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Andrew Neil

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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 British journalist and broadcaster.

He currently works for the BBC, presenting the live political programmes Daily Politics on BBC Two, The Sunday Politics on BBC One and This Week on BBC One. For the BBC he also anchors Straight Talk with Andrew Neil [1] and makes documentaries.[2][3]

He is also Chairman of Spectator Magazines; Chairman of ITP Magazines (Dubai); and Chairman of World Media Rights (London).[4]

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 up to become chairman in July 2008.

Early life and career

Neil was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire. He grew up in the Glenburn area, and attended the local Lancraigs Primary School. Aged 11, Neil passed his 11-plus examinations and sent to the then academically selective Paisley Grammar School.[5] His father was a professional soldier who had worked his way up through the ranks; his mother worked in the local cotton mills.[citation needed]

After school, Neil attended the University of Glasgow.[6] While there he edited the student newspaper, the Glasgow University Guardian and dabbled in student television. He was also a member of the Dialectic Society and the Conservative Club and participated in Glasgow University Union inter-varsity debates. He graduated in 1971 with an MA with honours in political economy and political science,[6][7] having been tutored by Vince Cable.[8]

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.

A passionate follower of cricket, Neil is a member of Marylebone Cricket Club.

The Sunday Times

Neil was editor of The Sunday Times from 1983 until 1994. His hiring was controversial. It was argued that he was appointed by Rupert Murdoch over more experienced colleagues, like Hugo Young and Brian MacArthur.[9]

Opposition to perceived public school and Oxbridge attitudes was 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.[10]

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[11] 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.[11] In 1992 Neil was criticised by Anti-Nazi groups[12] and historian Hugh Trevor-Roper among others[13] for employing, as a translator of the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, the Holocaust denier David Irving.[12]

Sky

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 British television.[14] 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[when?] one of the most profitable and successful television companies in Europe.[citation needed]

Post-News Corp career

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.[15]

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

Broadcasting

Nick Clegg being interviewed by Andrew Neil for The Daily Politics

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) which was nominated for a BAFTA award for "Best Talk Show".[17] 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 Daily Politics which broadcasts every day that Parliament sits.[6]

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.[6] Neil also presents the weekly one-on-one political interview programme Straight Talk with Andrew Neil on the BBC News Channel.

Private Eye

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[citation needed]. 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 [18] and is frequently accompanied in the paper by references to 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.[18]

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 Pamella Bordes, whose name is written with two Ls.

Personal life

Neil has never married and, although he has 14 godchildren, he has no children of his own.[19] Neil has, for more than a year, been dating Swedish-born IT engineer Susan Nilsson. Nilsson, formerly a competitive swimmer, is a graduate of Stockholm School of Economics and is presently director of operations at EF Education First.[20]

References

  1. ^ BBC News - Straight Talk with Andrew Neil
  2. ^ BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys Run Britain
  3. ^ BBC News - Andrew Neil previews US Tea Party documentary
  4. ^ http://twitter.com/afneil
  5. ^ BBC Documentary - Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys Run Britain. First broadcast - BBC2 January 26th, 2011 at 21:00 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y37gk#broadcasts
  6. ^ a b c d Newswatch - Profiles - Andrew Neil, BBC News, 10 June 2004, retrieved 24 April 2009
  7. ^ Andrew Neil
  8. ^ Why Vince Cable is not too sexy for his party The Spectator, 19 September 2009
  9. ^ Roy Greenslade Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits From Propaganda, London: Macmillan/Pan, 2003 [2004], p.387. Greenslade uses the word "many", but cites only Paul Foot's essay "The Slow Death of Investigative Journalism" (in Stephen Glover (ed.) Secrets of the Press: Journalists on Journalism, Allen Lane, 1999, p.79-89, 85) as evidence
  10. ^ John Pilger "Murdoch: a cultural Chernobyl",[dead link] New Statesman, 23 July 2009, as reproduced on ITV's Pilger website
  11. ^ a b Ben Summerskill "Paper tiger" The Observer, 28 July 2002
  12. ^ a b Rosie Waterhouse, et al "Irving back to anti-Nazi fury" The Independent on Sunday, 5 July 1992
  13. ^ Peter Pringle and David Lister "Hitler apologist does deal for Goebbels war diaries: 'Sunday Times' contract with David Irving over rediscovered Nazi material alarms scholars" The Independent 3 July 1992
  14. ^ Martin Rosenbaum "Is The Simpsons still subversive?", BBC News, 29 June 2007; Retrieved on 27 April 2008
  15. ^ Stephen Brook "Neil takes step back from Spectator", The Guardian, 8 July 2008
  16. ^ Stephen Brook "Andrew Neil consortium buys PFD talent agency", The Guardian, 18 June 2008
  17. ^ Open Media, accessed 24 April 2009
  18. ^ a b Mary Riddell "Non-stop Neil, at home alone", British Journalism Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2005, p13-20
  19. ^ Deborah Ross "Andrew Neil: An audience with the broadcaster", The Independent, 19 January 2006
  20. ^ Richard Kay "The Swede who tamed Andrew Neil", Daily Mail, 27 July 2011

External links

Media offices
Preceded by Editor of The Sunday Times
1983–1994 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Editor of The European
1996–1998 		Succeeded by
Academic offices
Preceded by Rector of the University of St Andrews
1999 - 2002 		Succeeded by


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