and about to embark on her 125th career. Then this afternoon I popped over to the site of the world's handsomest novelist, Gavin James Bower. His latest post is about Dapper Dicks, a company that designs clothes for the penis. Barbie and Dapper Dicks made for a nice synchronicity. Let's dress up our playthings.

Dapper Dicks have all sorts of looks for the phallus: the piratical, the dandiacal. The fireman. And others. I quite like the pinstripe suit. Jackets can accommodate a 7" girth. Hats are available. "Dapper wear must be removed prior to intercourse," we are warned. I suppose some people need to be told this.

I utterly applaud this sartorial initiative. For too long the penis has been a synonym for stupidity: we speak of dickheads and people talking cock. So-'n'-so is such a knob. Now's the chance to rebrand a much maligned tool and give it a good styling, like popping Vinnie Jones into a Brooks Brothers. In time we may see Anna Wintour in the front row at Dapper Dicks runway shows. Anything's possible.

Jonathan King and how Andy Coulson 'doctored a photo'

Jonathan King's autobiography 65 My Life So Far is on sale from December 6 - his birthday. I shall be reviewing it, of course. With former News of the World editor Andy Coulson in the news, it is apposite to publish an alleged example of his work at the paper, especially now he's the Conservative Party's boss spin doctor. In his new book, King publishes two pictures of himself seated in a park: he contends the right pic was doctored and published by the Screws, to make it seem that King was ogling a boy. The left pic is the true view, he claims. The Press Complaints Commission rejected King's complaint. It was unfortunate that, as King himself says, the PCC chairman at the time was Les Hinton, Coulson's boss. In this instance justice did not seem to be done.

£800,000 for journalist bullied by Andy Coulson - now the Tories' top spin doctor

The News of the World reporter who was bullied by former editor Andy Coulson and his staff side-kicks has been awarded nearly £800,000 for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination by an east London employment tribunal.

Matt Driscoll will pick up a record £792,736 from Murdoch's News International which with legal costs stands to lose over a £1 million on this case alone.

The tribunal found that Driscoll had been subject to "a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour". "The original source of the hostility towards the claimant [Driscoll] was Mr Coulson ... ". The Guardian reports, "The judgment singled out Coulson for making 'bullying' remarks in an email to Driscoll after the first formal warning, letting him know that he thought he should have been sacked."

Madame Arcati has long campaigned to raise the profile of this case, long after other media went silent. Coulson is the Conservative Party's top spin doctor. Despite Tory pledges to fight bullying in all its forms, Cameron has clung onto Coulson - and no doubt an absence of a media clamour for Coulson's removal will be a comfort. Bullying is the common coin of newspapers. The culture of newspapers promotes bullying. The attributes of the bully are required for editorial preferment.

Ironically, last Sunday, the News of the World went big on its own anti-bullying campaign (schools only, natch) - how hollow that looks now. The Screws these days is an archaic spectacle - a tawdry palace of hypocrites and liars, sad middleclass hacks at a chav masquerade as they clamber and shit all over each other in their prefab open-plan coop. I can't think of a more disgusting publication.

As for Coulson - go! The People needs you! More at Bullying UK.

National newspapers' conspiracy of silence over this payout, click here

Stephen Gately: The Sun, Andy Coulson and... blackmail?

The Sun reminds readers today that Stephen Gately of Boyzone - who has died suddenly at 33 in Majorca -  "was the first boyband star to bravely come out as gay" in 1999. "He took the decision to 'out' himself in the Sun in June of that year." Oh, really.

The reality of course is much more interesting than that. I must have imagined that his mother Margaret had a different view of the matter at the time. "Stephen has been bullied into doing this," she told the Mirror. "The Sun has destroyed so many lives. There was Lenny Henry and there was Sophie Rhys-Jones. Now it's my son - and us. All of us are involved in this. I have to go out and do my day's work with the whole place looking at me."

