Richard Littlejohn

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Richard William Littlejohn (born 18 January 1954 in Ilford, London) is an award-winning British journalist, broadcaster, and author of three books. His twice-weekly columns in the Daily Mail and The Sun earned him a place in the inaugural 'Newspaper Hall of Fame' as one of the most influential journalists of the past 40 years. He has been named Fleet Street's Columnist of the Year, Irritant of the Year by the BBC's What The Papers Say awards and "The stupid person's Jeremy Clarkson" by The Guardian[1]. He has also written for London's Evening Standard, Punch and The Spectator.

His radio and television programmes have won a Sony award and a Silver Rose of Montreux.

Contents

[edit] Career

Although primarily a newspaper journalist, Littlejohn has presented numerous radio and TV shows, and has authored or co-authored several books.

[edit] Journalism

Although he was born in the East End of London in January 1954, Littlejohn and his family moved to Peterborough when he was five. His father was an Engineer for British Rail. Littlejohn passed the Eleven-plus but turned down a scholarship at a minor public school on the grounds that they didn't play football. Instead, he attended Deacons Grammar School between 1965 and 1970. He left at the age of 16 to start work as a trainee journalist in Peterborough. He worked for several local newspapers during the early 1970s. In the mid-1970s, he joined the Birmingham Evening Mail, becoming its industrial editor in 1977.

He worked at the London Evening Standard from 1979 to 1989, initially as industrial editor, later becoming a feature writer and (in 1988) a columnist. Whilst industrial editor in the early 1980s he was asked to stand as a Labour Party candidate, which he declined.[2] In 1989 he joined The Sun, quickly becoming its most popular columnist. His columns regularly attracted controversy, and he was voted "Irritant of the Year" at the 1993 What The Papers Say Awards.

In 1994, he left The Sun and started writing for the Daily Mail, contributing two opinion columns: one on news and current affairs (in a similar format to his Sun column), and one on sport. His Mail columns earned him the title "Columnist of the Year" at the 1997 British Press Awards.

In early 1998, Littlejohn became the UK's best-paid columnist when he returned to The Sun to write a twice-weekly column as part of a £800,000-a-year deal (which also saw him present a regular TV programme, Littlejohn: Live And Unleashed, on Sky One). It was subsequently cancelled due to poor ratings.

In May 2005, however, he re-joined the Mail, a move he claimed was "always his intention". When news of the move broke, Mail editor Paul Dacre issued a statement praising Littlejohn, adding that he was "thrilled" that Littlejohn was "returning to his spiritual home". Littlejohn reportedly earns an annual salary of between £700,000 and £800,000, making him the Mail's highest-paid journalist.

In addition to his regular columns, Littlejohn has occasionally contributed articles to magazines such as The Spectator and Punch.

One of Littlejohn's Sun columns - a 2004 skit, entitled "Rum, Sodomy and the Lifejacket", in which Lord Nelson is confronted with political correctness, compensation culture and the nanny state - has been widely plagiarised. It has been published in several newspapers, magazines, and websites with Littlejohn's writing credit removed.

[edit] Radio

By the end of the 1980s, Littlejohn was well known in London for his Evening Standard columns, and he was regularly invited onto radio programmes as a pundit. Starting in 1991, he worked for the London radio station LBC as a guest presenter, standing in for Michael Parkinson on the morning show and for Mike Dickin on the afternoon phone-in programme.

LBC gave Littlejohn his own early afternoon show, Littlejohn's Long Lunch, in August 1992; the programme was a talk show featuring topical discussion, listener phone-ins, and celebrity guests. He later became the permanent presenter of the morning show, replacing Michael Parkinson.

[edit] Television

After leaving LBC in 1994, Littlejohn was approached by BSkyB managing director (and former Sun editor) Kelvin MacKenzie, and was offered the chance to present a nightly current affairs show on the TV channel Sky News. Called Richard Littlejohn, the show ran for one year and was not a huge success. Littlejohn later expressed his disappointment, claiming that British broadcasting regulations would not permit him to present the show in the style of Rush Limbaugh's programmes: "If Sky News could emulate its U.S. sister Fox News... ratings would soon shoot past the Astra satellite. But the regulators won't allow it."

