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Paul Michael Dacre (; born 14 November 1948) is an English journalist and the former long-serving editor of the British right-wing tabloid the ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
''.
He is also editor-in-chief of
DMG Media
DMG Media (stylised in lowercase) is an intermediate holding company for Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe Media, Harmsworth Printing, Harmsworth Media and other subsidiaries of Daily Mail and General Trust. It is based at Northcliffe House in ...
, which publishes the ''Daily Mail'', ''
The Mail on Sunday
''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the '' Daily Mail'', was first pu ...
'', the free daily tabloid ''
Metro
Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to:
Geography
* Metro (city), a city in Indonesia
* A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center
Public transport
* Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...
'', the
MailOnline
MailOnline (also known as ''dailymail.co.uk'') is the website of the '' Daily Mail'', a newspaper in the United Kingdom, and of its sister paper '' The Mail on Sunday''. MailOnline is a division of dmg media, which is owned by Daily Mail and ...
website, and other titles.
["Paul Dacre appointed Editor-in-Chief"](_blank)
, Daily Mail and General Trust, 16 July 1998. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
On 1 October 2018, Dacre became chairman and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, and stood down as editor of the ''Daily Mail'' in the following month.
He briefly left Associated Newspapers in November 2021, but rejoined just three weeks later following his withdrawal from the race to become Ofcom chairman.
Early life
Dacre was born and grew up in the north London suburb of
Arnos Grove
Arnos Grove () is an List of areas of London, area of north London, England, within the London Borough of Enfield. It is centred north of Charing Cross. It is adjacent to New Southgate. The natural grove (nature), grove, larger than today, ...
in
Enfield
Enfield may refer to:
Places Australia
* Enfield, New South Wales
* Enfield, South Australia
** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb
** Enfield High School (South Australia)
...
.
His father,
Peter
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
, was a journalist on the ''
Sunday Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
'' whose work included show business features.
[ ] Joan (née Hill), his mother, was a teacher; the couple had five sons, of whom Paul was the eldest.
One of his brothers, Nigel, was editor of
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
's news programmes from 1995 to 2002.
Dacre was educated at
University College School
("Slowly but surely")
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public schoolIndependent day school
, religion =
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
, head = Mark Beard
, r_head_label =
, r_hea ...
, an
independent school
An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...
in
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
, on a state scholarship,
where he was head of house.
In his school holidays, he worked as a messenger at the ''Sunday Express'', and during his pre-university gap year as a trainee in the ''Daily Express''.
From 1967 he read English at the
University of Leeds
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
, while
Jack Straw
John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
was President of the Students' Union.
While at university, he became involved with the ''
Union News'' newspaper (the ''Leeds Student'' from 1970), rising to the position of editor.
At this time he identified with the liberal end of the political spectrum on issues including
gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , 3 ...
and drug use,
and wrote editorials in support of a student sit-in at Leeds organised by Straw.
He introduced a pin-up feature in the newspaper called "Leeds Lovelies".
He told the ''
British Journalism Review
''British Journalism Review'' is an opinionated quarterly journal covering the field of journalism. The journal's editor is Kim Fletcher who is supported by an editorial board of journalists and journalism academics. It was established in 1989 and ...
'' in 2002: "If you don't have a left-wing period when you go to university, you should be shot"
and said of his early experience of editing in November 2008 that it taught him "dull
ontentdoesn't sell newspapers. Boring doesn't pay the mortgage", but also that "sensation sells papers".
On his graduation in 1971, Dacre joined the ''
Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
'' in Manchester for a six-month trial;
after this he was given a full-time job on the ''Express''. Concerning his career choice, Dacre commented in the ''BJR'' interview that he did not have "any desire to do anything other than journalism".
Early career
At the ''Express'', Dacre was based in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
for a few years before being sent to the office in London. He was sent to
Washington D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
, in 1976 to cover that year's American
presidential election
A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President.
Elections by country
Albania
The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public.
Chile
The pre ...
,
remaining there until 1979, when he moved to
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
as a correspondent.
[ ] It was at this time that his politics shifted to the right:
After his years at the ''Express'' bureau, Dacre was head-hunted by
David English, appointed as head of the ''Mail''s New York bureau in 1979 and brought back to London in 1980. A profile in ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' in 1992 recounted his behaviour in this period: "It was terrifying stuff. He would rampage through the newsroom with his arms flailing like a windmill, scratching himself manically as he fired himself up."
Subsequently, he became assistant editor (news and features), assistant editor (features) in 1987, executive editor the following year and associate editor in 1989.
[Griffiths ''Fleet Street: Five Hundred Years of the Press'', p. 379.] In this period, according to former colleague
Sue Douglas
Susan Margaret Douglas (born 29 January 1957) is a British media executive and former newspaper editor.
Early life
Born in London, she was educated at Tiffin Girls' School in Kingston.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Pre ...
, Dacre was a "good David English disciple".
[Addison ''Mail Men'', p. 246] Adrian Addison found opinions differed as to whether Dacre was an English protégé when he was conducting research for ''Mail Men''.
During Dacre's brief period as editor of the ''
Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' from March 1991 to July the following year, circulation of the newspaper rose by 16%.
Editor of the ''Daily Mail''
Appointment
Dacre succeeded (the by then)
Sir David English
Sir David English (26 May 1931 – 10 June 1998) was a British journalist and newspaper editor, best known for his two-decade editorship of the ''Daily Mail''.
Biography
English was born in Oxford, and educated at Bournemouth School. His father ...
as editor of the ''Daily Mail'' in July 1992.
Dacre had turned down an offer from
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
to edit ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
''
believing that Murdoch "would not accept my desire to edit with freedom".
It was his approach to the job of editor, "hard-working, disciplined, confrontational" according to Roy Greenslade,
which had led Murdoch to attempt to hire him. For the ''Mail'', Dacre was considered important enough to necessitate sidelining someone thought unsackable; English became editor-in-chief and Chairman of Associated Newspapers, then the parent company.
Dacre was known in the summer of 1992 to be against Britain's membership of the
Exchange Rate Mechanism
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) is a system introduced by the European Economic Community on 1 January 1999 alongside the introduction of a single currency, the euro (replacing ERM 1 and the euro's predecessor, the ECU) as p ...
(this was shortly before
Black Wednesday
Black Wednesday (or the 1992 Sterling crisis) occurred on 16 September 1992 when the UK Government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed attempt to keep its exchange rate above the ...
in September when Britain was forced out of the ERM) and the
Maastricht Treaty
The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the ...
. Several leaders in his last weeks at the ''Standard'' asserted that "Maastricht is dead" (on 10 June); "Unrealities in the EEC" (sic, 29 June); and an appeal to prime minister
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
, 'Come on, John, gizzaballot" (30 June).
In contrast, English was a Europhile and allowed more international content in the paper. Dacre apparently ceased publishing a page on World News and an American diary as soon as possible after he took over.
[Addison ''Mail Men'', p.9]
After English died in March 1998, Dacre himself became the Mail Group's editor-in-chief the following July,
in addition to remaining as editor of the ''Daily Mail''.