An ex-Boyzone roadie had slithered to the Sun with his gay Gately tale. Having promised to give up its habit of homophobia earlier in '99, the paper couldn't just splash with its exclusive (with its unreconstructed "gay shame" implications). It had promised: "From now on the Sun will not reveal the sexuality of gays - men or women - unless we believe it can be defended on the grounds of overwhelming public interest. If gays choose to come out, we will report it if we feel it is newsworthy or relevant. Otherwise, we will not invade the privacy of gay people."

So the paper, anxious not to lose anything to mere integrity, contacted Boyzone's PR agency and made it plain the story would come out sooner or later, so why not let the Sun handle it responsibly. Or as Boyzone manager Louis Walsh said at the time after a phone interview with the Guardian's Roy Greenslade: "Greenslade said to me that didn't Andy Coulson (of the Sun) ring me and say: `There's two ways of doing the Gately story - the right way and the wrong way?' Was that not blackmail? I said it wasn't blackmail..."

Ah, Louis, ever the pro. As he has said, "We work the tabloids. We need them. They need us." And our old friend Andy Coulson! Now the Conservative Party's media boss.

Andy Coulson, illegal bugging and why he should go

See Jonathan King's view in comments

The Guardian leads with a tremendous story today on how the News of the World hired private investigators to hack illegally into the mobile phone messages of many public figures, such as politicians and actors. The paper claims Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid over £1m to settle legal cases that might have revealed his journalists' repeated use of criminal methods to get stories. Click here to read.

Former Screws' editors Andy Coulson and Rebekah Wade presided over these hacks - Coulson, as usual in these matters, denies any knowledge. However former deputy PM John Precott is calling on Cameron to sack him as the Tories' chief spin doctor. Meanwhile, why didn't the Metropolitan Police or the Crown Prosecution Service pursue this matter?

Coulson (a useful bio) is an old friend of Madame Arcati. I recently attempted to get up a petition on the No 10 website to draw attention to his involvement in the bullying of a Screws journalist while editor (see labels). The site appeared to ignore my application. Then following a number of my complaints on this site and on Twitter, an email was sent to me from the No 10 site claiming I had failed to respond within a given period to its request that I make changes to the petition because it was "party political": therefore the petition must be blocked. I had not received the first letter.

I don't see what is party political about drawing attention to the fact of bullying (as established at an employment tribunal). Why would the Tories want to employ a recognised bully? Are there laws against workplace bullying or are we meant to giggle and ignore them as an act of bravado? That was the point of my petition.

One moronic hack tweeted me that bullying is endemic to journalism and politics, so what was my problem? Frankly, a hack of this sort shouldn't be in journalism. He should just fuck off into PR and have done with it. And take his bully-friendly pals with him.

Former Sunday Times ed Andrew Neil calls the bugging story "one of the most significant media stories of modern times" and describes the Screws newsroom as "out of control". Coulson cannot hide behind his claim of obliviousness: he must go now. Is it not the job of a media boss to know what's going on under his nose as well as behind his back? I wonder if he ever knew he was editing the News of the World.

Workplace bullying: Will Coulson get a dose of Crabbs?

In the Commons today Tory MP Stephen Crabb baited Gordon Brown on workplace bullying, thinking perhaps of all those flunkies and Cabinet members the PM has snarled and thrown mobiles at. This is most admirable of Mr Crabb for there is another person in British politics who stands accused of workplace bullying - the Tories' own spin doctor Andy Coulson who has not (to my knowledge) denied presiding over a culture of bullying as one-time editor of the News of the World - story, click here.

At last someone in the Tory Party in prepared to strip away the veil of silence over employee abuse by overbearing managers - do send your congratulations to him at crabbs@parliament.uk. I look forward to Mr Crabb encouraging Mr Coulson to repent his ways. I can scarcely wait.

