Andrew Neil: Difference between revisions

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Andrew Neil" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Andrew Ferguson Neil
Born	(1949-05-21) 21 May 1949 (age 75) Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, United Kingdom
Occupation(s)	BBC journalist, author and television presenter

Andrew Ferguson Neil (born 21 May 1949) is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster. Neil made his name at The Sunday Times where he was editor for 11 years. In 1995 he was made editor-in-chief of the Press Holdings group of newspapers, owner of The Business and (from 2005) The Spectator, moving to become chairman in July 2008.

Neil was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire. The son of a professional soldier who had worked his way up through the ranks, Neil was educated at Paisley Grammar School and at the University of Glasgow,^[1] where he edited the student newspaper, the Glasgow University Guardian. At university he was a member of the Dialectic Society and the Conservative Club and participated in inter-varsity debates. He graduated in 1971 with an MA in political economy and political science^[1], having been tutored by Vince Cable.^[2] After graduation he briefly worked as sports correspondent for the local newspaper the Paisley Daily Express before working for the Conservative Party as a research assistant and then joined The Economist as a correspondent in 1973, and was later promoted to being the editor of the publication's section on Britain.

Neil was editor of The Sunday Times from 1983 until 1994. His hiring was controversial. Neil, it was argued, was appointed by Rupert Murdoch over more experienced colleagues, like Hugo Young and Brian MacArthur.^[3]

Opposition to perceived public school and Oxbridge attitudes were a hallmark of Neil's Sunday Times editorship. During his editorship, the newspaper lost a libel case over claims it had made concerning a witness interviewed in the Death on the Rock documentary on the Gibraltar shootings.^[4]

While at The Sunday Times in 1988, Neil met the former Miss India, Pamella Bordes, in a nightclub. The News of the World suggested she was an up-market prostitute. Sir Peregrine Worsthorne argued, in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, that Neil was not fit to edit a serious Sunday newspaper, on the grounds that "playboys" should not be editors. In a subsequent libel case, Neil sued Worsthorne and won £1,000^[5] plus costs.

The Sunday Times during this period promoted a fringe and later discredited argument that, in Africa, AIDS was a quite separate condition from HIV.^[5] Neil was criticised in 1992 for employing, as a translator of the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, the Holocaust denier David Irving^[6] by Anti-Nazi groups^[6] and historian Hugh Trevor-Roper among others.^[7]

In 1988 he also became founding chairman of Sky TV, also part of Murdoch's News Corporation. Neil was instrumental in the company's launch, overseeing the transformation of a down market, single channel satellite service into a four channel network in less than a year. He also brought The Simpsons to UK television.^[8] Neil and Murdoch stood side by side at Sky's new headquarters in West London on 5 February 1989 to witness the launch of the service at 18.00. Sky was not an instant success; the uncertainty caused by the competition provided by British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) and the initial shortage of satellite dishes were early problems.

The failure of BSB in November 1990 led to a merger, although few programmes acquired by BSB were screened on Sky One, and BSB's satellites were sold. The new company was called British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). The merger may have saved Sky financially; despite its popularity, Sky had very few major advertisers to begin with, and was also beginning to suffer from embarrassing breakdowns. Acquiring BSB's healthier advertising contracts and equipment apparently solved these problems. BSkyB would not make a profit for a decade but is now one of the most profitable and successful television companies in Europe.

He eventually parted company with Murdoch on bad terms and became a writer for the Daily Mail. In 1996 he became editor-in-chief of the Barclay brothers' Press Holdings group of newspapers, owner of The Scotsman, Sunday Business (later just The Business) and The European. Press Holdings sold The Scotsman in December 2005, ending Neil's relationship with the newspaper. Neil has not enjoyed great success with the circulations of the newspapers (indeed The European folded shortly after he took over). The Business also closed down in February 2008. He exchanged his role as Chief Executive of Press Holdings for Chairman in July 2008.^[9]

In June 2008, Neil led a consortium which bought talent agency Peters, Fraser & Dunlop (PFD) from CSS Stellar plc for £4 million. Neil will be chairman of the new company in addition to his other activities.^[10]

As well as Neil's newspaper activities he has also maintained a television career. While working at The Economist he provided news reports, for example to American networks. When at The Sunday Times he contributed to BBC radio and television as well as commenting on the various controversies provoked by the paper in his role as Editor. During the 1990s Neil fronted political programmes for the BBC, notably Despatch Box on BBC Two, and the interview show Is This Your Life? (made by Open Media for Channel 4).^[11] Following the revamp of the BBC's political programming in early 2003 Neil has been the presenter of the BBC One weekly political roundup show, This Week, and co-presenter of The Daily Politics which broadcasts every day that Parliament sits.^[1]

In November 2004 it was announced that Neil was to become Chief Executive of The Spectator.

After being overlooked to present the BBC's flagship news programme Newsnight, Neil has presented This Week with ex-Conservative minister Michael Portillo, and Labour MP for Hackney Diane Abbott.^[1] Neil also presents the weekly one-on-one political interview programme Straight Talk with Andrew Neil on the BBC News Channel.

A photograph of Neil in a vest and baseball cap, embracing a much younger woman, ran over several editions of satirical magazine Private Eye, after it became known that he found the picture embarrassing. This still surfaces regularly. A long-running joke within the letters page is that a reader will ask the editor if he has any photographs related to some topic in the news, but by unfortunate double entendre it can be construed as a request for this photo, which is duly published alongside the letter. The photograph is of a woman with whom Neil was briefly involved while in the United States in the early nineties ^[12] and is frequently accompanied in the paper by jokes about the woman's ethnicity. Neil has found "fascinating" what he sees as an example of "public school racism" on the part of the Eye's editorial staff.^[12]

The magazine nicknamed him Brillo, after his wiry hair which is seen as bearing a resemblance to a form of kitchen scouring pad. In addition, it often misspells his surname with an extra L, in reference to Neil's relationship with former escort Pamella Bordes, whose name is written with two Ls.

Neil served as Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews from 1999 - 2002.

• Archive of Neil's recent articles at The Scotsman
• Observer: Biography
• The Business Magazine: Publisher in Chief
• BBC News: Biography
• The Daily Politics website
• Toby Young article in Vanity Fair
• Andrew Neil interview, Rob McGibbon, Access Interviews, 15 February 2008
• MediaGuardian's stories on Andrew Neil