Stephen Lawrence case
Dacre's most prominent newspaper campaign was in 1997, against the suspects who were acquitted of the murder in 1993 of the black teenager
Stephen Lawrence
Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
. It "turned out to be one of the very rare instances in which the editor showed fellow-feeling", wrote
Andrew O'Hagan
Andrew O'Hagan (born 1968) is a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
His m ...
.
According to
Nick Davies
Nicholas Davies (born 28 March 1953) is an award-winning British investigative journalist, writer, and documentary maker.
Davies has written extensively as a freelancer, as well as for ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', and been named Re ...
in ''Flat Earth News'' (2008), the paper originally intended an attack on the groups arguing for an inquiry into the Lawrence murder, but the paper's reporter Hal Austin, on interviewing Neville and Doreen Lawrence, realised that some years earlier, Neville had worked at Dacre's home in Islington as a plasterer,
and the news desk instructed Austin to "Do something sympathetic" about the case.
Dacre eventually used the headline "MURDERERS" accusing the suspects of the crime on 14 February 1997. He repeated this headline in 2006.
On the final day of the inquest held at the coroner's court, Dacre and other Mail executives had lunch with
Sir Paul Condon, then Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
, "who very eloquently told me they were as guilty as sin".
Four of the five suspects had never provided any
alibi
An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...
for their whereabouts on the night of Stephen Lawrence's murder and they invoked the privilege against
self incrimination
In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another ersonin a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof". (Self-incrimination ...
to avoid giving evidence and exposing themselves to
cross examination
In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Pakistan known as examination-in-chief) and m ...
. The police believed that the alibi of the fifth suspect was unconvincing. The newspaper on 14 February 1997, under its headline asserted: "The ''Mail'' accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us". No
claim was issued and the newspaper received significant acclaim and opprobrium as a result.
Two of the men featured on the ''Mails "MURDERERS" front page were convicted of Stephen Lawrence's murder in January 2012.
Jonathan Freedland
Jonathan Saul Freedland (born 25 February 1967) is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for ''The Guardian''. He presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series ''The Long View''. Freedland also writes thrillers, mainly under the ...
of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' wrote of the development: "He made an unlikely anti-racist campaigner, but there were few voices more critical in the demand for justice for Stephen Lawrence than Paul Dacre and the ''Daily Mail''." However,
Brian Cathcart
Brian Cathcart (born 26 October 1956) is an Irish-born journalist, academic and media campaigner based in the United Kingdom. He is professor of journalism at Kingston University London and in 2011 was a founder of Hacked Off, which campaigns for ...
wrote in November 2017 that the paper's "principal claims" about its involvement in the case "are at best exaggerated and at worst unsupported by evidence."
On other occasions, the ''Mail'' under Dacre has been criticised for an alleged racist attitude towards the stories it chooses to cover. Nick Davies recounts an anecdote from a former senior news reporter who, en route to a murder scene of a woman and her two children 300 miles away, was told to return because the victims were black.
[Davies p. 371] Davies comments: "Perhaps I have been unlucky, but I have never come across a reporter from the ''Daily Mail'' who did not have some similar story, of black people being excluded from the paper because of their colour."
New Labour years
Dacre is "highly influential politically", in the opinion of the journalist
Simon Heffer
Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
.
For a while, the ''Daily Mail'' under Dacre briefly entertained positive views of New Labour until the
Formula 1 tobacco advertising controversy and clashes with the government's Director of Communications
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
cooled the relationship owing to the practice of
spin doctoring.
By 2001, according to the former ''Mail'' journalist (later the political editor) James Chapman, relations between Dacre and
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
had completely broken down.
Dacre stated at a meeting of the
Select Committee on Public Administration in 2004:
Dacre later wrote in 2013: "for years, while most of Fleet Street were in thrall to it, the ''Mail'' was the only paper to stand up to the malign propaganda machine of Tony Blair and his appalling henchman, Campbell".
As recounted by the academic and journalist
John Lloyd in 2004, Campbell's assistant in Labour's first term,
Tim Allan, believed "the government
pentyears trying to be chummy with the ''Daily Mail''... Blair sees himself as the great persuader, able to convince anyone. But they didn't want to like him. The government raised far too much time trying to turn the ''Mail'' around".
The newspaper also turned against
Cherie Blair
Cherie, Lady Blair, (; born 23 September 1954), also known professionally as Cherie Booth, is an English barrister and writer. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Tony Blair.
Early life and education
Booth ...
, the former Prime Minister's wife, when the Blairs' lawyers prevented the publication of a former nanny's memoirs; official regulations prevent press revelations regarding the children of public figures. The ''Daily Mail'' and ''
Mail on Sunday
''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first pub ...
'' also came into direct conflict with
No. 10 in 2002 for their pursuit of Cherie Blair's connection to the conman
Peter Foster
Peter Clarence Foster (born 1962) is an Australian career criminal who has been imprisoned in Australia, Britain, the United States, and Vanuatu for a variety of offences related to weight loss and other scams as well as absconding from justic ...
, although Dacre denied any "agenda apart from good journalism".
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
targeted the ''Mail'' titles directly, denouncing "parts of the media that will take what there is that is true and then turn it round into something that is a total distortion of the real truth".
According to
Michael White, Dacre made contact with
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
around 2000 as the ''Mail'' editor's attitude towards Blair became more negative. In 2002, while Brown was
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...
, Dacre commented about his high admiration for him: "I feel he is one of the very few politicians of this administration who's touched by the mantle of greatness".
Brown returned the favour at an event at the
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 188 ...
which celebrated the tenth anniversary of Dacre's editorship of the ''Mail'' in 2003.
In a video presentation, Brown said that Dacre "has devised, developed and delivered one of the great newspaper success stories of any generation" and was "someone of great journalistic skill, an editor of great distinction and someone of very great personal warmth".
Journalist
Polly Toynbee
Mary Louisa "Polly" Toynbee (; born 27 December 1946) is a British journalist and writer. She has been a columnist for ''The Guardian'' newspaper since 1998.
She is a social democrat and was a candidate for the Social Democratic Party in the 19 ...
referred to this relationship as an "incomprehensible and grovelling friendship" on the part of Brown with "Labour's worst enemy".
In explanation,
Peter Wilby
Peter John Wilby (born 7 November 1944) is a British journalist. He is a former editor of ''The Independent on Sunday'' and the ''New Statesman''.
Early life and career
Wilby was educated at Kibworth Beauchamp grammar school in Leicestershire b ...
thought both men were "puritans at heart". Campbell, however, has written that Brown in conversation always "adamantly denied" being a "personal friend" of Dacre.
Although he is a
Eurosceptic
Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies, and seek reform ...
,
Dacre backed
Kenneth Clarke
Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham, (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997 as well as serving as de ...
, an advocate of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, to be leader of the Conservative Party on two occasions.
