Paul Dacre

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a newspaper editor. He enjoys great influence over his six million readers, and his success at capturing their mood has brought criticism from those who think his editorial stance panders to middle class conservative prejudice. It doesn't worry him a bit. A journalist from a journalistic family and ferociously hard working, he's a man in love with newspapers.

Presenter0:52

He served his apprenticeship on the Daily Express, was editor of the London Evening Standard, and turned down the Top Job at the Times in favour of his present position.

Presenter1:01

He leads from the front, confident that his own free market views chime naturally with that of his readership. He could be right, certainly circulation has increased during his editorship.

Presenter1:12

An editor, he says, has to have the courage to say, No, I'm not going to follow the fashionable liberal consensus. You must be true to your instincts. He is the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul

Presenter1:24

So the Daily Mail's view of uh the world, Paul Dacre, is a view of the world that is yours. Can we be sure of that? It's from your gut instinct, is it? This paper is born.

Paul Dacre1:35

To a certain extent, I must say I am the conductor of a very considerable orchestra of talents, and the Daily Mail is a representation of the broad views of some very, very clever journalists and executives, and and their consensus and their views.

Presenter1:50

But you're very hands-on as I'm saying.

Paul Dacre1:52

I am hands-on. I'm a hands-on.

Presenter1:53

Hands on, from the beginning to the end of the day. You're there for the duration.

Paul Dacre1:58

I'm there fourteen, fifteen hours most days.

Presenter2:00

From the morning meeting until you put the paper to bed at night.

Paul Dacre2:03

I'm there from from nine to nine thirty in the morning through news conferences, features' conferences, leaders' conferences, and I'm there till ten o'clock at night, and I'm there at midnight reading first editions and wringing my back bench and complaining bitterly about stories we haven't got. Believe me, it's one of the headiest, most exciting experiences known to man.

Presenter2:22

But hugely stressful.

Paul Dacre2:24

Uh yes, but st stress in a very positive yes, a lot of shouting,'cause shouting creates energy. Energy creates great headlines. Great headlines marry with great pictures. Great pictures supplement great words.

Presenter2:35

But it makes it sound like, you know, Marco Pierre White's kitchen, really, isn't it?

Paul Dacre2:39

It is between six and ten o'clock every night. It certainly is.

Presenter2:42

Yeah.

Paul Dacre2:42

But imagine the joy of putting together ninety-six pages from nothing. And, you know, I'm blessed to have some of the most talented journalists in Fleet Street around me. And you love it, I mean, but what would the

Presenter2:50

And you love it. I mean, one can hear that. But what would those talented journalists say about you? Because you're very

Paul Dacre2:55

I think they say he's a hard bastard, but he leads from the front, and that he works as hard as them, and possibly harder, and that he's fair. I'd hope they'd say that anyway.

Presenter3:05

Tell me about your first drive.

Paul Dacre3:07

My first record is Night Train by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Paul Dacre3:12

During my university years I I had a brief love affair with Jazz.

Paul Dacre3:16

And this music seems to me more than anything to sum up newspapers there.

Paul Dacre3:21

Petitive, metallic, coming out every day, a remorseless energy.

Presenter4:24

Night Train by the Oscar Peterson trio, and that was recorded in 1963, a tribute, Paul Dacre from you, to the rhythm of newspaper production.

Presenter4:32

Um

Presenter4:33

You began in journalism, I think well, at birth, by the sound of it.

Paul Dacre4:38

All my life I've wanted to be a journalist, and if I'm being honest, all my life I've wanted to be an editor.

Paul Dacre4:44

And to that I owe a great deal to my parents.

Paul Dacre4:49

My mother, still alive, a remarkable woman, who gave me

Paul Dacre4:53

What few brains I have and the willpower to do something with them, and more especially to my my father, who was a a journalist all his life.

Paul Dacre5:01

and for whom my admiration knows no bounds. He

Paul Dacre5:05

It was orphaned at

Paul Dacre5:07

At a young age his father was a carpenter, and was killed in an industrial accident, and by sheer grit he fought his way from Yorkshire to Fleet Street, where eventually he joined the Sunday Express.

Paul Dacre5:19

And all my life.

Paul Dacre5:22

My father and the Sunday Express were an influence.

