Piers Morgan (10 page)

This became apparent in one small gesture. In March 1998, a silver cup came to auction from a school – West Heath – that had closed down the previous year. It was awarded to pupils who excelled at tap and ballet. Entirely unremarkable except for one small feature, it would normally have been worth no more than £15 to £20. But that small feature was a line which read: ‘D Spencer 1976’. It was the cup that had been presented to Princess Diana when she was still at school and dreamed of becoming a ballerina. As such, it was worth far more than that. And so, when it went up for auction, none other than the
Mirror
itself bought it and turned the purchase into a
publicity coup when it was announced that they would be giving it to Princes William and Harry, as well as having a replica of the cup made to be presented each year to a child with exceptional dancing skills.

‘We felt it was right that this trophy should be passed to her two sons rather than to a stranger at an auction house, given the obvious sentimental value,’ said Piers, completely in tune with the prevailing sentiment at the time.

And he had showed that he could learn from his mistakes, too. In the wake of the
ACHTUNG! SURRENDER
front page and because of the forthcoming international event taking place once more, the Press Complaints Commission chairman Lord Wakeham warned the papers not to incite ‘violence, disorder or xenophobia’ during their coverage of the World Cup. A penitent Piers held up his hands. ‘The bottom line was that readers didn’t like it very much,’ he said. ‘What Euro ’96 showed was that that kind of humour, which had been pretty well acceptable in the tabloids for quite a few years before, had really reached its end. People were saying enough was enough. When we went too far with the Germany game, we all sat down and thought, “Right, we mustn’t let that happen again.” We took that old-style humour too far. You can still be humorous, but you shouldn’t be offensive. The readers won’t put up with it. Our coverage will be very different.’

Lessons, as they say, had been learned; Piers could afford to be somewhat regretful, given that he’d been setting the agenda day in and day out with other royal
stories, as well as enjoying cosy chats with the PM, but he was now signalling to the world in general – and his industry in particular – that here was a wiser, more mature version of himself. Utterly in tune with
Mirror
readers, he knew exactly what was expected of him and, in the years to come, he wasn’t about to disappoint. Finally, the Boy Wonder had grown up.

A
s Piers settled into the job, there were increasing signs that the
Mirror
was going to be an independent voice when it came to the Labour Party. Overall, it would be supportive but it would not be slow to criticise, as and when occasion demanded. This stance was hardened during a row involving the then US President Bill Clinton when Piers thought it would be a good idea to run an open letter from Clinton to the people of Ulster in the run-up to the referendum. Clinton agreed, so long as the
Mirror
penned the actual copy. The paper’s political editor, Kevin Maguire, duly obliged, but when a copy was sent for approval to Tony Blair’s director of communications, Alastair Campbell, he also sent a copy to the
Sun
, who then put it on the front page. Piers went ballistic and the ensuing row was virulent enough for the rest of Fleet Street to admit there was no question that he really was his own man now.

Over at the
Sun
, the paper’s editor Stuart Higgins suddenly and unexpectedly resigned, to be replaced by David Yelland, which signalled the onset of a fresh feud. Piers said that he would give him ‘the mother of all welcomes, just to make him feel at home’, and, indeed, no love was lost between the two men over the next few years.

In fact, theirs was to be a personal animosity, far more than is usually found between the editors of two rival newspapers. Piers could be savage when he wanted to be. ‘They [the
Sun
] appear to be slightly more puerile than normal without the sharp cutting edge of humour that Kelvin always brought to the party,’ he declared. ‘They seem a bit stupid. Mr Yelland is a bright guy, wholly unsuited to his job – he will prove a glorious failure and I wish him every success.’

Naturally, Yelland replied in kind, although in truth his appointment had caused astonishment in some quarters. He would never have quite the populist touch of his rival and didn’t seem to understand the way in which attitudes in Britain were changing. His paper notoriously asked,
IS BRITAIN BEING RUN BY A GAY MAFIA
? after the former Welsh secretary Ron Davies was discovered in dubious circumstances on Clapham Common, but, rather than chiming with the readers as it would have done a decade earlier, the piece instead provoked accusations of homophobia.

Meanwhile, Piers was managing to take a more liberal line, while thoroughly enjoying himself at the expense of the
Sun
; in the wake of the homophobia accusations,
the paper piously declared that it would only out people if it was in the public interest to do so. Piers promptly published an article with the title
SETTING SUN
: ‘The
Sun
has done so many U-turns in the past few days, it must be in danger of vanishing up its own dwindling circulation,’ he jeered.