In what
Anthony Barnett has described as "a gem of far-sightedness", a ''Mail'' editorial on the
Conservative leadership candidates in 2005 got round this contradiction by arguing the campaign for Britain to
switch to the Euro as its currency "has for the foreseeable future, been overtaken by events". While
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
was considered "attractive", although "insubstantial", and "too obsessed with aping Mr Blair", Clarke was "uniquely qualified to start a long overdue demolition job on" Labour's "shameful war record" in Iraq, Blair having "led Britain into an illegal war on the coat-tails of the Americans". It added "no one has dared accuse" Clarke "of not being a patriot".
After the change of Labour prime minister in 2007, Brown commissioned an independent inquiry chaired by Dacre on the release of government information, which reported in late January 2009. It recommended the halving of the
thirty-year rule
The "thirty-year rule" is the informal name given to laws in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Commonwealth of Australia that provide that certain government documents will be released publicly thirty years after they were creat ...
in the remaining areas where it still applied. Dacre wrote: "the existing rule seemed to condone unnecessary secrecy rather than protecting necessary confidentiality. This perception of secrecy was breeding public cynicism".
Dacre said during a talk given to students in January 2007, that the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
could not be guaranteed the ''Mail's'' support at the
2010 general election, and he also queried whether the party was still
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
.
The editor and his newspaper
According to
Cristina Odone
Cristina Patricia Odone (born 11 November 1960) is an Italian-British journalist, editor, and writer. She is the Founder and Chair of the Parenting Circle Charity. Odone is formerly the Editor of ''The Catholic Herald'', Deputy Editor of the ' ...
, writing for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'', Dacre has a reputation towards underlings of "verbal abuse" and "a drill sergeant's delight in public humiliation". Nick Davies, in his book ''Flat Earth News'', writes that Dacre's staff call his morning editorial meetings the "Vagina Monologues" because of his habit of calling everybody a "cunt". In his ''
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usu ...
'' appearance in 2004, host
Sue Lawley quizzed him on his methods, to which Dacre responded: "Shouting creates energy, energy creates great headlines."
Conrad Black
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (born 25 August 1944), is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher, businessman, and writer.
His father was businessman George Montegu Black II, who had significant holdings in Canadi ...
, a convicted fraudster and ex-proprietor of the Telegraph papers, considers him "a saturnine and capricious manipulator". Peter Wilby, in a January 2014 profile for the ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'', quoted an anonymous source, who said of Dacre: "He's no longer the expletive volcano he once was; his barbs these days tend to concern the brainpower of his target and their supposed laziness."
According to John Lloyd writing in April 2012, Dacre's newspaper "is a daily and brilliantly disciplined savaging of government follies, progressive fads and flouters of the time-honoured verities of British and family life".
Dacre, he commented in 2007, is the only "British newspaper editor who stamps himself on his newspaper every morning" reflecting "his unique blend of libertarian-authoritarian Conservatism".
According to
Roy Greenslade
Roy Greenslade (born 31 December 1946) is a British author and freelance journalist, and a former professor of journalism. He worked in the UK newspaper industry from the 1960s onwards. As a media commentator, he wrote a daily blog from 2006 to ...
in ''The Guardian'': "The ''Mail'' is a rare national newspaper in that it is the embodiment of the values and views of its editor rather than its proprietor. It is very much Paul Dacre's paper. This is to the credit of"
Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere
Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere (born 3 December 1967), is a British peer and inheritor of a newspaper and media empire founded by his great-grandfather Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere. He is t ...
"in the sense that he allows the editor to hold sway".
Some years later, at the
Leveson Inquiry
The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of ...
in February 2012, Dacre rejected the idea that he imposes his will on the paper. He commented that some issues contain opinions which "make my hair go white" and asserted that some journalists "would resign if I told them what to write".
Peter Preston
Peter John Preston (23 May 1938 – 6 January 2018) was a British journalist and author. He was editor of ''The Guardian'' for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995.
Early life
Peter Preston was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, the son of J ...
noted: "He can hire leading voices from the ''Guardian'' or the ''Observer'' and let them say exactly what they'd have said in their old homes."
The astrologer
Jonathan Cainer
Jonathan Cainer (18 December 1957 – 2 May 2016) was a British astrologer. He wrote astrological predictions six days a week for the '' Daily Mail,'' and forecasts for three Australian newspapers: the ''Sydney Daily Telegraph'', the '' Melb ...
was first taken on for a ''Mail'' horoscope column in December 1992. Given to an unconventional dress code Dacre found objectionable, his contract had a clause insisting he wore a suit. Cainer, who spent the bulk of his career at the ''Mail'' although he "never once agreed with an editorial they have published", was the highest paid journalist of his era.
[ ]
Dacre told Lauren Collins for a 2012 article about the ''Mail'' in ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'': "The family is the greatest institution on God's green earth." The typical locale of his readers, he told Collins, is the area of North London in which Dacre himself was raised, Arnos Grove: "Its inhabitants were frugal, reticent, utterly self-reliant, and immensely aspirational. They were also suspicious of progressive values, vulgarity of any kind, self-indulgence, pretentiousness, and people who know best".
These pretensions have sometimes received dismissive responses.
Owen Jones
Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a British newspaper columnist, political commentator, journalist, author, and left-wing activist. He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'' and '' Tribune.'' He has two ...
in ''The Establishment'' (2014) wrote that Dacre "is the epitome of the privileged and powerful journalist who has convinced himself that he's the voice of the little man, the ordinary Brit".
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...
in August 2013 said Dacre "decries indecency on one page and pushes his male readers" into looking at "a semi-nude actress on another. His cancer scare, miracle cure stories are sickeningly anti-science and the only good thing to be said about his ''Mail'' is that no one decent or educated believes in it".
Dacre defended himself against his critics in October 2013 decrying the existence of "an unpleasant intellectual snobbery about the ''Mail'' in leftish circles, for whom the word 'suburban' is an obscenity. They simply cannot comprehend how a paper that opposes the mindset they hold dear can be so successful and so loved by its millions of readers. Well, I'm proud that the ''Mail'' stands up for those readers".
Eight former national newspaper editors in 2003 considered "the secret of its success", according to
Brian MacArthur
Brian MacArthur (5 February 1940 – 24 March 2019) was a British newspaper editor.
Early life
MacArthur studied at Brentwood School, Helsby Grammar School and the University of Leeds.
Career
In 1962, he entered journalism, his first job bein ...
in ''The Times'', as being "Dacre's utter, old-fashioned professionalism".
A MORI poll in 2005 asked 30 editors from the national and regional press and from the broadcasting industry for the name of the editor they most admired. Dacre won the poll. For
Kelvin MacKenzie
Kelvin Calder MacKenzie (born 22 October 1946) is an English media executive and a former newspaper editor. He became editor of '' The Sun'' in 1981, by which time the publication was established as Britain's largest circulation newspaper. Aft ...
, the former editor of ''
The Sun'' writing in 2005, he is "comfortably Britain's finest editor" who arrives at work "determined to crush the life out of his rivals".
Critics of Dacre, such as Brian Cathcart, have spoken of his "outstanding gifts as an editor".
Peter Wilby considers the ''Mail'' "a technically brilliant paper".