Presenter5:25

So he's talked to you. This was in North London suburbs. He grew up in Arnest Grove. I was one of.

Paul Dacre5:28

I grew up in Arnest Grove. I was one of five brothers and

Paul Dacre5:32

It was just woven into the fabric of our lives. I mean I vividly remember as a boy when we were in in America, joining him in he was the New York correspondent. The old ticker telex machine was in my bedroom at night, and if a big stroy broke he'd be there, pounding the keys.

Presenter5:47

So he'd have worked for John Juno, who's certainly.

Paul Dacre5:48

He certainly worked for John Duna, and John Duner, in a sense, was the last of the the great autocratic editors. My father would come home on a Friday night, and he'd have written his article for that week. It would be the carbon copy black in his briefcase, and I'd

Paul Dacre6:04

rush for it and there would be Juno's notes scrawled on it and it would absolutely it would say either absolutely brilliant or rubbish and if it was rubbish and it didn't go in the paper that that that was the weekend. It was a rather gloomy atmosphere in our household.

Presenter6:15

And was it noisy and competitive?

Paul Dacre6:17

It was jolly noisy and competitive. If you grow up in a household of five brothers, you learn about competition very, very quickly.

Presenter6:23

And you went off to school. You got a scholarship to a good local independent school in where you edited the school magazine, not surprisingly. Did you improve it?

Paul Dacre6:28

Did you imagine

Paul Dacre6:30

I did. I got into trouble with the Masters, and it was a bit too um aggressive and sensational. It was a very, very formative experience. I mean it was a wonderful school, it was a classical education, and it really taught me the value of clear, structured thinking, far more than university did actually.

Presenter6:46

And words are meaningful.

Paul Dacre6:47

And words, a love of words, a love of words which is a prerequisite for anybody going into journalism.

Presenter6:52

But you say you really wanted to edit, so you want to move on from the writing somehow. I mean, I wonder where that comes from.

Paul Dacre6:52

Do you say that?

Paul Dacre6:58

That's a very good question, and I'll be honest with you, for the first ten years in journalism.

Paul Dacre7:02

I did wonder whether my career would be p pursuing uh the writing course. But frankly I reached a point and I was a very good writer I reached a point where I realized I was never going to be a very great writer.

Paul Dacre7:13

And I decided at that stage to go b down the executive path, and I haven't regretted it.

Presenter7:20

Record number two, tell me about that.

Paul Dacre7:21

Well, as I say, it's a a a tribute to my father. My father was a

Paul Dacre7:27

A great newspaper man.

Paul Dacre7:29

But he was also a frustrated newspaper man because his his great love, his first love,

Paul Dacre7:33

was was writing songs and lyrics to songs.

Paul Dacre7:37

And the last one he wrote happened to be the last one that Bing Crosby sang and he wrote the lyrics for it and it's called That's What Life Is All About and my father died last year and I'd try to play this for him.

Speaker 27:49

Lady Luck gave me short measure

Speaker 27:54

When things went wrong, I figure smiled.

Speaker 28:01

That's my style.

Speaker 28:04

Clause I've been around

Speaker 28:07

And having been around, I've found.

Speaker 28:14

That's what life is all about.

Presenter8:17

That's What Life Is All About, sung by Bing Crosby, lyrics by my castaway's father, Peter Dacre. And that was recorded in 1975. So, Paul, you went up to Leeds University to read English. Your contemporaries included Claire Short, and Jack Straw was president of the NUS at the time. This was 1967. A time of great sit-ins, demos, student activism. Did you join in? Were you on the left?

Paul Dacre8:39

I'm afraid I did. I mean, like most sensible young people that age, I was left wing. And of course we went to London on anti Vietnam marches, and I'm sure Jack Straw was there.

Paul Dacre8:50

and we all chanted. For the life of me I'm not quite sure why, ho, ho, ho, chi, min. They were wonderfully heady, liberated days. Um quite what we were protesting about I I I I'm not too sure in retrospect.

Presenter9:04

But it was the baby boomers flexing their muscles.

Paul Dacre9:06

It was a baby flexing the muscles. Anyway, I had a fabulous time at university. I joined the.

Presenter9:10

But the Daily Mail today, just if I can just ask you this, doesn't really seem to approve of the sixties. You know, it sort of implies that it the the seeds of our kind of societies decay today.

