List of People and Organisations Frequently Parodied By Private Eye - Journalists

Journalists

• Nigel Dempster, a former gossip columnist for the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, received much attention, especially in the Grovel gossip section, including a picture of him in flagrante with an admirer. It was later revealed that he was the major contributor to Grovel at the time. He is referred to in the Eye as "Nigel Pratt-Dumpster", "Humpty Dumpster", or "Former GLE (Greatest Living Englishman) Nigel Dempster".
• Peter Hitchens's nickname "Bonkers" was popularised by the Eye.
• George Gale, a former journalist, was referred to as George G Ale, as a tribute to his ability to consume alcohol,
• Derek Jameson, a former tabloid journalist, was renamed "Sid Yobbo" for the manner of his speech and his populist attitudes.
• Paul Johnson, the conservative polemicist and historian, was once a regular target and was referred to as "loonybins". During the Sixties, the US President Lyndon Baines Johnson was dubbed "Loony Bins Johnson", and the nickname has been applied to other Johnsons. Targeting Paul Johnson was once a favourite tactic of deputy editor Francis Wheen, but deprecating references to Johnson predated his involvement in the Eye by some years. References to Johnson are now rare.
• Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror, is still a regular target. He is usually referred to as Piers "Morgan" Moron, as if Moron was really his surname, and Morgan merely a nickname.
• Andrew Neil, Scottish broadcaster and journalist, is usually referred to as 'Brillo Pad'. For some years during the 1990s, a picture taken of him aside a young South Asian woman featured in nearly every issue, and still often appears today. His name is also always spelt 'Andrew Neill', as he once stated that it annoyed him when people misspell his name, and also alluding to his affair with Pamella Bordes, whose first name is similarly written with an unusual number of Ls.
• Peregrine Worsthorne, the former editor of The Sunday Telegraph, is consistently referred to as 'Sir Perishing Worthless'.
• Peter McKay, a Scottish journalist, was a regular target with variants of a story of his attempts to seduce junior female members of staff. Usually referred to as "McLie" or "McHackey", McKay was the editor of Punch magazine when it was relaunched by Mohamed Fayed as a Private Eye spoiler in 1996. McKay was also a contributor to Private Eye's Grovel column.
• Johann Hari has been the subject of the 'Hackwatch' column since 2003. The column documented Hari's threat to sue a contributor to Harry's Place, an internet blog, who accused him of making things up. Hari was later exposed more widely for professionally disgracing himself, which The Independent later confirmed.