Christian Bale: Dickhead's rant turned to dance classic

Screaming Christian Bale's bullying rant at someone on the set of Terminator: Salvation has been turned into a great dance track (with a Barbra Streisand cameo) by RevoLucian.

The News of the World: So, what about Coulson?

The News of the World rightly makes a fuss about Prince Harry using racist terms such as "Paki" and "raghead". It's good to see that a newspaper, whose owner Rupert Murdoch thinks Muslims are "inferior", can rise above proprietorial prejudice and nail a social evil.

Now that it has set such a good example, perhaps it would like to turn its attention to another social evil. The Conservative Party's director of communications, Andy Coulson, was recently found by an employment tribunal to have presided over a "culture of bullying" at his previous place of employment. His conduct made one reporter's life a misery. He has not publicly denied misconduct. To date, no anti-bullying organisation, no periodical that I know of (Private Eye aside), and certainly no Tory, has condemned or questioned his behaviour. Coulson would appear to be inviolable. Is it that bullying is not regarded as serious as racism? Are we picking and choosing social evils according to circulation value?

The fact that Coulson's last job was the editorship of the News of the World shouldn't put the paper off.

Andy Coulson: Media bullied into silence?

I am delighted to see that Private Eye, the world's second best magazine (there is no first, dearies) , has taken up the cause against Andy Coulson (in its new Jan 9 edition), the bullying former editor of the News of the World who is now the Tories' director of communications (ie spin).

In a previous post I expressed astronishment that the Tories have not invited Coulson to fuck off on the grounds that a future Conservative government might have credibility problems on any bullying policies in retaining his services. Late last year, an employment tribunal found that he had presided over a bullying culture at the newspaper, had waged some sort of vendetta against an unwell sports hack, Matt Driscoll. Coulson didn't turn up to explain himself and media silence followed. So much for concerns about bullying.

The Eye now reveals why. "Tory spinners have been in overdrive since Christmas, warning hacks not to run anything on the damning judgement for fear of antagonising 'the chap who'll run the next government' [Coulson]," the magazine reports. Does this sound like collateral bullying?

It is a disgrace that the Tories and the mainstream media have not made more of this. Is it now the position of the Tory Party that some laws are less important than others? And as the Eye reminds us, the liars and dolts of the News of the World only recently championed an anti-bullying campaign in schools. Of course there are those who do not take bullying seriously for fear of being viewed weak: when I contacted Guido Fawkes about this before Christmas, all that clot could say was that he had been a bully at school and made light of the matter. He thought I was a "snitch".

I also contacted a number of UK anti-bullying organisations: not one has yet responded, though the Christmas hols may account for that. I will continue to draw attention to this case - and of course we await news of the compensation to be awarded to Driscoll.

A Happy New Year to you all

Thank you for all your comments during the year, for all your good and bad wishes. Madame Arcati's visitor audience grew by nearly 15% in 2008 compared with 2007, and pageviews increased by just under 20%, to nearly 737,000. Absolutely Unique Visitors was up to nearly 253,000, up over 30% on 2007. Frankly, I have no idea how this was achieved but if you're reading this, chances are you had a hand in it.

Of Arcati's world audience, 318,217 people visited the site from 206 countries/territories, with the US at the No 1 spot, up over 14% on '07. The UK was at No 2, just over 3% up. Italy suddenly became a fan, up over 219% year-on-year. Liechtenstein excelled itself with one visitor in the whole of 2008, down 50% on '07. I hope it wasn't something I said.

Such figures suggest an internationally thin but robust interest in a blog that has no especial theme and is at the mercy of the whim and passing fancy of a funny fanny. God knows what keeps it going. But at least it's not part of a newspaper blogging herd with subjects initiated by some under-age cunt editor and nannied with legal notices telling you not to use bad language, or to deviate from the ordained topic, as in some sort of Miss Jean Brodie class.

So happy New Year. And remember: the UK Tories support bullying in the workplace. You know what I'm talking about if you're an Arcatiste.