Paul Dacre9:20

I think they were very exciting times. I think we were flexing our muscles. But I also think we possibly.

Paul Dacre9:28

threw out the baby with the bath water. We we tore so many things down. We

Paul Dacre9:32

tore down our respect for the past, we tore down our respect for marriage and perhaps the family. And I think it's a question society is going to ask itself more and more in the next few years.

Presenter9:44

So you got your hands again, not surprisingly, on the university newspaper, didn't you? The Leeds Union News. It took over your life.

Paul Dacre9:51

It did. I mean, I'm afraid I didn't go to too many Anglo Saxon lectures during this period. It was just the most fantastic learning curve for for journalists. And the other great thing about university was I I met my wife.

Paul Dacre10:04

First saw her, she was in a cobalt production.

Paul Dacre10:07

I do recall not thinking much of her singing

Paul Dacre10:10

But I was struck how beautiful she was, and I I think I fell in love with her.

Paul Dacre10:14

A day and uh

Paul Dacre10:16

I couldn't have done anything in my life without her, and I'd like to pay that tribute to her today.

Presenter10:23

This is Kathy.

Paul Dacre10:24

Miss Cuffy

Paul Dacre10:25

We're married to we've got two wonderful sons, and I do firmly believe that you cannot become a strong editor unless you have a strong family behind you, and you understand the problems of a family, and no man be can become a success.

Paul Dacre10:40

Uh unless he has a wife to to pick him up when he's down.

Paul Dacre10:44

Put up with his shouting when he's tired.

Paul Dacre10:46

and to encourage him in the dark moments and death.

Paul Dacre10:50

My wife has I've been very blessed in having that wife.

Presenter10:54

Could number three.

Paul Dacre10:56

I've chosen Shosofovich's symphony of number twelve in D minor, known as The Year nineteen seventeen, and the reason I've chosen it is, I say, they were great heads.

Presenter11:05

Great left-wing stuff.

Paul Dacre11:06

Look great left-wing stuff, but I like the Russian Revolution. I do wonder whether we throw out the baby with a bath board.

Presenter11:13

Well, you're comparing the sixties to the Russian Russian.

Paul Dacre11:15

So yeah, well not of course, no, no, it's far too extreme, no, no, it's an absurd comparison, but um it did sum up those heady danger.

Presenter12:20

Part of the last movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. twelve in D minor, the year nineteen seventeen, which he dedicated to Lenin. That was played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazi.

Presenter12:31

Um so Paul Dacre on to the Daily Express in Manchester as a graduate trainee. You got sent uh to Northern Ireland a lot. This was early seventies and you know, one of the uglier periods in uh the recent history of Northern Ireland. Did the reality of life on the front line

Presenter12:47

dampen your enthusiasm at all for the job.

Paul Dacre12:49

No, I mean clearly Belfast was the big story uh at the time, those early seventies.

Paul Dacre12:56

I do remember, vividly.

Paul Dacre12:59

A sixteen-year-old.

Paul Dacre13:01

Catholic girl.

Paul Dacre13:03

gone out with a young soldier and for her sins been shot in the kneecaps.

Paul Dacre13:08

I rushed off to see her, in a in she's a Republican stronghold area.

Paul Dacre13:13

And I was jolly foolish because I knew that

Paul Dacre13:16

You know, you had to clear these things in advance with the relevant godfathers.

Paul Dacre13:20

Anyway, I got to see her and she was, you know, a lovely girl, and it was such a tragic story, and it was a great, great interview, and I came out of the front door.

Paul Dacre13:28

Of her counsel flat up to exultant.

Paul Dacre13:31

and out of the shadows, out of two alleyways on either side, suddenly

Paul Dacre13:35

A group of men emerged.

Paul Dacre13:37

Kind of pinned me against a wall with guns.

Paul Dacre13:40

pressed against my ribs.

Paul Dacre13:42

And all I could think was A, what a fool I'd been and I kept chanting look, feel in my right-hand pocket, it's my press card, it says I'm a journalist.

Paul Dacre13:49

And this went on for about 15 minutes, and eventually more men came, and phone calls were made, and they let me go.

