PRIVATE EYE

Since it began to circulate ten years ago among Chelsea's café society, the magazine 'Private Eye' has attracted a growing following. People read it because of its apparent radicalism and anti-establishment humour. The radicalism, however, has turned out to be more apparent than real. Recently the clique who run the 'Eye' took a significant step to the right. They published a cartoon which suggested that the role of the provisional IRA in N Ireland was no better than that of the British army. Reaction followed reaction when, in a later edition, they portrayed the IRA as a group of psychopathic morons. The attacks would not have appeared out of place in the most right-wing section of the capitalist press. Some of the radical intelligentsia who were drawn to the 'Eye's' brand of satire and 'exposure' journalism were disturbed by the new turn. But what could pass as radicalism in the last days of the Macmillan administration now appears as reaction. As one exfellow traveller of the "Eye' put it: "Today, without the swear words and the joke, "Private Eye" could be the Tory "Spectator"? In this first article we chart how this exposure has occurred and the origins of the journal.

The big guns of 'Private Eye' have one thing in common— their upper middle-class background. They received the same training in life even to the extent of attending the same public school.

This was Shrewsbury. Not in the front ranks with Eton and Rugby — a place where one needed the backing of a fat cheque book, but not academic brilliance, to gain entry.

Richard Ingrams, editor 'Eye' since the early days, describes. the impact. of public school this way:

It would be nice to say that the harsh authoritarian air of public school nurtured the first seeds of savage indignation in the breats of the young satirist, but that was really not the case. The school was no worse than most public schools and we conformed along with the rest.' At public school Ingrams and William Rushton both contributed to the school magazine called 'The Salopian'. In 1955 Ingrams left and turned over the work to two new recruits -Christopher Booker and Paul Foot. These men were to come together after their university days and provide a nucleus for These are the origins of the 'Eye' team and a heavy public school humour still characterizes

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