Paul Dacre

"Back in the business of journalism, there are no short cuts to producing a great newspaper. You need one vital ingredient: a great editor. If youve got one, you will succeed; if not, you will fail. Thats why Paul Dacre is worth considerably more than a million pounds a year."

"[I]ts patronising, right-on, sanctimonious political correctness gets me so angry it would give me the energy and the willpower to get off that island"

"Make them laugh, make them cry, or make them angry."

"The time has come to offer our thanks to one of the best Presidents this Union has had for a long time. The enormous amount of work he has done, the countless committees he has headed, the energy he has contributed to the general running of the Union have all undoubtedly improved the welfare of the Leeds student."

"Today’s Tories are obsessed by the BBC. They saw what its attack dogs did to Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard. Cameron’s cuddly blend of eco-politics and work-life balance, his embrace of Polly Toynbee – a columnist who loathes everything Conservatism stands for but is a totemic figure to the BBC – his sidelining of Thatcherism and his banishing of all talk of lower taxes, lower immigration and Euro scepticism, are all part of the Tories’ blood sacrifice to the BBC God. Now, I’m not really worried about this. The Conservatives can look after themselves. What really disturbs me is that the BBC is, in every corpuscle of its corporate body, against the values of conservatism, with a small "c", which, I would argue, just happen to be the values held by millions of Britons. Thus it exercises a kind of "cultural Marxism" in which it tries to undermine that conservative society by turning all its values on their heads. Of course, there is the odd dissenting voice, but by and large BBC journalism starts from the premise of leftwing ideology: it is hostile to conservatism and the traditional Right, Britain’s past and British values, America, Ulster Unionism, Euro-scepticism, capitalism and big business, the countryside, Christianity, and family values. Conversely it is sympathetic to Labour, European Federalism, the State and State spending, mass immigration, minority rights, multiculturalism, alternative lifestyles, abortion and progressiveness in the education and the justice systems."

"The real enemy, if you like, is within. For the regrettable truth is that, increasingly, considerable sections of Britain’s media conspire to undermine mass-circulation newspapers. So tonight I would like to pose the question: why is the British newspaper industry so full of self-loathing? I have commented before on of what I have dubbed the "subsidariat" – those media outlets who cannot connect with enough readers to be commercially viable, and whose views and journalism are only sustained by huge cross-subsidy from profitable parts of their owners’ empires or by tax payers’ money. Fair enough. There is a case for subsidy though the longer I live the more I come round to the view that – in most cases - it ultimately perverts everything it touches. In the media, it produces a distorting prism, actually incentivising its recipients to operate in splendid isolationism, far removed from the real world that the great majority of readers and listeners have to live in. But my question is why does not a day go by that the subsidariat papers – blissfully oblivious of their own pocket-sized shapes and circulations – don’t carry the obligatory sneer at the tabloid press? Why does not half an hour go by that the high priests of the subsidariat, the BBC, can’t resist a snide reference to the popular press, again blissfully oblivious that all too often they are following agendas set by those very popular newspapers whose readers pay their salaries. Why does not a week go by that the media supplements and their columnists do not denigrate our industry as a whole?"

"[W]hat moves me most are the countless messages from readers worried about whether the Mail will continue its support for EU withdrawal. My answer to them — and others — is unequivocal. Support for Brexit is in the DNA of both the Daily Mail and, more pertinently, its readers. Any move to reverse this would be editorial and commercial suicide."

"It is nearly three years since the Mails headline "Enemies of the people" detonated a national debate over whether judges were hijacking political powers. Written five minutes before deadline, this somewhat clunky reference to an Ibsen play was meant to capture Brexit ministers’ rage at the court’s ‘undemocratic’ decision to insist parliament must vote on triggering Article 50. Interestingly, the Telegraph’s front page that day, "The judges versus the people", was almost identical, but it was the Mail, the chatterati’s favourite bogeyman, that was criticised. Was this fair? ... That "Enemies" front page, which reflected the view of ministers and a great many Britons, was excoriated by the same liberals. So do I regret it? Hell no! Newspapers are meant to be provocative, outrageous even. Striking the right balance between the law and politics is never going to be easy. If that front page helped raise consciousness about this vital debate, then I can face my maker with equanimity."

"What I like about Dacre is that each day he arrives at work determined to crush the life out of his rivals."

"I was particularly pleased to learn recently that Paul Dacre, the finest and most successful newspaper editor in this country, earns in excess of a million pounds a year."

"I was really shocked by the statement of Mr Dacre the other day, that his editorial policy is driven by commercial interests. I think that is about the most unethical thing Ive read for a long time and, whats more, from the most surprising source, as I have great respect for his abilities. Indeed, many years ago when he was editor of the Evening Standard, he agreed to leave then and come and edit the Times and I was extremely pleased and Associated quickly made him editor of the Daily Mail, I have no doubt at a vastly increased salary, where some friends of mine may disagree with this strongly, but I think hes been a great success. But I was shocked when he said that his policies now, the editorial policy of the Mail is driven by commercial interests. Thats on a record here somewhere."

"Dacre, the nations bully-in-chief is, like all bullies, a coward: he refused to go on the Today programme yesterday to argue his case. He never dares face his critics, happy to fry alive all and sundry, never apologising, never explaining. There is a good reason for this: the stance his paper takes on just about everything is so internally contradictory and inconsistent that he could never survive even minimal scrutiny. The Mails mishmash of lurid scandal, bitching about women and random moralising zigzags all over the place, dishing out pain and praise often according to who it has succeeded in buying with its limitless chequebook, or who has infuriated it by selling their wares to another bidder."