Later in 1994, Trevor Phillips of London Weekend Television hired Littlejohn to host a studio-based talk show entitled Richard Littlejohn Live And Uncut. Phillips produced three series of the programme, which was transmitted in the London area only. In 2006 it was named by the BBC's TV listings magazine Radio Times as one of the worst programmes ever to appear on British television, with its presenter called "as amateurish as he is odious". An infamous fault during one LWT broadcast of one episode accidentally switched to RTL Television, which, at the time, was showing softcore porn. [2] (Note: The video contains nudity. Another segment includes one use of strong language.)

Littlejohn also hosted the first series of Channel 4's game show Wanted, though he was not the producers' first choice of presenter (he was a last minute stand-in for Bob Mills)[citation needed]. Wanted first aired in October 1996, and won a Silver Rose at the prestigious Festival Rose d'Or.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Littlejohn presented several shows for Carlton Television, including Sport In Question, Thursday Night Live, Do I Not Like That, Shut Up Shop and Forking Out For The Scots. Additionally, he has regularly appeared as a panellist and pundit on programmes such as the BBC's Question Time and Have I Got News For You.

As part of a 1997 deal which also saw him return to the Sun newspaper, Littlejohn briefly hosted a late night talk show on Sky One called Littlejohn: Live And Unleashed. It was first broadcast on 21 April 1998.

In early 2003 he returned to Sky News to present Littlejohn, a live topical talk show which was initially broadcast twice-weekly, but was later extended to four nights per week. The programme was axed in 8 July 2004. Littlejohn has stated that he has not ruled out the possibility of returning to Sky News in the future, but since the show was cancelled due to poor ratings [3], this seems unlikely.

On 9th July 2007, Channel 4 showed a documentary entitled The War on Britain's Jews?, presented by Richard Littlejohn.

[edit] Books

Littlejohn has authored or co-authored several books:

  • The Essex Girl Joke Book (as Ray Leigh, with Brent Wood, 1991, Corgi Publishing) - a collection of Essex girl jokes, co-written (with "Brent Wood") under the pseudonym "Ray Leigh".
  • Littlejohn's Britain - Publisher: Hutchinson (3 May 2007) ISBN-10: 0091795680 - Described by the Observer as "Lampooning New Labour with polemic, pastiche, parody, satire and savage social commentary."

[edit] Controversy and criticism

Although he is sometimes praised[citation needed] as an antidote to political correctness, Johann Hari, Will Self and David Aaronovitch see him as an inciter of hatred [3] Littlejohn has been described by Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party, as his favourite journalist, but Littlejohn has distanced himself, by describing them as "knuckle-scraping scum".[4]

In a 2003 interview, Littlejohn said: "People project their own prejudices on me... I'm a convenient whipping boy... I'm the 'homophobe' who had a whole column in favour of gay weddings. I'm the 'racist' who supported Trevor Phillips for Mayor of London. It's not enough to disagree with them [the Left] - they have to make you out to be a monster".

[edit] Criminal record

Littlejohn has a criminal conviction for committing acts of violence outside a nightclub in Peterborough in the 1970's. [4]

[edit] LBC radio programme

During his time at the radio station LBC, Littlejohn was censured by the Radio Authority on several occasions for breaching broadcasting rules. This culminated in an official reprimand by the Radio Authority for homophobia, due to an edition of his phone-in show in which he suggested the police should have used flamethrowers against a group of gay rights protestors who reportedly kicked a police officer outside the Houses of Parliament.[5] The subject of the protest was the lowering of the gay age of consent, which Littlejohn described as "allow[ing] schoolboys to be buggered at sixteen".[citation needed] Littlejohn was judged by the Radio Authority to have breached guidelines on homophobia and incitement to violence. Littlejohn claims that gay people who worked on the programme found his comments about massacring gay people with flamethrowers "hilarious".[citation needed]

On another LBC phone-in programme he was again censured by the Radio Authority for describing the British Royal Family as a "bunch of tax-evading adulterers".[6] Unlike most other right-wing commentators, Littlejohn favours the abolition of the Monarchy.[7]

