Andrew Ferguson Neil (born May 21, 1949, Paisley) 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. Press Holdings sold The Scotsman in December 2005, ending Neil's relationship with the newspaper. May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... The Royal Burgh of Paisley (Scottish Gaelic: ) is located in the west central lowlands of Scotland. ... Motto: (Latin for No one provokes me with impunity)1 Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official language(s) English, Gaelic, Scots 2 Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Jack McConnell MSP Unification    - by Kenneth I... This does not cite its references or sources. ... Note: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. ... The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ... Editing is the process of preparing language, images, or sound for presentation through correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications. ... Press Holdings is the name of a British holding company owned by the Barclay brothers which owns The Telegraph, as well as The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, the Edinburgh Evening News, The Business, The Spectator, the Apollo arts magazine, as well as operating some online journalism ventures. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... This article is about the British weekly magazine: there are articles on several other magazines called The Spectator such as Addison and Steeles influential literary magazine, The Spectator (1711), and the others can be found at The Spectator (disambiguation). ... The Scotsmans offices in Edinburgh The Scotsman is a Scottish newspaper published in Edinburgh. ...

Early life and career

The son of a professional soldier who had worked his way up through the ranks, Neil was educated at Paisley Grammar School and the University of Glasgow, graduating with an MA in politics. After graduation he briefly worked for the Conservative Party as a research assistant before joining The Economist as a correspondent in 1973. He was later promoted to Britain Editor of that news magazine before being offered the chair of Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times. He was editor there from 1983 until 1994. Paisley Grammar School is situated on Glasgow Road in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. ... The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451, in Glasgow, Scotland. ... A Scottish MA is the undergraduate academic degree in Humanities and Social Science faculties given at the four Scottish ancient universities and the University of Dundee. ... The Conservative Party (officially the Conservative & Unionist Party) is currently the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of sitting Members of Parliament (MPs), and the largest in terms of public membership. ... The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication of The Economist Newspaper Ltd edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Rupert Keith Murdoch AC, KCSG, (born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 11 March 1931) is an Australian-American global media executive and is the top shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation, based in New York City. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ...

His editorship was controversial. Neil, it was argued, was appointed over more experienced colleagues, such as Hugo Young. The Sunday Times during this period promoted a fringe and later discredited argument that, in Africa, AIDS was a quite separate condition from HIV. Opposition to perceived public school and Oxbridge attitudes were a hallmark of Neil's Sunday Times editorship, but unusually he criticised such attitudes from a New Right starting point rather than a left-wing one, which has led some to perceive him as a quintessential Wienerite. Hugo John Smelter Young (October 13, 1938 – September 22, 2003) was a British journalist and columnist and senior political commentator at The Guardian. ... The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ... Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). ... Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV is a retrovirus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. ... Public school in the United Kingdom is a label applied to certain fee-paying independent schools in England and Wales; in Scotland and Ireland it is heard less often in this sense (and indeed in Scotland the phrase has long been an alternative name for council schools in the state... Oxbridge is a name used to refer to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the two oldest in the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world. ... New Right is used in several countries as a descriptive term for various forms of conservative, right-wing, or self-proclaimed dissident oppositional movements and groups that emerged in the mid- to late twentieth century. ... In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... Martin Joel Wiener is an American academic and author. ...

The newspaper also lost a libel case over claims it had made concerning a witness interviewed in the Death on the Rock documentary on the Gibraltar shootings. Neil won a second defamation case when he sued Sir Peregrine Worsthorne over claims that he was unfit to edit a serious newspaper following the Bordes case (see below). Neil won £1000 and costs. Death on the Rock was a controversial and BAFTA award winning episode of Thames Televisions current affairs strand This Week. ... Operation Flavius was the name of an operation by a Special Air Service team in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. ... Sir Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne (born December 22, 1923) is a British Conservative journalist, writer and broadcaster. ...

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. Neil and Murdoch stood side by side at Sky's new headquarters in west London on February 5, 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. 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB - formerly two companies, Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting, which merged) is a company that operates the most popular subscription television service in the UK and Ireland. ... News Corporation (abbreviated to News Corp) (NYSE: NWS, NYSE: NWSa, ASX: NWS, LSE: NCRA) is one of the worlds largest media conglomerates. ... February 5 is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... BSB logo British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a company set up in 1986 to provide direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. ...

The failure of BSB in November 1990 led to a merger, although few programmes acquired by BSB found their way to 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. British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB — formerly two companies, Sky Television and BSB) is a company that operates Sky Digital, the most popular subscription television service in the UK and Ireland. ...

