Why does Downing Street encourage Dirty Des? Because he threatens the Daily Mail

One of Richard Desmond’s heroes is Rupert Murdoch, who was profiled in glowing terms in the most recent Sunday Express. The proprietor of the Express group regards the Australian-born adventurer as an outsider like himself. In fact, Desmond is far more of an outsider than Murdoch. His fortune is based on his pornographic magazines and television channels, some of which by my definition are hard-core. By comparison Murdoch – Oxford-educated, son of Sir Keith – is almost out of the top drawer. But Murdoch’s Sun did take on and topple the established Daily Mirror, introducing a new brand of popular journalism including ‘Page Three girls’. Desmond hopes to work a similar trick on Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail.

It is tempting to write off Desmond as a loudmouth who knows very little about national newspapers. But there is no question that he is making advances. The pornographer not infrequently pops into No. 10 – he was there last week with his editors – and is on good terms with Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s director of communications. His newspapers are not in too bad shape, either. He has made enormous cost savings at the Daily Express, and more or less stabilised its circulation decline. While continuing to support New Labour, the paper has become a sort of clone of the Daily Mail, admittedly without its resources or its brio. (Here I must again declare an interest as a columnist on the Mail.) Desmond’s success with the Daily Star is more marked. Its new editor, Peter Hill, certainly has the magic touch when it comes to tit ‘n’ bum. The paper has increased its sales by more than 15 per cent over the past year from a relatively low base. Although the Daily Star’s circulation is still less than a quarter of that of the Murdoch-owned Sun, there is no doubt that it is beginning to worry its powerful rival, which, unless I am mistaken, has increased its own quotient of tit ‘n’ bum by way of a response.