Selim Jehan Shah (born 20 January 1944), commonly known as Eddy Shah or Eddie Shah, is a Manchester-based businessman, the founder of the then technologically-advanced UK newspaper Today in 1986, and of the extremely short-lived tabloid The Post, and current owner of the Messenger Group.
Shah was born in Cambridge. His mother was English and his father was Iranian. Shah was educated at the Scottish co-educational independent boarding school, Gordonstoun, and at both Haywards Heath Grammar School and Haywards Heath Secondary Modern School, at Haywards Heath in Sussex. He then attended a Brighton crammer, where he obtained seven GCE 'O' Levels.
He confronted the trade unions at his Warrington print works and Manchester news offices in 1983. As the owner of the 'Warrington Messenger', he sacked six workers in a declared anti-union move. In response, the National Graphical Association (NGA) began mass picketing of the Messenger's offices. On 30 November, over four thousand trade unionists attended a mass picket. The police brought in riot-trained Police Support Units from five surrounding forces and after some pushing and shoving the climate became hostile. The National Graphical Association speaker van was attacked and overturned by police, and squads with full riot gear repeatedly charged the pickets. The National Graphical Association immediately suspended mass picketing. For the first time in an industrial dispute para-military policing more akin to that used in Northern Ireland had been used to attack strikers.
As the owner of six local newspapers, he employed anti-trade union laws introduced by the Thatcher Governments to defeat the print unions after national strikes that went on for seven months – despite receiving death threats. He was the first person to invoke Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws to force the unions to the bargaining table. The Wapping dispute followed three years later.
Shah is also the author of several novels including The Lucy Ghosts (1991), Ring of Red Roses (1992), Manchester Blue (1993), and Fallen Angels (1994). After a break from writing, he returned in 2008 with a thriller entitled Second World.
He now owns and runs golf courses, leisure centres and hotels, including the Wiltshire Golf and Country Club, Royal Wootton Bassett. He has recently built 44 holiday homes at his Wiltshire Golf club.
He is currently married to actress Jennifer White Shah with whom he has had three children.
On September 21, 2011, he was arrested with four other individuals by the Metropolitan Police "in relation to allegations of sex with an underage girl eight years ago". He has subsequently been charged with nine counts of sexual offenses involving children.
Famous quotes containing the words eddy and/or shah:
“Error is a supposition that pleasure and pain, that intelligence, substance, life, are existent in matter. Error is neither Mind nor one of Mind’s faculties. Error is the contradiction of Truth. Error is a belief without understanding. Error is unreal because untrue. It is that which seemeth to be and is not. If error were true, its truth would be error, and we should have a self-evident absurdity—namely, erroneous truth. Thus we should continue to lose the standard of Truth.”
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
“Varis Shah says habits don’t die even if we are cut into pieces.”
—Varis Shah (18th cent.)