Not that his own style of editing was without controversy: at the time, Piers was getting his knuckles rapped for running a series of articles about Prince Harry. They were actually pretty minor stories, all about new haircuts and slight sports injuries, but, in the wake of the death of Princess Diana, the media had to tread carefully where other royals, especially her sons, were concerned. But he wasn’t going to be pushed around; on learning that Prince Charles was considering making a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission regarding a story about Harry hurting his arm, Piers threatened to launch an investigation of his own into stories leaked by those surrounding the royals themselves to cast them in a more flattering light.

‘It will be a comprehensive review into the number of stories that have emanated from St James’s Palace in the last year, which place them in a favourable light,’ he declared. ‘We think the public have a right to know.’ This was a robust reaction, but a high-risk strategy, too – in the wake of Diana’s death, it was easy for feelings to run high.

By now, Piers had really grown into the job of editor and relished the attention it brought. In hindsight, there are clear signs about the direction his life was about to
follow, too. ‘Sure, occasionally I get called a complete tosser but it doesn’t bother me,’ he insisted in an interview at the time. ‘If you are my age [thirty-three] and you do my job, you are going to get attention. And I don’t exactly run from that – it gets attention for the paper. If the BBC and ITV want to come and interview me, it saves thousands of pounds in advertising. If you are not the market leader, you have to try every trick in the book to get attention for your paper and that has very much been my strategy.’

He simply never stopped. Hot on the heels of rowing with the royals, he became involved in a massive feud with
Guardian
editor Alan Rusbridger, whom he accused of stealing a
Mirror
story; it was a big one, the fact that Peter Mandelson, then the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, had borrowed a large sum from Geoffrey Robinson, then the Paymaster General, to buy his Notting Hill home. Rusbridger denied point-blank that he had stolen the story. The problem was that another columnist who Piers had recently hired, Paul Routledge, had recently written a biography of Mandelson and included the story about the loan. However, the
Mirror
didn’t publish the piece but then it seems someone at the
Guardian
saw the manuscript, picked up on the story and claimed it for their own, whereupon another row ensued, before the two were spotted having dinner at The Ivy.

Piers also claimed that Prince Michael of Kent was in debt to the tune of £2.5 million, another story roundly
condemned as lies. The paper also serialised
Monica’s Story,
Andrew Morton’s biography of Bill Clinton’s intern and near-nemesis Monica Lewinsky.

Scoop after scoop followed, with huge dollops of
self-publicity
thrown in, and it was announced that Piers was to edit, as a one-off, an issue of the women’s magazine
Cosmopolitan
.

Financially, Piers was doing well, too. Home was now a large house in Wandsworth, South London, and a tailor regularly visited him at his office. Holidays were spent in the Caribbean and he frequented the finest restaurants while his two sons, Spencer and Stanley, attended private school. As well as eating in the best restaurants, he was also beginning to appear at the best parties. Slowly, but surely, Piers was becoming a celebrity in his own right.

And still the scoops rolled in. The latest was the publication of love letters written thirty years previously by Moors murderer Ian Brady to Myra Hindley; Brady threatened to go to court to get them back.

Piers may have sort of made up with Alan Rusbridger, but he was more than prepared to re-feud when it suited his own ends. When Rusbridger and his deputy Georgina Henry held an online chat on the
Guardian
website (still something of a novelty back then), Piers logged on as Piers 10 and posted the following message: ‘Congratulations on making The Guardian even more unreadable than it was before’.

Rusbridger and Henry refused to let this pass. ‘Piers 10,’ they posted. ‘Why don’t you stick to narcissistic
(look it up) phone-in polls and leave the real journalism to journalists?’

But they were also pretty good sports. Piers’ contribution had been so lively (he went on to say that, if he printed a picture of Rusbridger’s behind, he would still get more readers in East Darlington than the
Guardian
achieved nationally) that the readers loved it – and so he was invited back on to the
Guardian
website to become the subject of a chat himself.

Piers’ continued interest in the royal family – or, to be more specific, his numerous stories about them, especially one focusing on an injury Prince Harry received when playing rugby – actually prompted a ruling by the Press Complaints Committee, which published a new set of guidelines as to how the papers must behave. The boys should not be constantly under the spotlight, it stated, but at the same time St James’s Palace would have to accept there was an enormous amount of interest in them. As well he might, Piers welcomed the ruling.

In May 1999 came another masterstroke: this time with the establishment of the first Pride of Britain Awards, something that was to become an annual feature at the
Mirror
and continues to this day. The idea was simple: give awards to ordinary people who have done outstanding things, and invite the great and good along. Inspirational teachers were honoured, along with bomb victims and courageous children. The A-list was out in force, including Tony and Cherie Blair, Mo Mowlam, Queen Noor of Jordan, various Spice Girls (then at the height of their
fame), as well as Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. In fact, this was where the couple first met, something Piers was to dine out on for many years ahead. It was a spectacular success.