Paul Dacre13:57

I'm sure by most war correspondents it's a a positively little footling little story, but it did teach me that

Paul Dacre14:04

I love bylines, but that one was going too far. Terrifying. Well, it showed how ambitious I was in those days.

Presenter14:07

Terrifying.

Presenter14:09

Sure. So you went to London eventually and then to America to work in the Express Bureau over there. You were twenty eight when you were sent over there, I think, to cover the Jimmy Carter election, and then you stayed for five or six years.

Presenter14:22

And this is where America in the second half of the 70s, apparently your politics changed. Now just explain that.

Paul Dacre14:28

Yes, they did. I left an ossified sclerotic Britain of

Paul Dacre14:32

great state nationalized money losing industries, and of vast council estates and of despair and thrall to corrupt labor councils.

Paul Dacre14:43

And I went to America and it was an utter revelation to me the energy, the absence of an us and them attitude, the absence of a class society, and the most telling thing of all was that ordinary people lived much better lives. Materially they were much better off.

Presenter14:58

Now, tell me though about you at the personal level, because eventually over there you were poached by the Daily Mail. David English came in and made you bureau chief over there, didn't he? But I get the impression, I don't know, that you were two different people. One is this sort of rather although driven, really rather shy man

Paul Dacre15:04

Atrocious.

Presenter15:16

And then th the other side is this man who ran the bureau, whose nickname was Benito as in Mussolini.

Paul Dacre15:22

I don't know whether I had that nickname at the time. I've had quite a few nicknames. But um yes, I am a shy man, um but I also believe that newspapers are about passion and energy.

Paul Dacre15:34

And if I shout occasionally it's because I care so much, and I don't think there's anybody on the floor of the Dirty Mail who doesn't know that in their heart of hearts.

Presenter15:37

Don't

Presenter15:42

All right, so then you came back over here and um clasped the greasy pole, yes?

Paul Dacre15:46

I did, reluctantly. One day the call came back: would I be deputy news editor? And that was the last thing on God's Earth that I wanted to be. And I was very unhappy as deputy news editor, and I suspect I'd always be unhappy as a deputy, but soon I became news editor. Over the next few years, I had a pretty dizzying succession of jobs. I became foreign editor, I became features editor, I moved on to the backbench and.

Presenter16:09

So it's a great training.

Paul Dacre16:10

It was the most wonderful training. I owe that to the Daily Mail and I owe that to th t to the late David English. He really put me through it and I actually believe that you can't edit a paper unless you have been put through it like that.

Speaker 216:12

Uh

Presenter16:22

Tell me about the next one. Number four.

Paul Dacre16:26

I've chosen for my next one the overture to to Wagner's Tannhauser.

Paul Dacre16:31

It is the first opera.

Paul Dacre16:33

I really ever saw it was at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

Paul Dacre16:38

And it was the most spectacular production and I fell in love with opera at that moment.

Presenter17:40

Part of the overture to Wagner's Tannhuizer, performed by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Zubin Mehta, and memories of your time in the States, Paul Dacre, but also I think memories you've said of sending your young sons to sleep, this music to go to sleep by. The your older son was an Eton scholar, I think.

Paul Dacre17:59

He was, yes.

Presenter18:00

Are they both? Is the second one?

Paul Dacre18:02

The second one.

Presenter18:04

So you've done that and you're a member of the Garrick and you know you've sort of got all of the badges of office, as it were, of the the privileged middle class you've managed to collect as you went up the pole, yeah.

Presenter18:17

Also

Paul Dacre18:18

I suppose so, Sue. I I've been very fortunate and and I, you know, I've earned well as I've gone on, and I I I've always wanted to give my children the best education. I don't think that Garrick is the epitome of the establishment. It's a wonderful club though it is.

Presenter18:29

Yeah, yeah. But you I mean, uh you've got a chauffeur and

Paul Dacre18:30

Thanks.

Presenter18:33

House in the country and flat in town

Paul Dacre18:35

Yes, and I and I

Presenter18:37

No, I'm not moving.

Presenter18:39

It's fascinating that you made it.

Paul Dacre18:40

That's a part of my life. I've had a I have a house in the country and I I don't actually see much of it because I work in town all week and I stay overnight in a small flat. Um yes.