Editorial issues
Allegations of prejudicial coverage
Andrew O'Hagan wrote in the ''
London Review of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews.
History
The ''London Review of ...
'' in 2017 that Dacre's "worst effect" on the ''Mail'' "has been to let it seem mired in the things it hates, as if society's worst excesses were mostly an outgrowth of its own paranoid imagination".
In his view, under its editor the paper is a "bubbling quagmire of prejudice posing as news, of opinion dressed as fact, and contempt posing as contempt for that portion of the world's population that doesn't live in Cheam".
Polly Toynbee in 2004 commented "Read him out the first clause of the press code - the one that tells newspapers not to 'publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted material', and he replies with a straight face that the Mail obeys it".
Writing in ''The Independent'' in 2002, Simon O'Hagan stated: "As far as Dacre is concerned, women have no right to go out and earn money of their own, let alone rise to positions of power, when they also have a family".
Journalist
Rachel Johnson
Rachel Sabiha Johnson (born 3 September 1965) is a British journalist, television presenter, and author who has appeared frequently on political discussion panels, including '' The Pledge'' on Sky News and BBC One's debate programme, ''Questi ...
, writing in ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' in 2001, noted that photographs taken of women for the features pages of the ''Mail'' must comply with the 'Dacre Rules' which she considered a "patriarchal, sexist, trivialising treatment of women". Johnson quoted a female ''Mail'' photographer she had met while writing an article for the newspaper: "No jeans. No black
lothes No trousers. Paul Dacre only wants women to appear wearing dresses. If skirts, only to the knee". In 2007, Toynbee claimed the paper shares the opinions of Iran's
President Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( fa, محمود احمدینژاد, Mahmūd Ahmadīnežād ), born Mahmoud Sabbaghian ( fa, محمود صباغیان, Mahmoud Sabbāghyān, 28 October 1956), when it responded to his country's release of the hostage
Faye Turney
On 23 March 2007, fifteen Royal Navy personnel from were searching a merchant vessel when they were surrounded by the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and detained off the Iran–Iraq coast. In the course of events, British forces cl ...
in April 2007. After attempting to buy her story, according to the
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
, "with a very substantial sum", and Turney going elsewhere, the paper denounced her as an "unfit mother".
"If you dare to take on the ''Mail'' you are a marked man (or woman)", wrote Roy Greenslade in 2013.
"When the ''Mail'' has a target in its sights, the victims suffer", wrote Brian MacArthur in ''The Times'' over a decade earlier.
In 2005, the then Mayor of London,
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...
, long in conflict with the London ''Evening Standard'', then wholly owned by the same media group as the ''Mail'', branded the Mail titles as "the most reprehensibly edited" publications in the world with the ''Mail'' chosen as having most "disgraceful record". The ''Mail's'' treatment of asylum seekers and members of other vulnerable groups is a particular source of grievance for many critics, not only Livingstone. "Maybe we anti-racists have been naive to think that
he Stephen Lawrence campaignwas anything more than an aberration," suggests
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (''née'' Damji; born 10 December 1949) is a British journalist and author, who describes herself as "a leftie liberal, anti-racist, feminist, Muslim...person". A regular columnist for the ''i '' newspaper and the ''Eveni ...
, adding: "wouldn't it be better if this extraordinary editor decided to use his influence to create just a little more understanding of why refugees leave their countries, and what most of them bring to our nation?"
Expenditure, revenue and circulation
Dacre has pursued a strategy of appointing star columnists established at other newspapers at significantly raised salaries, including in 2006,
Peter Oborne
Peter Alan Oborne (; born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the former chief political commentator of ''The Daily Telegraph'', from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of ''The Rise of Political Lying'', ''Th ...
(for £200,000 per annum) and
Tom Utley
Thomas Dermot Utley (born 29 November 1952) is a British journalist who writes for the '' Daily Mail''.
Life and career
Utley is the son of the journalist T. E. ('Peter') Utley and Brigid Viola Mary (1927–2012), daughter of Dermot Morrah, a j ...
(for £120,000).
Richard Littlejohn
Richard Littlejohn (born 18 January 1954) is an English author, broadcaster and journalist. He writes a twice-weekly column for the ''Daily Mail'' about British affairs as observed from reading the news at home in Florida.
Littlejohn has been a ...
was then on £700,000 a year.
Contractual problems have sometimes broken into the open. Astrologer Jonathan Cainer, before his 2000–4 sojourn when he worked for other titles, was offered £1 million to stay with the ''Mail'' because he was thought vital to sustaining the paper's circulation over the ''Daily Express''. This dispute led to a court case against Cainer which the ''Mail'' lost.
Another legal entanglement came in 2005 with ''The Sun'' when the terms of Littlejohn's contract came into conflict with his obligations to his former newspaper. Dacre's appearance in the
High Court was only averted by a few days. Like other titles, reductions in the editorial budget because of the decline in advertising revenue have resulted in staff redundancies.
From the business point of view, Dacre's time as editor has been highly successful: "no editor can point to rises in sales that come anywhere near Dacre's in the
irst
An infrared search and track (IRST) system (sometimes known as infrared sighting and tracking) is a method for detecting and tracking objects which give off infrared radiation, such as the infrared signatures of jet aircraft and helicopters.
IR ...
10 years that he has been in the job", wrote Simon O'Hagan in 2002.
In his first decade as editor of the ''Mail'', circulation rose by 805,000 in a declining market for tabloid newspapers,
[ ] although the rise in circulation was helped by the closure of the ''
Today
Today (archaically to-day) may refer to:
* Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now''
* Current era, present
* The current calendar date
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...
'' newspaper. Circulation peaked in 2003 with daily sales of 2.5 million copies, but by 2018 was down to 1.4 million.
However, the Mail Group's website
Mailonline
MailOnline (also known as ''dailymail.co.uk'') is the website of the '' Daily Mail'', a newspaper in the United Kingdom, and of its sister paper '' The Mail on Sunday''. MailOnline is a division of dmg media, which is owned by Daily Mail and ...
has overtaken ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as the English-language title with the largest reach. Although the website reprints content from the newspaper, as well as generating its own material, responsibility for it is delegated to Martin Clarke as Dacre does not use a computer. Dacre received a bonus of £263,388 (as revealed in the 2016 DGMT annual report) for his involvement in the company's consumer digital media.
On 24 May 2016, Lord Rothermere issued a company profit's warning to
the city and the share price fell by almost 10%.
Public appearances
A shy man who is uneasy in company, according to former employee
Helen Lewis, Dacre has a reputation for avoiding publicity and seldom gives interviews.
[ ] He has a low opinion of "celebrity editors" such as the (then) editor of the ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'',
Piers Morgan
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (; né O'Meara; born 30 March 1965) is a British broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He began his Fleet Street career in 1988 at '' The Sun''. In 1994, aged 29, he was appointed editor of the ...
. Responding to comments on his more limited public visibility to a parliamentary select committee in 2004, he spoke of his peers who "think they are public figures and the more they become speaking heads on TV chat shows the more their newspapers decline and they do not last very long in their jobs".