Over at the
Sun
, David Yelland looked as if he was proving the doubters right. Usually, Piers was the one accused of going too far, but this time it was unquestionably his rival; in the run-up to the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones, the
Sun
published a picture taken years earlier of Sophie with her right breast exposed. The uproar was immediate, so much so that the
Sun
was forced to apologise almost straight away. For Piers, who was so often the person who had pushed the envelope, the moment must have been sweet: this knocked stories about Prince Harry into a cocked hat. And not in a good way, as far as the
Sun
was concerned. Piers was also not slow to gloat: he put the story on the front page, two inside pages and a comment slot, as David Yelland was forced to issue one grovelling apology after another. In truth, Piers himself had been there many a time, even so, it was nice to see the boot on the other foot. There were even reports that Piers would be headhunted to return to News International and edit the
Sun
, although these rumours proved wide of the mark.

Still, he triumphed at the
Mirror
, where the paper had taken it upon itself to campaign for a memorial for Princess Diana. In September 1999, the building of just such a tribute was announced. But he was still able to laugh at himself, for, when the
Mirror
published a Power 100 List, Piers was at number 78. (David Yelland also
appeared, under the name David Tharg and was described as the ‘current’ editor of the
Sun
.)

Piers had certainly proved his doubters wrong: he entered his fourth year as editor of the
Mirror
more than ever his own man. Both Kelvin MacKenzie and David Montgomery had now left, which meant he was no longer plagued by stories about the two of them breathing down his neck, while he had taken the paper slightly upmarket and given it a more feel-good stance than the
Sun
.

At that stage, his marriage was still quite happy; his sons were turning out to be almost as football mad as himself and life seemed good. Yet another scoop landed on his desk: Cherie Blair was pregnant. The
Mirror
triumphed yet again!

It was to continue to do so, but Piers very nearly found himself in serious trouble yet again. More than once in his career, it happened that, just as matters were going extremely well, he almost managed to sabotage himself and so it was to prove again. But this time around, it wasn’t an ill-judged front page or yet another feud but something far worse: there were suggestions of financial impropriety and Piers was to find himself at the centre of the story, an experience he only just survived.

The trouble began in the
Mirror
’s ‘City’ pages. At that stage, two extremely aggressive young men, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, operated under the name ‘City Slickers’, the title under which the scandal was to become known. They tipped a company called Viglen, a computer hardware company belonging to Sir Alan Sugar under
the title,
SUGAR TO JOIN NET GOLD RUSH
, and the shares subsequently soared. However, it then emerged that, the night before the story appeared, Piers had bought £20,000 worth of Viglen Technology through Kyte Securities, a stake holding which promptly doubled when the price soared from 181p to 366p. It didn’t look good, although it should be noted that he bought the shares in his own name and, had he been up to no good, this would not have been the brightest of ideas.

But, as soon as the facts came to light, there was outrage. Shares do soar on the back of newspaper tips, which means stringent regulations have been set as to what journalists are permitted to buy. Meanwhile, Piers was adamant he’d done nothing wrong. ‘It [the share purchase] was nothing to do with the column,’ he insisted. ‘I never see the “City” column before the market shuts. The first I see of it is around 6.30pm or 7pm. I was amused when I saw it. I was going to buy them anyway; I believe in Alan Sugar, he is a columnist here and it is a good company. Everyone was tipping them. I don’t buy that many shares and I am scrupulous about how I do it. I would never do anything improper – I don’t go sneaking over to see what the tip of the day is.’

Nonetheless, he had ruffled a few feathers over previous years and his detractors were not slow to leap on this one. Whatever the truth – and Piers was later completely exonerated – it did not look good. The Stock Exchange announced it would be launching an investigation while the
Mirror
’s management summoned their editor to explain himself. He was forced to issue a public statement. ‘I did
not personally feel the article was particularly
market-sensitive
,’ he said. ‘I was therefore very surprised when the share price doubled the next morning but I made no attempt to sell any shares then and I have not done so since. I have not breached the Code of Conduct or any Stock Exchange regulations. My purchase of the shares was made six hours before the City Slickers obtained their story from Viglen’s chief executive and, if I was going to buy shares in a company based on information from the paper, would I be stupid enough to do it in my own name?’

It goes without saying that the
Sun
was beside itself with glee at the story, and it’s a measure of just how seriously it was taken that the matter was raised in the House of Commons. There were widespread calls for Piers to be sacked, while attention was turned to the ‘City Slickers’ themselves (who were to pay a much higher price). Like so many of his journalists, they had been encouraged to turn themselves into personalities and thus had also made a few enemies along the way, so more than one rival would be glad to see them come down.