Paul Dacre18:51

I ah do your newspapers have been good to me.

Presenter18:53

And generous salary. I mean,

Paul Dacre18:55

A generous salary and the realization that like all great football managers or bad football managers you can be sacked sacked tomorrow.

Presenter18:57

And they realize

Paul Dacre19:02

And um

Presenter19:04

Sure. But I suppose the question that comes of all of that, and the point of of establishing it, is that

Presenter19:10

Does that mean you can therefore identify with your readership who in the main must be kind of Middle England? I mean, how how do you know what what what Mondeo man or middle class woman is thinking? Because you're, you know, so much above and beyond all of that.

Paul Dacre19:25

Well, I have I am for the last few years of my life. But I grew up in the in the in the suburbs of North London, in Arnas Grove. Turnests weren't as well paid in those days.

Paul Dacre19:36

Um and we had

Paul Dacre19:38

a pretty ordinary lifestyle and um

Presenter19:40

So you think you've still got a line to them? You feel you do?

Paul Dacre19:43

I hope I have. I hope if I'm blessed with vulnerability to empathise with with the readers that early emails values, and those frankly the values I I I have always subscribed to.

Presenter19:52

And and how do you test those? I mean, do you research all the time? Do you do it's your gut instinct with that kind of

Paul Dacre19:54

Hunter.

Paul Dacre19:56

No, the the editor who relies on market research is dead. I and the other brilliant editors and writers I work with work on gut instincts. We identify with our our readers and um

Paul Dacre20:08

As I say, if we're blessed with an ability, it is that.

Presenter20:12

But certainly you didn't get to the the dizzy heights you've achieved wi without seeing off the competition and I'm sure David English was canny enough to to set you up with some competition. So it brought out a kind of killer instinct in me.

Paul Dacre20:24

Of course, if you Fleet Street's the most competitive uh arena in the business, and uh David English was legendary for pitting two men f for every uh available job. Yes, you had to guard your back, and uh he had to be tough, and he's a tough to a business.

Presenter20:36

So you got the plum job, though, emerging from that that competition, because you were forty two years old and you were offered the editorship of the Evening Standard, the kind of job you'd always had your heart set on. That must have been quite a moment.

Paul Dacre20:49

It was a tremendous moment in my life. I mean, I'd worked.

Paul Dacre20:52

For the last twenty years with the the objective of becoming an editor. I desperately want to become an editor.

Paul Dacre20:59

And the Standard was a wonderful paper and um yes, it was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Presenter21:04

What did you do the moment you heard?

Paul Dacre21:06

Well I know this sounds slightly silly, but I actually

Paul Dacre21:10

Went back.

Paul Dacre21:12

Tarnis Grove and I went to to walk round the house where I

Paul Dacre21:16

Growing up as a boy.

Paul Dacre21:18

What the area that I knew so well, because I I don't know whether the the child is the father of the man or or or what, but I do know that those are the forces that created me and my mother and my father.

Paul Dacre21:29

And I and I wanted to pay tribute to them and thank them, so because it had worked.

Presenter21:34

He's obviously quite an emotional man.

Paul Dacre21:36

No.

Paul Dacre21:37

I think I'm I feel the emotions of ordinary people.

Presenter21:41

But they're quite close to the surface, I can see.

Paul Dacre21:44

That was an emotional moment in my life.

Presenter21:46

What did your father say in that moment?

Paul Dacre21:48

I was thrilled. Absolutely thrilled. So proud of me.

Presenter21:52

Equal number five.

Paul Dacre21:53

Is Rostovovich playing part of Tchaikovsky's Rococo variations? I learned the piano and the cello, and.

Paul Dacre22:01

played it up to s to school age, and I've always loved the cello. I think it's it is the most emotional instrument, and this pu was one of the first pieces of music I learned and I love it for its simplicity.

Presenter23:11

Rostropovich playing part of uh Tchaikovsky's Rococo variations with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karian. Let's talk then about your political gut instinct, because when you took over the Daily Merve then in nineteen ninety two it had been, you know, pretty

Presenter23:26

Slavish towards Mrs. Thatcher and then John Major. You had no time for John Major, did you?

Paul Dacre23:31

The Tories had had been great in power, but they were exhausted and they were decadent. I yes, I don't want to sound arrogant, but I did have very little time for John Mage. I thought he was a very weak man.