Whilst opposed to the restoration of the Death Penalty within Britain, he supports suspected terrorists being deported to states where they could be tortured or executed. Littlejohn also demanded on 16 August 2002, after Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman had gone missing in Soham (Their bodies were found the following day), a national referendum on the death penalty for specific crimes against children.[8][citation needed]

[edit] The Michael Winner incident

On one episode of Littlejohn's London Weekend Television show Richard Littlejohn Live And Uncut in July 1994, two lesbian guests (one of whom was former Lambeth council leader Linda Bellos) argued in favour of lesbians becoming parents. Littlejohn was very critical of the two women, which led to celebrity guest Michael Winner denouncing Littlejohn, saying that "I think the lesbians have come across with considerable dignity and you have come across as an arsehole" and condemned Littlejohn as homophobic. Nigella Lawson, who was also present, described Littlejohn's views as "extreme".

Littlejohn recalled this incident in his 1995 book You Couldn't Make It Up, expressing surprise that his "revolutionary opinion" that children should ideally have both a male and a female parent, and that the NHS should not subsidise artificial insemination for women "who can't even abide the thought of becoming pregnant in the natural manner", was condemned so vociferously by his guests.

[edit] The Will Self incident

On a June 2001 edition of Nicky Campbell's show on BBC Radio Five Live, a heated discussion took place between Littlejohn and fellow guest Will Self. Both were on the show to promote their recently published novels (Littlejohn's To Hell in a Handcart and Self's How The Dead Live).

Campbell cited David Aaronovitch's description of Littlejohn's novel as a "400-page recruiting pamphlet for the BNP". Littlejohn responded (referring to Aaronovitch): "What else do you expect from an overgrown student union leader who used to be a member of the Communist Party?" He later boasted that he would include the quote on the cover of the book when it was reprinted. However, due to poor sales of the original, this reprinting has not taken place.

Self then stated that he agreed with Aaronovitch's comments, and that he had read half of Littlejohn's book, which he described as "a kind of Tom Sharpe for the far right". Littlejohn said that he should "read the book in its totality", to which Self retorted "Why?... Does it turn into Tolstoy at page 205?". Littlejohn's often-quoted response was: "No it doesn't turn into Tolstoy. I don't set out to be Tolstoy. It is a much more complex book than that".[9]

Recalling the incident some time later, Self denounced Littlejohn as a bully and a coward, adding: "Ask anyone who's gay: they find him repugnant".

[edit] Attitude to homosexuality

The Diary column of The Guardian newspaper annually documents the results of a "Littlejohn audit" [10] — a count of the number of references Littlejohn makes to homosexuality in his columns.

In the past year's Sun columns, Richard has referred 42 times to gays, 16 times to lesbians, 15 to homosexuals, eight to bisexuals, twice to 'homophobia' and six to being 'homophobic' (note his scornful inverted commas), five times to cottaging, four to 'gay sex in public toilets', three to poofs, twice to lesbianism, and once each to buggery, dykery, and poovery. This amounts to 104 references in 90-odd columns — an impressive increase on his 2003 total of 82 mentions. There is, alas, no space for us to revisit the scientific study which found obsessive homophobes more responsive to gay porn. But Richard, we're begging you: talk to someone.

—Marina Hyde, The Guardian [10]

Littlejohn has claimed that he is opposed to discrimination against homosexuals. In his Daily Mail column published on 10 October 2007, he said, in reference to British society in the 1970s: "Though homosexuality wasn't exactly my idea of a night out, I thought it outrageous that gays were subjected to discrimination in areas such as employment, housing and pensions." [11] However, at the time he joked about gay-bashing and compared homosexuals to paedophiles. [5] Ben Summerskill in the Guardian suggested Littlejohn talks so much about this subject because he is himself a repressed homosexual who cannot cope with his sexuality. [6]

[edit] Johann Hari

Journalist Johann Hari has described Littlejohn's writing as "far-right propaganda." He has accused him of lying about the benefits paid to asylum seekers.

