A 59-year-old man was arrested this morning by Operation Yewtree. According to local news agency INS, this afternoon police are gathering evidence outside 59-year-old TV presenter Jim Davidson’s house.
In October Davidson wrote on his blog:
“The Savile witch hunt is going a bit silly now. We all are starting to speculate and accuse … even in jest. So no, I don’t know who’s next. Well, if I was in the pub with the lads it would be a different story. Everyone has had the nod. Everyone is an expert. Just pick someone you don’t like and say it’s them.”
“I read a thing today where someone saw Jimmy Savile pinch some girl’s bum. Apparently, that’s sexual assault. Where will all this end? As odd as he was, Savile can’t defend himself. The bloke’s dead for God’s sake. Let’s move on.”
Davidson is rumoured to be going into the house for the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother, starting tomorrow evening…
UPDATE: Confirmed: Jim Davidson was arrested this afternoon at a West London police station.
Guido hears that the Standard’s political hack Peter Dominiczak is off to beef up the Telegraph’s political team. Dominiczak came to prominence during last year’s London Mayoral election.
The accomplished Ken-baiter starts his new gig on Monday…
With the New Statesman’s intern shame exposed over Christmas, former Staggers man Martin Bright asked if 2013 would see the end of unpaid internships. The answer, courtesy of lefty blogs Political Scrapbook and Left Foot Forward, is a resounding “No”.
There are just five days left to apply for “volunteer editorial assistant” roles at Scrapbook and LFF, where the successful candidate will be required to write stories, edit material and liaise with sources and contributors. In other words running the site. They might have the feeble excuse of not making any money but they are dicing with employment law, they aren’t even offering lunch let alone the minimum wage. Just because Scrapbook’s editor can’t be bothered to wake up before midday it doesn’t mean an unpaid slave intern should be doing his job for him. At least they can bathe in the reflected glory of “closing News of the World”…
Campaigners Intern Aware tell Guido: “It’s hypocritical that these left-wing organisations aren’t living up to their rhetoric about social justice when it comes to interns. Just as wrong is the way that right-wingers at Reform and The Henry Jackson Society don’t think ‘aspiration’ extends to hard-working young people who can’t afford to work for free”.
The New Statesman, Left Foot Forward and Political Scrapbook. Three moralising, money-haemorrhaging left-wing vanity projects steeped in hypocrisy. Shame on them…
An early contender for the funniest quote of 2013, spinmeister Lord Bell has been musing on lobbying and PR:
‘Although people constantly accuse us of being the most evil, corrupt sons of the devil, we aren’t. We are actually the most truthful people in the world, because we know that the truth works.’
Rewind back to November 1977 though and Tim Bell himself claims that he was not telling the truth after he was charged with “wilfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely” exposing himself “with intent to insult a female” under Section 4 of the 1824 Vagrancy Act. He was found guilty and fined £50 by Hampstead Magistrates Court after a solo erotic incident visible at his bathroom window. According to his biographer Mark Hollingsworth, Bell “admitted the conviction but denied that the event took place. He confided to a colleague that his lawyers, Butcher Brooks and Co. advised him to plead guilty to avoid a scandal.” Was he guilty – as he claimed – or not? Is that “how the truth works”?
Westminster is very dead but at least the US are entertaining us. Guido’s favourite detail from the fiscal cliff fall-out was Politico’s snippet about GOP House Chairman Boehner telling Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to “go f**k” himself outside of the Oval Office.
Even nominal Republicans like Meghan McCann got upset:
Um, John Boehner told Harry Reid to go fuck himself outside the Oval Office. Yeah, it's totally my generation that's screwing everything up.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) January 2, 2013
@BuzzFeedAndrew I'm not a senator. I also wouldn't tell anyone to go fuck themselves in the White House.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) January 2, 2013
That would be the daughter of foul mouthed John McCain, who famously dropped the c-bomb at Meghan’s mother in public in 1992. “S**thead,” “***hole” and “f**king jerk” are all regulars in the McCain playbook too…
Not a bad way to kick off 2013: a world exclusive followed up by papers at home and abroad. Le Figaro and Le Monde reported Guido’s story that French rock star Jean Michel Jarre was considering “exil fiscal”. Amusingly Guido even beat HuffPo France to the story. En retard!
This side of the channel the Guardian picked it up despite initial scepticism, with the Mail and the Telegraph following suit. Happy new year…