Paul Dacre23:41

And the male, who came as a quite as a shock to the the Tories, became very critical of the Tory party, very, very critical.

Presenter23:47

But are you now, therefore, going to swing the full weight of your newspaper behind Michael Howard at the next election?

Paul Dacre23:53

I actually think that for the first time

Paul Dacre23:56

In Michael Hard, we have a grown-up politician and

Paul Dacre24:00

You know, at the eleventh hour we've got a man who can actually try and pull this party together because God knows uh you know Britain needs an opposition. My own view is that you know politicians

Paul Dacre24:11

kind of estimation of papers of being great, great political forces is a reflection on their weakness rather than newspapers' strength.

Presenter24:18

But they do feel that. I mean, they do court you. You must feel powerful. You must feel powerful.

Paul Dacre24:22

I don't feel powerful now. Actually, I feel rather humble. I I re my job is to represent

Paul Dacre24:27

Millions of people who don't have a voice.

Paul Dacre24:31

Who

Paul Dacre24:32

whose lives are mucked around by innate politicians,

Paul Dacre24:37

or an unfair judicial system, or a corrupt businessman.

Paul Dacre24:40

And my my job is to give them a voice.

Presenter24:43

Code number six.

Paul Dacre24:45

Record number six is Aaron Copenhagen's fan pair for the common man.

Paul Dacre24:48

And perhaps it's our greatest campaign uh uh the one perhaps I'm most proud of.

Paul Dacre24:53

was our campaign on behalf of Stephen Lawrence.

Paul Dacre24:57

Wonderful boy, he was aspir aspirational, he was going to become and go to university to study architecture.

Paul Dacre25:03

And he was standing at a bus stop one night when five savages stabbed him to death, and these savages

Paul Dacre25:10

Doctor Snoop, a justice over the next few years.

Paul Dacre25:14

and the moment came when they were in an inquest in coroner's court.

Paul Dacre25:19

And they

Paul Dacre25:20

pleaded their right to silence.

Paul Dacre25:23

I wrote a a headline on my layout pad.

Paul Dacre25:26

Murderers.

Paul Dacre25:28

The male accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us.

Paul Dacre25:33

And

Paul Dacre25:35

The risk was they would sue us for libel, and of course if they had sued us for libel, we'd be able to question them about Stephen Lawrence.

Paul Dacre25:42

And the downside, of course, was that I I I could be accused of contempt.

Paul Dacre25:47

Anyway.

Paul Dacre25:49

I went into my room at about nine o'clock. I call it the lonely hour between nine and ten, because ultimately only one man can make.

Paul Dacre25:54

made decisions. In the end we decided to go for it.

Paul Dacre25:58

I went home about eleven o'clock that night. I didn't read the first editions that night. I took a sleeping pill and went to bed because I knew I wouldn't sleep a wink otherwise. I knew I'd done something pretty.

Paul Dacre26:06

Yeah, it was outrageous in newspaper terms, quite frankly, and of course the next morning the um

Paul Dacre26:11

Proverbial urgour, hit the fan.

Paul Dacre26:14

And a previous Attorney General called for me to be jailed, and the telegraph wanted my head on a platter.

Paul Dacre26:22

The wonderful thing was that our phones literally went into meltdown from readers giving our support, and I think this was a case.

Paul Dacre26:29

of a newspaper making a difference, and newspapers come in for a lot of criticism and but they can make a difference, they can represent ordinary people, and I I have no doubt in my mind that in this case the mail did.

Presenter27:36

Part of Aaron Copeland's fanfare for the common man, played by the London Philharmonic conducted by Carl Davis.

Presenter27:42

Why do you think it is, Paul Dacre, that the Daily Mail, if it's as well motivated, as moral, as highly principled as as as you're saying, why is it that it is disliked by some, labelled as being far, far too negative and manipulative of people?

Paul Dacre28:00

Well, I I think that's a charge that I would be very foolish to reject out of hand. I've come to two conclusions that the people, by and large, who who lay that charge in the mail are people who have aggressively pursued.