The
Cudlipp Lecture was delivered by Dacre at the
London College of Communication
The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation, film, graphic design, photography and sound arts. It has approximately ...
on 22 January 2007.
[Paul Dacr]
"The BBC's cultural Marxism will trigger an American-style backlash"
as reproduced on 'Comment is Free', ''The Guardian'', 24 February 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2007. For him, Britain is dominated by a "subsidariat", those newspapers whose "journalism and values—invariably liberal, metropolitan and politically correct, and I include the pinkish ''Times'' here—don't connect with sufficient readers to be commercially viable" and make a profit. Dacre also attacked the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
as a "monolith" pursuing "
cultural Marxism
The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture. The conspiracy theory misrepresents the ...
" which has a singular world view and is contemptuous of "ordinary people". According to Dacre:
Dacre was also critical of David Cameron, then just over a year into his leadership of the Conservative Party: "Today's Tories are obsessed by the BBC. They saw what its attack dogs did to
illiamHague,
ain
Ain (, ; frp, En) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where ...
Duncan Smith and
ichaelHoward. Cameron's cuddly blend of eco-politics and work/life balance, his embrace of Polly Toynbee, a columnist who loathes everything Conservatism stands for, but is a totemic figure to the BBC, his sidelining of
Thatcherism
Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character and general style of manag ...
and his banishing of all talk of lower taxes, lower immigration and euroscepticism are all part of the Tories' blood sacrifice to the BBC god."
Greg Dyke
Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing ' ...
, writing for ''The Independent'', commented that when he was the BBC's Director General "we did a piece of research on the readership of the ''Daily Mail'' and found that they were more likely to appreciate and like the BBC than the public at large. In other words, he thinks his readers are all like him but they are not".
Martin Kettle
Martin James Kettle (born 7 September 1949) is a British journalist and author. The son of two prominent communist activists, Arnold Kettle (best remembered as a literary critic; 1916–1986) and Margot Kettle (née Gale; 1916–1995), he was ed ...
,
["Martin Kettle](_blank)
on Dacre's Cudlipp lecture", ''Press Gazette'', 9 February 2007. Retrieved on 9 July 2007. a columnist in ''The Guardian'', questioned whether Dacre's assertion that the ''Mail'' represents Conservative voters can be sustained. Kettle wrote that in the
2005 general election 22% of ''Mail'' readers voted
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
, 14% for the
Liberal Democrats and 7% for other non-Conservative candidates. "In this respect, therefore, the editor who claims to have a hotline to the national mood turns out to have something of a crossed line instead", Kettle wrote.
Dacre became chairman of the PCC's Editors' Code of Practice Committee in April 2008.
On 9 November 2008, Dacre gave a speech to the Society of Editors Conference in Bristol in which he was critical of the emerging pressures for privacy laws following the conclusion of the
Max Mosley
Max Rufus Mosley (13 April 1940 – 23 May 2021) was a British racing driver, lawyer, and president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), a non-profit association which represents the interests of motoring organisations and ...
libel case against the ''
News of the World
The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...
'' and
Mr Justice Eady's closing remarks. According to Dacre, Eady had "effectively ruled that it was perfectly acceptable for" Mosley "to pay five women £2,500 to take part in acts of unimaginable sexual depravity with him" which is "the very abrogation of civilised behaviour of which the law is supposed to be the safeguard". Should the government want "to force a privacy law", the bill would need to go through the parliamentary stages, "withstand public scrutiny and win a series of votes", Dacre said. "Now, thanks to the wretched Human Rights Act, one judge with a subjective and highly relativist moral sense can do the same with a stroke of his pen".
[Paul Dacr]
"The threat to our press"
''The Guardian'', 10 November 2008.[ ] Referring to a case in 2006 where Eady had blocked the publication of a married man's account of his wife's seduction by a prominent figure involved in sport, Dacre said "the judge - in an unashamed reversal of centuries of moral and social thinking - placed the rights of the adulterer above society's age-old belief that adultery should be condemned".
If newspapers, which "devote considerable space" to "public affairs, don't have the freedom to write about scandal, I doubt whether they will retain their mass circulations with the obvious worrying implications for the democratic process".
Peter Wilby wrote in ''The Guardian'' about another of his attacks on the BBC: "As Dacre well knows, the cutting edge of news – scandal, exposure, campaigning – is still largely a print monopoly. He demands greater restrictions on the BBC, fewer on his own industry". While Dacre said "it is the duty of the media to take an ethical stand", according to Wilby "his idea of ethics includes running stories that are, at best, distorted and, at worst, plain wrong".
Nearly two years earlier, Wilby cited a
MORI
Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India.
Italian surname
*Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress
* Camilo Mori, Chilean painter
* Cesare ...
poll of ''Mail'' and ''Express'' readers suggesting they believed immigration was 20% of the British population, while the true figure then was about 7%.
Dacre and the PCC were criticised directly by Mosley in March 2009 at a meeting of the culture, media and sport committee at the House of Commons. but Dacre defended the newspaper industry's current system of self-regulation under the
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Indep ...
(PCC) in his statement accompanying the annual report published in 2010. In April 2009, Dacre made a further appearance in front of the House of Commons CMSSC, where he criticised current libel laws and the fees charged by law firms. Justice Eady referred to Dacre's submission (by "the man from the ''Daily Mail''") in December 2009 at a conference about privacy organised by
Justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
. "This ''ad hominem'' approach does absolutely nothing to further the debate", he said.
Dacre had said this "one man is given a virtual monopoly of all cases against the media", which is "surely the greatest scandal".
In his own later speech, Justice Eady asked for alternative proposals and said Dacre did not want any privacy law at all.
Leveson Inquiry
Dacre himself appeared on three occasions at the
Leveson Inquiry
The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of ...
, which had been set up by the Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron. He gave a speech at a Leveson seminar concerning press standards on 12 October 2011.
[Paul Dacr]
"Paul Dacre's speech at the Leveson inquiry - full text"
''The Guardian'', 12 October 2011
''The Daily Telegraph'' The BBC's ''
Newsnight
''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...
'' programme reported in January 2017 that Dacre refused to take David Cameron's telephone calls for months after the launch of the Leveson inquiry in 2011.
In his seminar delivered at the Leveson Inquiry, Dacre re-asserted his opinion that self-regulation "in a considerably beefed up form" remained "the only viable way of policing a genuinely free press".
He was critical of Cameron ("too close to News International") who "in a pretty cynical act of political expediency has prejudiced the outcome of this inquiry by declaring that the"
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Indep ...
, "an institution he'd been committed to only a few weeks previously, was a 'failed' body". Dacre claimed legislation passed in the last 20 years already helped stop necessary journalistic enquiry, and meant that the press was "already on the very cusp of being over regulated". After returning to his negative opinion of liberals, who "by and large hate all the popular press", he said "that Britain's commercially viable free press – because it is in hock to nobody – is the only really free media in this country."
His advocacy of newspaper owners being legally unable to reject any regulatory body was viewed as a reference to
Richard Desmond
Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is a British publisher, businessman and former pornographer.