Break with News Corp

Jenny Scott and Andrew Neil in The Daily Politics Studio

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 (now just The Business) and The European. Neil has not enjoyed great success with the circulations of the newspapers (indeed The European folded shortly after he took over). Image File history File links Dailypolitics. ... Image File history File links Dailypolitics. ... Jenny Scott and Andrew Neil in The Daily Politics Studio :For the Canadian jazz musician, see Jennifer Scott Jenny Scott (born 1970) is a broadcaster and BBC news presenter. ... The Daily Mail is a British newspaper, a tabloid, first published in 1896. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay (both born 27 October 1934) are British businessmen. ... Sunday Business First Edition Sunday Business was a national Sunday broadsheet newspaper published in the United Kingdom. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... The European, billed as Europes first national newspaper, was a weekly newspaper founded by Robert Maxwell, the first edition appearing on May 11, 1990. ...

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. 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. In November 2004 it was announced that Neil was to become Chief Executive of The Spectator. Neil served as Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews from 1999 - 2002. The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC and Europes first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour (from 1967), envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the primary channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation. ... This Week is a current affairs and politics TV programme on the BBC, screened on Thursday evenings, hosted by Andrew Neil alongside former Conservative MP Michael Portillo, and Labour MP Diane Abbott. ... The Daily Politics is a British Television show launched by the BBC in 2003. ... This article is about the British weekly magazine: there are articles on several other magazines called The Spectator such as Addison and Steeles influential literary magazine, The Spectator (1711), and the others can be found at The Spectator (disambiguation). ... St Marys College Bute Medical School Postgraduate Students Affiliations 1994 Group Website www. ...

Andrew Neil, Law-suits & Private Eye

The "Private Eye" image

Neil is not married. A photograph of him dressed in a vest and baseball cap, embracing a much younger woman, ran over several consecutive editions of satirical magazine Private Eye, after it became known that he found the picture embarrassing. It still surfaces periodically, on the flimsiest of excuses. The photograph is apparently of a woman Neil was briefly involved with while in the United States in the early nineties [1] 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. Image File history File links From Private Eye [1]. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links From Private Eye [1]. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Private eye may mean: Look up Private eye on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Private Eye a fortnightly British satirical magazine-newspaper, edited by Ian Hislop (as of 2005) A private investigator, a private detective for hire (see also crime fiction and detective fiction) Private Eye, a song by Alkaline Trio...

The magazine has also nicknamed him Brillo Pad, after his rather wiry hair, often mistaken for a toupe, which is said to resemble a scouring pad. In addition, it often misspells his surname with an extra L - which also annoys him - in memory of Neil's affair with the former Miss India Pamella Bordes, whose name is also written with an unusual number of Ls. Whilst at The Sunday Times, he met Bordes, whom the News of the World suggested was an up-market prostitute, in a nightclub in 1988. This led to Neil bringing a libel action against Sir Peregrine Worsthorne following an article he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph in which it was asserted that he was not fit to edit a Sunday newspaper. Neil won £1,000 and costs. A much commented-upon revelation from Bordes was that Neil's hair-dye stained the pillow-cases. // A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Bob, Rob, Robby, Robbie, Robi, Bobby, Rab, Bert, Bertie, Butch, Bobbers, Bobert, Beto, Bobadito, and Robban (in Sweden), are all short for Robert). ... Brillo soap pads Brillo Pad is a trade name for a scouring pad, used for cleaning dishes, and made from steel wool impregnated with soap. ... Neha Dhupia, Miss India 2002 Femina Miss India is an annual, national beauty pageant held in India and organized by Femina, a womens magazine published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. ... Pamella Bordes, born Pamella Singh Choudhary c. ... The News of the World is a British tabloid newspaper published every Sunday. ... Sir Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne (born December 22, 1923) is a British Conservative journalist, writer and broadcaster. ...

Neil often castigates the British establishment, many of whom he deems to be politically correct but snobbish or ethnically-biased in their perceptions. Teaming up on This Week, the BBC One programme he presents, with Tory ex-leadership candidate and maverick, Michael Portillo, and leftwing MP for Hackney, Diane Abbott, (an improbable combination, though the chemistry seems to work well) has helped to soften his image and widen his appeal after he was judged unsuitable to present the BBC's flagship news programme Newsnight. Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ... This Week is a current affairs and politics TV programme on the BBC, screened on Thursday evenings, hosted by Andrew Neil alongside former Conservative MP Michael Portillo, and Labour MP Diane Abbott. ... Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo PC (born 26 May 1953) is an English journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative politician. ... Diane Julie Abbott (born September 27, 1953 in Paddington, London) is a British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency. ... Newsnight is a British daily news analysis, current affairs and politics programme broadcast between 22:30 and 23:20 on weekdays on BBC Two. ...

External links

• Archive of Neil's recent articles at The Scotsman
• Observer: Biography
• BBC News: Biography
• "The Daily Politics" website
• Toby Young article in Vanity Fair