Paul Dacre28:13

And I I suspect because The Mail is a very professional newspaper, I I'm I'm don't wish to sound bumptious, but I think it's possibly has the best professional journalists in Fleet Street, that we are sometimes overzealous in our pu uh our pursuit of of stories. We're sometimes sorry

Presenter28:27

Sometimes, sorry. But I'm not talking specifically about people you might have pursued. I'm not talking about celebrities, and we know those arguments are. Well, I meant politicians.

Paul Dacre28:33

Well, I meant politician rather than businessman.

Presenter28:35

People in the public eye, you know, they have to take the rough with the smooth, because they want the P R, they want the positive, and you've got to give them the negative. But I think what people are talking about is the selection of stories that maybe you select only negative stories about asylum seekers or negative stories about GM crops.

Paul Dacre28:49

No, that's absolutely nonsense.

Presenter28:55

That is what people perceive as being

Paul Dacre28:56

Well no no no no no a small and narrow metropolitan minority perceive that. I would say that every paper has to have a soul.

Paul Dacre29:06

and the males is is is based on family values, on on the two words self reliance and aspiration, and especially encountering encountering that liberal, politically correct consensus that dominates so much British public life.

Presenter29:21

Well you mentioned that and you mentioned family life and so on and I mean another allegation that's put about the Daily Mail is that it's very unfair on working women and maybe the view is that that it's the Dacre view of life that a woman ideally looks after the family.

Paul Dacre29:21

Wait, what?

Paul Dacre29:31

Well

Paul Dacre29:36

Oh yes, and I'm married to a woman who's had a wonderful career in academia, a mother who was a teacher. First of all, you know, the male employees some of the most brilliant women in journalism.

Presenter29:42

Yeah.

Paul Dacre29:45

Secondly, our whole appeal. Our whole appeal is based on appealing to upmarket women. We have three times as many AB women readers as The Guardian.

Presenter29:54

Yeah, well perhaps they like being perhaps they like being

Paul Dacre29:55

No, I think what we do is we air it we air with tremendous vigour. We air issues that that that are of concern to modern women and and I do think I do think and I could be wrong that one of the greatest issues for modern women is the question of whether you can have it all whether you can have a

Paul Dacre30:14

Family, children, marriage, and a career, and keep all the balls in the air at the same time and the male explores that, because I think it is one of the great female issues of our time.

Presenter30:23

I wonder if the male is also guilty of of playing to uh the worst kind of Scharden Freuder that's in us all. You know, when you show us um celebrities in their swimsuits, you know, Judy Finnegan's thighs and, you know, what is her swimsuit age. I mean, it's pretty nasty stuff.

Paul Dacre30:37

Pretty nasty stuff.

Presenter30:40

But uh

Presenter30:43

You do.

Paul Dacre30:44

I'm not aware we ha are actually and I frankly we do less of this than many other papers. The Mail has an awful lot of serious content in it, more than many broadsheets. But we're realistic. People are interested, they are curious, they are nosy, and I plead guilty to that, but I hope we do it in a tasteful way. But I do believe, as I've just said, that a politically correct consensus dominates so much in British life. It says that Britain's a shameful nation with a shameful history and a culture and a people who are inherently racist, sexist and anti-European. It says the nuclear family is outmoded and that in justice and education, liberal progressive values must prevail. Well, the fact is that most Britons don't believe this. They simply don't. We represent the views of those regions, and I think that is one of the factors why our circulation goes on rising.

Presenter31:34

Techno number seven.

Paul Dacre31:36

Handles

Paul Dacre31:37

Oratorio

Paul Dacre31:39

Theodora

Paul Dacre31:40

I've chosen it in tribute to the

Paul Dacre31:43

The the relatives of the Omar victims with the male has been

Paul Dacre31:47

Very robustly campaigning on.

Paul Dacre31:49

On their behalf.

Paul Dacre31:50

So I'd like.

Speaker 232:12

I've heard there take for today.

Speaker 232:19

Take or take me to it.

Speaker 232:29

Yeah.

Speaker 232:31

Take what take.

Speaker 232:35

Make your fire.

Paul Dacre32:35

It there's another fire.

Speaker 232:40

Hey, what make me it all?

Speaker 232:46

Take, what take it for you?