According to the 2021 ''Sunday Times Rich List'', Desmond was the 107th richest person in the United Kingdom. He is the founder of North ...
, whose Northern & Shell company owns the ''
Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
'', and had withdrawn from the PCC.
In his first cross-examination on 6 February, Dacre admitted that the ''Mail'' had used the private detective
Steve Whittamore, who was jailed in 2005 for illegally accessing information, but claimed that the rest of the British press had done so too.
["Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre 'knew of use of detectives'"](_blank)
BBC News, 6 February 2012 Peter Wright, now a former editor of ''The Mail on Sunday'', had said in his session that the Sunday paper continued using Whittamore for 18 months after his conviction, which Dacre effectively confirmed. Dacre said he banned the use of all "Whittamore inquiry agencies" in 2007.
A suggestion from Dacre for a new "press card", to be supervised by a new body,
received support from ''The Independent'' but was rejected by commentators and other interested parties.
The actor
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as both a charming, and vulnerable romantic lead and has since transitioned into a dramatic character actor. Among his numerous a ...
had accused the ''Mail'' of using phone hacking to report on his private life, he told the Inquiry "voice messages on my mobile" could be the only source for a February 2007 ''Mail on Sunday'' article,
although Dacre himself made "extensive enquiries" to establish his newspapers had not used phone hacking.
John Lloyd in an April 2012 article for the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' wrote that there was "no evidence that the ''Daily Mail'' journalists asked for phones to be hacked". Dacre accused Grant of indulging in a "mendacious smear" in a November 2011 statement for his comment about voice messages.
Dacre refused to retract his response to
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as both a charming, and vulnerable romantic lead and has since transitioned into a dramatic character actor. Among his numerous a ...
at both appearances at the hearings, unless Grant withdrew his statement. He was quickly recalled on this specific issue, and again on 9 February 2012, he rejected calls that he should retract his allegation that actor
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as both a charming, and vulnerable romantic lead and has since transitioned into a dramatic character actor. Among his numerous a ...
lied.
DMGT had paid damages to Grant for a false February 2007 story in ''The Mail on Sunday'', but Dacre accused Grant of being "obsessed with trying to drag the ''Daily Mail'' into another newspaper's scandal". Grant stood by his accusation in an interview on the ''
Today
Today (archaically to-day) may refer to:
* Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now''
* Current era, present
* The current calendar date
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...
'' radio programme on 11 February.
In successive appearances at Leveson, Rupert Murdoch and then Dacre accused the other of having acting unethically in their respective business interests.
Dacre's Leveson appearances were described as being "defiant, disingenuous and in denial", by
Kevin Marsh. "It was a chilling insight into a warped mindset", Marsh wrote in the book, ''The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial''.
In the final report, Dacre was criticised for his paper's coverage of several stories, including the articles about Grant. The "draconian inquiry", Dacre said of Leveson in a 2014 speech, was "a kind of show trial in which the industry was judged guilty and had to prove its innocence". His industry faced the "unremitting pressure of fighting what I have no doubt was a concerted attempt by the Liberal Establishment, in cahoots with Whitehall and the Judiciary, to break the only institution in Britain that is genuinely free of Government control – the commercially viable free press".
Ralph Miliband articles
In late September and October 2013, Dacre became the subject of criticism across the UK media and political spectrum after the ''Daily Mail'' published a piece on 28 September maligning
Ralph Miliband
Ralph Miliband (born Adolphe Miliband; 7 January 1924 – 21 May 1994) was a British sociologist. He has been described as "one of the best known academic Marxists of his generation", in this manner being compared with E. P. Thompson, Eric Hob ...
, a deceased
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
academic and father of
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
, the leader of the Labour opposition at the time. The original article, entitled "The Man Who Hated Britain", alleged that Ralph Miliband detested the country he and his father had fled to from Nazi-occupied Europe on the basis of a diary note written when he was sixteen and because of his left-wing views. Ed Miliband requested a
right-of-reply The right of reply or right of correction generally means the right to defend oneself against public criticism in the same venue where it was published. In some countries, such as Brazil, it is a legal or even constitutional right. In other countrie ...
piece to be published, which was granted but placed alongside a reprinting of the original article and an editorial criticising him for responding, while insisting that Ralph Miliband did hate Britain and that his son's ambition was to inflict his father's Marxism upon the country. Roy Greenslade thought "the decision to carry
dMiliband's right of reply was...possibly unprecedented" and implied "the ''Mail'' knew it had gone over the top" with its claims about Ralph Miliband.
The criticism of Ralph Miliband, and his son's response, came in the run-up to a possible agreement between the media and parliament over the findings of the
Leveson inquiry
The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of ...
, a point which was made in the ''Mail''s editorial on the subject. The articles published by the ''Mail'' were criticised by publications including ''The Spectator'' and ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', as well as by major figures in the Conservative Party. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister
Nick Clegg
Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British media executive and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who has been president for global affairs at Meta Platforms since 2022, having previously been vicepr ...
empathised with Ed Miliband's response. Former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served a ...
condemned the ''Mail'' for demeaning the level of political debate, as did former Conservative cabinet minister
John Moore, who had been taught by Ralph Miliband at the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
.
The article also brought Dacre's position as editor-in-chief of
Associated Newspapers
DMG Media (stylised in lowercase) is an intermediate holding company for Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe Media, Harmsworth Printing, Harmsworth Media and other subsidiaries of Daily Mail and General Trust. It is based at Northcliffe House in ...
under scrutiny, with Roy Greenslade accusing him of poor decision making. Paul Dacre was given a right of reply by ''The Guardian'' a fortnight later: "As the week progressed and the hysteria increased, it became clear that this was no longer a story about an article on Mr Miliband's Marxist father but a full-scale war by the BBC and the left against the paper that is their most vocal critic".
Euroscepticism and post-Brexit
Allegations over David Cameron urging sacking
In early 2016, it has been reported on the BBC's ''
Newsnight
''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...
'' programme, prime minister
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
was worried the Eurosceptic stance of newspapers such as the ''Daily Mail'' in the run-up to the
2016 European Union membership referendum might affect the vote. According to a report by
Emily Maitlis
Emily Maitlis (born 6 September 1970) is a British journalist, documentary filmmaker, and former newsreader for the BBC. She was the lead anchor until the end of 2021 of ''Newsnight'', the BBC Two news and current affairs programme.
Early lif ...
at the end of January 2017, Cameron attempted to have Dacre sacked.
Cameron is believed to have met Dacre on 2 February 2016 in the former's Downing Street flat in an attempt to persuade him to tone down the anti-EU stance of his newspaper, specifically urging Dacre to "cut him some slack", but the ''Mail'' editor rejected this approach. He told Cameron he had been a Eurosceptic for a quarter-century, and thought his readers were too.
This was on the day on which the results of Cameron's recent renegotiation of Britain's membership of the EU were formally announced.
The paper's headline that day anticipating the day's announcement, was "Is that it then, Mr Cameron?" and on 3 February, following the meeting, the paper described the renegotiation as the prime minister's "Great Delusion".
