The Spectator

Art lovers leave Paul Dacre behind with Adolf Hitler

A rare portrait of 'Daily Mail' editor Paul Dacre, painted by Jane Kelly, a former 'Mail' writer, features in 'The Daily Mail Diet', a documentary currently showing on Al Gore's internet video site, Current TV. Kelly has shown the portrait in galleries but can't shift the ghastly visage of her former editor. Even Moors murderer Myra Hindley has seen more interested buyers. "Myra sold to a commissioner for the EU for £3,500 after it was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery," Kelly tells me. "Hitler was also in that show, but he has never sold, likewise Dacre. Hitler, Dacre and Dacre as Henry VIII are clogging up my studio! I will let them go for £500 a piece." Come on Lord Rothermere, get your chequebook out.

Murdochs and mothering

Sarah Murdoch, wife of Lachlan and daughter-in-law of Rupert, held the Australian launch for her book 'Birth Skills' last week. How lovely to see a Murdoch wife feel so blessed. When Rupert's former wife Anna Torv turned to the subject in the Seventies, she wrote an essay entitled 'Motherhood and Mythology'. "Part-person. Parturition. By being whole, have I become less?" wrote Anna. "Has all the creativity I once felt in my pen been confined to that creativity between my legs? A sick joke is woman."

High School walk-out

An enticing offer for the top TV executives at the Edinburgh Media Festival this weekend. "A complimentary coach shuttle service will be available to transport delegates on Friday and Saturday to and from central Edinburgh hotels and TV Festival venues courtesty [sic] of Disney Channel," reads an announcement on the festival's website. "Delegates will be entertained enroute with the sing-along version of Disney Channel Original Movie 'High School Musical'." I'll walk, thanks.

Parris: 'power not poverty'

Does Matthew Parris think he can do a better job than Andy Coulson on the Tory PR front? Writing on 'Conservative Home', 'The Times' columnist and former Tory MP instructs David Cameron on some leadership basics: "No more pictures with poor people – we've got that message. Abroad only for pictures with powerful people. Suits and ties, sometimes; red carpets; aircraft steps; handshakes, presidential palaces." This from a man who is proud of wearing cardigans.

One out, both out

The 'Evening Standard' recently bid farewell to two of its old-timers, Susie Howard and Karen Douglas. It was not quite as management intended, according to office gossip. Both Howard and Douglas had been "fixers" for arrangements on the picture and news desk respectively. High-ups wanted to merge their jobs and asked, in the spirit of Solomon's judgement, whether they would like to decide who stayed between themselves. Both opted to leave, quickly.

It will not be included. We do not want to cause any offence to Margaret Thatcher

To connect homosexuality to paedophilia is highly offensive

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Good week for

Emily Maitlis fans who got to see a little extra of the glamorous newsreader last week, as she perched on her desk for a trailer for the 'Ten O'Clock News', legs crossed and stilettos dangling. Angela Rippon would blush but now it seems swathes of calf and a touch of cleavage are acceptable, even from Jeremy Bowen. For those who didn't catch it, the 'Daily Mail' ran an obligatory condemnation of Maitlis alongside a screen-grab of the offensive pose.

Bad week for

OK! magazine Richard Desmond's celeb mag had to face a High Court libel hearing in London over its allegations that David Hasselhoff was "off his face" and "abusive" at an LA nightclub, the day he won custody of his daughters. The Hoff, right, pointed out that he no longer drinks, and had been independently tested for alcohol consumption that day. A humbled OK! has accepted its error and is shelling out undisclosed libel damages.