Presenter32:53

Part of Handel's Oratorio Theodora that was sung by Roberto Alexander with the Arnold Schoenberg choir and the concertus Musicus Veen conducted by Nicholas Arnancourt. So ten years now or more in the driving seat of the mail, Paul Dacre, ten years of 15-hour adrenaline, pumping, shouting and swearing days. Not too much swearing, Sue. Lot of shouting.

Paul Dacre33:12

Not too much swearing, so lots of shouting.

Presenter33:18

What's your um wife, Cathy's view, though? I mean, presumably she would like you at some point to think about taking it a bit easier, and she'd like to see more of you.

Paul Dacre33:26

Yes, I think that's fair. My only regret is that, you know, I at weekends I am very exhausted and um if I have some regrets that I wasn't able you know, I haven't been able to give my children uh as much uh

Paul Dacre33:38

Love of journalism perhaps I got from my father, but they're magnificent boys and they've done brilliantly.

Paul Dacre33:43

Um I'm a very ordinary man, too. I'm so boring it will it will bring tears. I go home.

Paul Dacre33:49

wander round my garden, which I love. I read, I listen to music.

Paul Dacre33:53

Uh I go to the pub and have a drink with friends and uh

Paul Dacre33:57

I I retire to the bosom of my family, from which I draw draw great strength.

Presenter34:02

But all this other stuff comes with the territory. How much do you mind it, you know, that people are saying negative things about you?

Paul Dacre34:07

If you don't accept crit criticism, don't go into newspaces.

Presenter34:11

But you never go out and defend, say, your Stephen Lawrence headline on Newsnight.

Paul Dacre34:15

No, I don't, because I have again an over over overriding belief that uh newspaper editors who believe that they're celebrities who, you know, whose views are somehow important and should be aired on the

Presenter34:16

Uh Because I have a

Speaker 234:17

Uh

Presenter34:17

Okay.

Presenter34:27

Well your views are important'cause you put them forward in the newspaper.

Paul Dacre34:27

What your views are?

Paul Dacre34:29

Yes, and I defend them and I and I explain them, but I don't think they're more than that. That's the Donie Males' views. I don't have any view and it's representation of leader writers and

Paul Dacre34:37

And wonderfully clever executives on my paper, and it's a representation of our readers' views. And if people want to know what we think, it's there.

Presenter34:44

I guess there'll be quite a few people, and and you have to agree, who would actively like you to be cast away on a desert island and marooned for good.

Paul Dacre34:50

I can unequivocally agree with that statement.

Presenter34:55

So are you going to oblige when we put you there, will you stay there?

Paul Dacre34:59

I

Paul Dacre35:00

Might stay there, but I think I'd be a pretty, pretty bored and frustrated castaway.

Presenter35:07

Last record, what is it?

Paul Dacre35:08

My last record i i is Verdi's Requiem. This particular music, I think, brings out the and represents the god in man, and I'd like to.

Paul Dacre35:18

I play it as tribute to the many, many great journalists I've known.

Presenter36:18

Part of the opening of Verdi's Requiem with the London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox. Now, Paul, if you could only take one of those eight records with you, which one would you take?

Paul Dacre36:28

Well, I think I love my father, but Bing might become a little bit wearying. I think Handel pips him to the post.

Presenter36:35

Um what about your book? You you get the Bible, you get the complete works of Shakespeare.

Paul Dacre36:40

I suspect, Sue, if you would allow me and I know you don't allow textbooks I really would like to take a great fat volume. It's from the Royal Horticultural Society's A to Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants. And if I promise not to read any of the horticultural notes and just look to the pictures, it would give me great

Paul Dacre36:57

Happiness reminded me of my my garden in Sussex.

Presenter37:00

It's a deal. And you're luxury for

Paul Dacre37:01

Yeah.

Paul Dacre37:02

I may surprise you here. I think I

Paul Dacre37:04

I choose a year's subscription of the Guardian newspaper. It's a brilliant paper in so many ways, but it's patronising right on sanctimonious political correctness.

Paul Dacre37:14

gets me so angry and it give me the the energy and the willpower to get off that island, come back to England.

Paul Dacre37:22

I could sell my story, my Robinson Crusoe lifestyle story to Daddy Mail for a fortune, and retire to my garden.

Presenter37:29

Uh

Presenter37:29

Paul Daker, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 337:40

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.