Subsequently, Cameron is believed to have contacted Dacre's boss, the proprietor
Lord Rothermere
Viscount Rothermere, of Hemsted in the county of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1919 for the press lord Harold Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth. He had already been created a baronet, of Horsey in th ...
, who is known to have favoured the 'remain' option in the referendum, to persuade him to sack Dacre.
Dacre was reputedly "incandescent" in March 2016 when told by a Westminster source of Cameron's approach to Rothermere, and this strengthened his Brexit convictions.
A spokesman for Cameron said the then prime minister "did not believe he could determine who edits the ''Daily Mail''", but had sought to persuade Dacre and Rothermere over the EU membership vote. A spokesman for Rothermere refused to confirm or deny the story.
According to
Andy Beckett
Andy Beckett (born 1969) is a British journalist and historian. He writes for ''The Guardian'', the ''London Review of Books'' and ''The New York Times'' magazine.
He studied Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford, and journalism at the Univer ...
in a late October 2016 ''Guardian'' article, "Dacre and his paper" were "lukewarm towards the metropolitan Cameron".
A few months later, Ian Burrell in ''The Independent'' wrote that Dacre loathed Cameron, because of his dislike of his changes to the
Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
. The ''Daily Mail'', in 2015, serialised ''
Call Me Dave
''Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron'' is a 2015 book by Michael Ashcroft, a businessman and Conservative peer, and Isabel Oakeshott, a political journalist, about the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cam ...
'', the unauthorised and unflattering biography of Cameron written by
Michael Ashcroft
Michael Anthony Ashcroft, Baron Ashcroft, (born 4 March 1946) is a British-Belizean businessman, pollster and politician. He is a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. Ashcroft founded Michael A. Ashcroft Associates in 1972 and is ...
and
Isabel Oakeshott
Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott (born 12 June 1974) is a British political journalist and broadcaster.
She was the political editor of ''The Sunday Times'' and is the co-author, with Michael Ashcroft, of an unauthorised biography of former British ...
which contained the unverified "
Piggate
"Piggate" refers to a claim that, during his university years, former British Prime Minister David Cameron inserted his penis and/or testicles into a dead pig's mouth as part of an initiation ceremony for the Piers Gaveston Society at Oxford ...
" claims.
EU membership referendum
In April 2016,
Charles Moore wrote in ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' that the ''Daily Mail'' was covering the referendum campaign with "more anger than melancholy" with "bellowings of Eurosceptic rage from the great Paul Dacre". The ''Daily Mail'' backed the 'leave' option, or
Brexit
Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...
vote in the edition of 21 June, following an emphasis over the previous month on stories critical of immigration.
On 22 June, a day before the referendum, it urged: "Lies. Greedy elites. Or a great future outside a broken, dying Europe. ...If You Believe in Britain, Vote Leave". The paper and its editor, according to David Bond in the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' in July 2016, "have been leading the Eurosceptic charge against Brussels for two decades".
In contrast, the editor of sister title ''
The Mail on Sunday
''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the '' Daily Mail'', was first pu ...
'',
Geordie Greig
George Carron Greig (born 1960), known as Geordie Greig, is an English journalist and former editor of the ''Daily Mail''. He was editor in 2020 when it surpassed '' The Sun'' to become the best-selling newspaper in the UK.
Early life and care ...
, backed the 'remain' option in the referendum, although Dacre is formally his superior.
A call in early August 2016 by
Patience Wheatcroft
Patience Jane Wheatcroft, Baroness Wheatcroft (born 28 September 1951) is a British journalist and life peeress, who was editor-in-chief of ''The Wall Street Journal Europe.'' She left this role upon becoming a peer.
She previously served as ed ...
, a former ''Daily Mail'' journalist, for a second referendum intended to reject the Brexit vote "led to her being monstered as a 'cheerleader for the moneyed Metropolitan elite'" by the newspaper, Alastair Campbell wrote. "One of the triumphs of the campaign was for Murdoch and Dacre, two of the wealthiest people journalism has ever produced, to portray anyone in favour of Remain as part of this Metropolitan elite".
On 13 September, the day after the former prime minister resigned as the MP for
Witney
Witney is a market town on the River Windrush in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is west of Oxford. The place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is as ...
, the headline in the ''Mail'' was: "The crushing of David Cameron".
Support for Theresa May after the referendum
The ''Mail'' backed
Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cab ...
as the candidate to succeed David Cameron as Prime Minister following his resignation after the referendum result was announced.
Dacre and May had met shortly before she announced her leadership bid.
[Barnett ''The Lure of Greatness'', p. 155] More than a year before May became prime minister,
Gaby Hinsliff wrote in a February 2015 ''Guardian'' article that "one reason she gets on so well with ''Daily Mail'' editor-in-chief Paul Dacre is that both prefer talking business to pleasure". Following May's announcement, the next day's front page of the ''Mail'' insisted "It
must be Theresa" accompanied by an editorial "which bear's Dacre's hallmarks" (according to
Anthony Barnett) commenting "what the country which was needs most is a solid and steady hand on the tiller".
According to Hinsliff, Dacre considers May's unsuccessful leadership rival,
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
, as "morally reprehensible, because of his serial affairs, and fundamentally unserious". Despite this, ''Mail'' contributor
Sarah Vine
Sarah Rosemary Vine (born 16 April 1967) is a British columnist. She has written for the '' Daily Mail'' since 2013. She was previously arts editor at ''The Times''. She was previously married to Conservative MP Michael Gove.
Early life
Sara ...
in a leaked email, believed Dacre (and Rupert Murdoch) would back Johnson if her husband,
Michael Gove
Michael Andrew Gove (; born Graeme Andrew Logan, 26 August 1967) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations since 2021. He has been Member of Parli ...
, was also part of the same ticket. ''The Independent''s
John Rentoul
John Rentoul (born 1958) is a British journalist. He is the chief political commentator for ''The Independent''.
Early life
Rentoul was born in India, where his father was a minister of the Church of South India. Educated at Wolverhampton Gram ...
also saw Gove as being Dacre and Murdoch's preference, but for Gove himself, "that is not a great pitch".
Following Theresa May's announcement at the 2016 Conservative Party conference that she would trigger
Article 50
Withdrawal from the European Union is the legal and political process whereby an EU member state ceases to be a member of the Union. Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union ( TEU) states that "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from t ...
by March 2017, Barnett wrote in an article for
openDemocracy
openDemocracy is an independent media platform and news website based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, openDemocracy states that through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, they seek to "challenge power and encourage de ...
about "the contemporary political philosophy" of which May "is the living incarnation of an ideology worked out over three decades in the pages of that paper" which he termed "''Dacreism''". According to Barnett, Dacre "wants to combine the conviction and clarity of Thatcherism with the inclusiveness of Churchillism. As a formula for appealing to middle-class readers nostalgic for the lost world of post-war greatness, yet fearful of anything that smacks of the collectivism of those years" his approach "became an astonishing formula for readers and advertisers". Dacre was the only media figure in May's first six months as PM to receive hospitality at No.10 in the form of a private dinner in October 2016.
