The BBC was forced on the defensive last night after senior Conservatives attacked it for broadcasting disgusting remarks about Baroness Thatcher

The BBC was forced on the defensive last night after senior Conservatives attacked it for broadcasting “disgusting” remarks about Baroness Thatcher by Jonathan Ross. Her conversation with David Cameron at the Beckhams’ pre-World Cup party certainly neutralised her hiring of David Blunkett as a Sun columnist after his departure from the Cabinet. So plenty of Cabinet ministers were at Murdoch’s summer party in London last week. And Blair will be going to... Read More

It has been a surreal experience carrying out this process against the backdrop of a witch-hunt against offenders

It has been a surreal experience carrying out this process against the backdrop of a witch-hunt against offenders. I see little evidence that sentences are “soft”. It is now the time of year when applications for these awards are sifted and existing scholarships renewed. Millions of others had campaigned through 504 organisations under the banner Make Poverty History. Across the world, 150 million more had joined the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. The 10 simultaneous... Read More

Professor John Carey Howard Jacobson and Richard Ingrams have also done stints in the TV trenches

Professor John Carey, Howard Jacobson and Richard Ingrams have also done stints in the TV trenches. But there are signs that television critics are now in the firing line. Last week the Evening Standard was obliged to pay out £75,000 in libel damages to Gordon Ramsay over claims by its television critic, Victor Lewis-Smith, that scenes in the Channel 4 series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares were faked. For most adults, lounging in a darkened room with a bag of crisps and a... Read More

I came as close as I ever have to actually jacking it in he says

“I came as close as I ever have to actually jacking it in,” he says. “I kind of hid in my garage and wound my exhibition programme down But I’ve put 20 years of my life into this. I mean, the Hoxton Square thing is the biggest commitment I’ve ever made, but I think it’s easier to sell a flat than a painting A painting’s so intangible With a flat, you get square footage. I’m a sort of major-minor player now.”If he hopes his... Read More

Industry sources are hopeful that with a slight upwards adjustment that could be settled soon too

Industry sources are hopeful that, with a slight upwards adjustment, that could be settled soon too.From steel to spiel, and Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP, the world’s second-largest advertising group, will give an update on trading at its AGM on Tuesday. WPP, which owns the Ogilvy & Mather, JWT and Grey agencies, is expected to unveil organic revenue growth ahead of its original 4 to 5 per cent guidance for 2006. Analysts believe the World Cup effect could have pushed... Read More

His father ran a carpet-fitting business while his mother was a home-maker and what he calls a hobby artist – I have this

His father ran a carpet-fitting business, while his mother was a home-maker and what he calls a “hobby artist – I have this vision of her painting some kind of mural in the basement.” His interests at that point ran to setting a building on fire with a magnifying glass, and pasting his bedroom with images of lithe young bodies culled from magazines When he was 13, his mother died from a brain tumour “My dad was very harsh and controlling,” he recalls.... Read More