In 2004, Hari appeared as a guest on Littlejohn's Sky News programme and challenged him about his claims that an asylum seeker could claim hundreds of pounds per week in benefits, stating that the true figure was just £37.77 per week. He later wrote: "I asked Richard how much a single asylum seeker is given in benefits each week. You'd think that a journalist who writes about asylum twice a week would, of course, know something so incredibly basic. His response was clear. He snapped: 'I have no idea'."[12]

Hari published an article on his website in June 2005, stating that it was a "provable fact" that Littlejohn was a "racist and homophobe". The article cited Littlejohn's views on the Rwandan genocide (see above), his comments about Gypsies in the wake of the Tony Martin case: ("He [Martin] had every reason to hate them. He and his neighbours had been terrorised by them for years."), and many other statements by Littlejohn. Citing Marina Hyde's article (see above), Hari also accused Littlejohn of being obsessed with homosexuality, of joking about gay-bashing and the murder of homosexuals, and of comparing homosexuality with paedophilia and extreme fetishes. Littlejohn has not taken up Hari's invitation to sue.[13]

In a review in the New Statesman in 2007, he furthered his criticisms, writing that "He obsessively talks about cottaging, lubricants, 69ers... I think about gay sex much less than Richard Littlejohn - and I am gay. Every problem circles back to sodomy in his mind, as he panics: 'Soon we'll have gay men going door to door, like Jehovah's Witnesses, trying to convince us to convert.' This isn't bigotry. It's a psychiatric disorder."[14]

In response, Littlejohn has dubbed him "Dirty Hari" and said he suspects Hari finds him sexually attractive. [7]

[edit] Criticisms of murdered prostitutes and kidnapped servicemen and women

On 19 December 2006, in the aftermath of the Ipswich murders of five women, Littlejohn wrote a column in which he described the victims as "disgusting, drug-addled street whores" and their deaths as "no great loss". He added that for prostitutes, being murdered is "an occupational hazard" stemming from their own "free choice". He described the feminist debate about how to rescue women from the murderer as "hilarious." [15]

Littlejohn later attacked the British servicemen and women kidnapped by the Iranian government in a similar vein, dubbing one of them "fat" and claiming they had been "cowardly".

[edit] Personal Life

Littlejohn is a big fan of football, and is a keen supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club. He evens stars in his own football video, We Woz Robbed,[8]. In 1974 he married Wendy Bosworth in Peterborough. They have two children, William and Georgina, who were educated privately. Georgina is now a writer for Associated Newspapers, the company where Littlejohn is a senior employee. Littlejohn lives in Florida in the United States for much of the year.[16]

[edit] References

  1. ^ John Crace "Littlejohn's Britain by Richard Littlejohn" The Guardian 15 May 2007, retrieved 23 October 2007
  2. ^ David Rowan: The Times: Interview - Richard Littlejohn, Sky/The Sun
  3. ^ Johann Hari The Independent - 16/04/2004, "He is a journalist who almost every week incites hatred against people fleeing torture."
  4. ^ "Why do the race hate laws apply only to the knuckle-scraping scum of the BNP and not to those who peddle hatred and preach murder against the Jews, the Americans and the British?"[citation needed] - Time for us to support the Jewish people by Richard Littlejohn, The Sun
  5. ^ Why I'll never give up the day job British Journalism Review, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2002, pages 65-70, "During one of the interminable age-of-consent debates, a gang of militant homosexuals kicked lumps out of a young police officer outside the Commons. I happened to remark on air that the police should have turned the flame throwers on them"
  6. ^ Why I'll never give up the day job British Journalism Review, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2002, pages 65-70, "Another censure arrived when I described the royals as 'a bunch of tax-evading adulterers'. Who, with hindsight, would argue with that?"
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ The Sun newspaper - 16 August 2002]
  9. ^ Self v Littlejohn BBC. 15 June, 2001
  10. ^ a b Hyde, Marina (2004-11-10). Diary. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-11-23. “A nagging feeling that, to some, anything to do with homosexuality remains fascinatingly transgressive forces us to conduct the annual Littlejohn audit.”
  11. ^ Richard Littlejohn. Daily Mail (2007-10-04). Retrieved on 2007-11-28.
  12. ^ Johann Hari - Archive
  13. ^ Johann Hari - Archive
  14. ^ Johann Hari - Archive
  15. ^ Littlejohn: Spare us the 'People's Prostitute' routine... | the Daily Mail
  16. ^ Johann Hari "Why does the right hate Britain so much?", The Independent, 6 August 20076.Retrieved on 21 August 2007.

[edit] External links