In the period of political uncertainty following the Brexit vote, Roy Greenslade suggested that the ''Daily Mail''s "savage" "full-frontal assault on ...anyone hopeful of upending the EU referendum vote for Brexit", though a reflection of the ''Mail''s readership, was also a reflection of Dacre's worries that MPs might reverse or mitigate the vote. After the
High Court ruled over ''
R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union
''R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union'' is a United Kingdom constitutional law case decided by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom Supreme Court on 24 January 2017, which ruled that the Government ...
'' in November 2016 that a government bill must pass through parliament in order for Britain to leave the European Union, the ''Mail'' on its front page described the three judges involved as being "
Enemies of the People
The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...
". The press, implicitly taken as targeting Dacre's ''Mail'' without naming the title, were criticised when the issue reached the
UK's Supreme Court by the
Court's President Lord Neuberger
David Edmond Neuberger, Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury (; born 10 January 1948) is an English judge. He served as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2017. He was a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary until the House of L ...
as "undermining the rule of law".
"With the referendum now behind us, they can have their cake and eat it", wrote Alastair Campbell in a February 2017 article about Dacre, by "taking the mickey out of a woman who raised the famous 'bent banana' issue on ''Question Time'' as the reason for her LEAVE vote, the same reporter having been one of the journalists responsible for spreading the lie in the first place".
[ In the source, Campbell links to the two ''Daily Mail'' articles.] In April 2017, after the
2017 general election had been called, the ''Mail'' in a front-page headline urged: "Crush the Saboteurs". May, in an interview on the
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
''
Today
Today (archaically to-day) may refer to:
* Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now''
* Current era, present
* The current calendar date
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...
'' programme, did not endorse this attitude.
Later career
On 6 June 2018, it was announced that Dacre's period as editor of the ''Daily Mail'' would end in time for his 70th birthday in November 2018.
At the beginning of October 2018, he would take up a new role as chairman of Associated Newspapers, which is part of the holding company DMGT (Daily Mail & General Trust). He has been editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers since 1998 and would retain that title; he would, however, be giving up his seat on the board of the holding company "prior to the end of the financial year". In 2019, it was announced that Dacre will front a
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
documentary called ''The World According to Paul Dacre'', that will share "his unique insights into the events and people who defined the front page of his newspaper". The documentary is set to be released in early 2021.
The editor of ''The Mail on Sunday'',
Geordie Greig
George Carron Greig (born 1960), known as Geordie Greig, is an English journalist and former editor of the ''Daily Mail''. He was editor in 2020 when it surpassed '' The Sun'' to become the best-selling newspaper in the UK.
Early life and care ...
, was appointed to succeed Dacre the following day. Greig's appointment was reported as being a way of "detoxifying" the paper, and there was speculation its support for leaving the European Union might be toned down. Dacre wrote the following week's "Diary" column for ''The Spectator'' in which he insisted: "Support for Brexit is in the DNA of both the ''Daily Mail'' and, more pertinently, its readers. Any move to reverse this would be editorial and commercial suicide".
The end of Dacre's role as chairman of the PCC's Editors' Code of Practice Committee (which began in April 2008) was announced at the beginning of December 2016.
Dacre was a member of the
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Indep ...
(PCC) from 1999 to 2008. He left the PCC in order to become chairman of the PCC's editors' code of practice committee from April 2008.
His departure from the post was announced in early December 2016.
In the
British Press Awards
The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of British journalism.
History
Established in 1962 by ''The People'' and '' World's Press News'', the first award ceremony for the then-named '' ...
, organised by the Society of Editors, Dacre's ''Daily Mail'' won the "Newspaper of the Year" category on six occasions, twice as often as any other title.
In November 2021, Dacre resigned as chairman and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers. Three weeks after his resignation, he rejoined the company as editor-in-chief of DMG Media, having withdrawn his candidature to become the chairman of the UK's media regulator
Ofcom
The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
.
Application for chair of Ofcom
Ofcom
The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
deemed Dacre not acceptable as its chairman, but rather than appoint candidates whose neutrality had been accepted the government decided to re-interview all candidates. The
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, formerly the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, is one of the select committees of the British House of Commons, established in 1997. It oversees the operations of the Department fo ...
chair,
Julian Knight a Conservative MP, said this was quite unreasonable and Dacre should be excluded from reapplying.
Personal life
While he was a student at
Leeds University
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
, Dacre met his future wife, Kathleen,
[Paul Dacre's entry in ''Who's Who'' gives his wife's birth name as Kathleen Thomson and indicates that the couple have two sons.] now a professor of drama studies.
Both of their two sons attended
Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England.
Eton may also refer to:
Places
*Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England
* Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States
* Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...
;
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
is a theatre director, while their other son is a businessman.
For many years, Dacre has been the highest-paid newspaper editor in Britain. In 2008, Dacre received £1.62 million in salary and cash payments, an increase from the £1.49 million of the previous year. According to the DMGT annual report for 2017, Dacre's total income from the group amounted to £2.37 million, including a salary of £1.45m and an additional £856,000 as part of the company's
Long-Term Investment Plan (LTIP). His total DGMT remuneration increased by 56% over payments made during 2016. Dacre's pension scheme, which began in 1979 and is no longer paid into by the group, pays him £708,000 a year.
Dacre's
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
home is in
Belgravia
Belgravia () is a Districts of London, district in Central London, covering parts of the areas of both the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Belgravia was known as the 'Five Fields' Tudor Period, during the ...
. His other residences include a large farm in
Wadhurst
Wadhurst is a market town in East Sussex, England. It is the centre of the civil parish of Wadhurst, which also includes the hamlets of Cousley Wood and Tidebrook. Wadhurst is twinned with Aubers in France.
Situation
Wadhurst is situated on ...
,
East Sussex
East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...
, the Langwell Estate near
Ullapool
Ullapool (; gd, Ulapul ) is a village and port located in Northern Scotland. Ullapool has a population of around 1,500 inhabitants. It is located around northwest of Inverness in Ross and Cromarty, Scottish Highlands. Despite its modest size, ...
in the
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...
and a home in the
British Virgin Islands
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type = Territorial song
, song = "Oh, Beautiful Virgin Islands"
, image_map = File:British Virgin Islands on the globe (Americas centered).svg
, map_caption =
, mapsize = 290px
, image_map2 = Brit ...
.
Dacre has benefited from subsidies under the
Common Agricultural Policy
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the agricultural policy of the European Union. It implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. It was introduced in 1962 and has since then undergone several changes to reduce the ...
from the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
. In 2014, he received £88,000 for the two holdings and under the exchange rate of late March 2016, he is believed to have received £460,000 since 2011.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dacre, Paul
1948 births
Alumni of the University of Leeds
Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
Daily Mail and General Trust people
Daily Mail journalists
English male journalists
English male non-fiction writers
English newspaper editors
Journalists from London
Living people
London Evening Standard people
People educated at University College School
People from the London Borough of Enfield