'Scallywag' returns

The satirical magazine Scallywag is back on sale after Conservative Central Office effectively closed it down last February when it issued libel writs against newsagents, printers and distributors for handling it.

Makeshift black-and-white copies of the publication, which two years ago made allegations about John Major's private life, yesterday began to land on the desks of MPs and in newspaper offices, saying on its cover that it is "fighting back against Tory dirty tricks".

Inside it carries details of a Cabinet minister's alleged trip to Morocco and what he may have got up to with the locals, how leading Tories supposedly ran a dirty tricks campaign to destroy Owen Oyston, the socialist millionaire, and a profile of Julian Lewis, the Tory party's deputy director of research.

It was Mr Lewis who issued the writs earlier this year against printers, distributors and newsagents after Scallywag carried a story alleging another Conservative dirty tricks campaign, that time against Labour.

Angus James, who has co-edited Scallywag with Simon Regan since its launch in October 1991, said yesterday that the 4,000 copies would be distributed by hand. "It takes a lot more than Julian Lewis or the Conservative Party to stop us."