| Richard Desmond |
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Richard Clive Desmond (born December 8 , 1951 ) is a British Publisher , current owner of Express Newspapers and founder of Northern And Shell plc. Express Newspapers publishes the '' Daily Express '', '' Sunday Express '', ''Star on Sunday'' and '' Daily Star ''. Northern and Shell was notorious for publishing a large number of Pornographic titles, such as ''Big Ones'' and '' Asian Babes '', prior to their sale to Remnant Media in 2004 . He is also the owner of the most popular pornographic television channels in the UK, the Fantasy Channel and Red Hot TV . From a Jewish background, Desmond grew up in north London and left school at 14. His first job was for Thomson Newspapers, working in classified advertisements. He moved on to another company and by the age of 21 owned two record shops. He acquired an interest in publishing and in 1974 published a magazine called ''International Musician''. In 1982 he published a British version of the American pornographic magazine ''Penthouse''. But his biggest publishing deal was the launch of celebrity magazine ''OK!'' in 1993 . Desmond attracted controversy over his £100,000 donation to the Labour Party . Several prominent Labour members, including Clare Short , broke ranks to question whether the party should be accepting money from a publisher of pornographic magazines. After buying Express Newspapers in 2000 for £125m, Desmond became embroiled in a bitter feud with Viscount Rothermere , publisher of the ''Daily Express'' rival, the '' Daily Mail ''. The ''Daily Mail'' ran several articles describing Desmond as a pornographer and christening him "Dirty Desmond". In April 2004, the ''Daily Express'' shifted its support from Labour to the Conservatives. On the same day Desmond caused a scandal by accusing the '' Daily Telegraph '', which was then considering accepting a takeover offer by the German Axel Springer group, of giving in to Nazis . Desmond allegedly harangued the ''Daily Telegraph'''s chief executive and associates in faux German at a business meeting and imitated Adolf Hitler , before erupting in a tirade of four-letter words.1 Desmond currently lives in North London . REFERENCES |
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