Slug watch
David Sullivan
, Issue 1677
And lo, just two days later came news that Eye stalwart David “the Slug” Sullivan had slithered back into the limelight, as he resigned as co-chairman of West Ham United FC ahead of an exposé of “serious historical allegations” on the BBC's Panorama and in the Times.
Soho houses
The Slug, who said he was stepping down to focus on fighting the “completely false” allegations about his personal life, first appeared in Private Eye in September 1980, when the magazine began cataloguing his ownership of a number of premises in Soho run as sex cinemas and associations with several other unsavoury characters.
This was two years before Sullivan was convicted and imprisoned (and subsequently released on appeal) for living off the earnings of prostitutes.
Sport of shame
His move into Fleet Street, launching the Sunday Sport and leading it into a short-lived tie-up with the Daily Star, were chronicled extensively in Street of Shame, along with the fact that the paper was propped up by adverts for Sullivan's other sex-related businesses (from 1988 to 1993 ad sales were the responsibility of Karren Brady, his long-term business associate, who resigned as vice-chairman of West Ham just ahead of the current revelations becoming public).
And in 1997 the Eye noted that police might be interested in precisely how Sullivan's Sport came to publish Page 3 photographs of a topless teenager on the morning of her 16th birthday, meaning they were actually taken when she was still 15.
Most recently, in 2024 and 2025, the Eye covered the enforced closure by Ofsted of a home for “very vulnerable” children in Cheshire which Sullivan financed and which was run by his fiancée Ampika Pickston.
Next issue on sale: 25th June 2026
More top stories in the latest issue:
MOBILE SIGNALS
Peter Mandelson is declining to comment in public at the moment, but certain political journalists remain remarkably well-informed as to his state of mind.
MONEY FOR OLD RUPE
Tom Newton Dunn is hard at work on a book about Rupert Murdoch's life and times as execs at News International preparing for life after Digger.
MOSLEY HARMLESS?
Palantir's recent PR blitz has been well-received in the Times, which trumpeted lines used by its UK boss, Louis Mosley, on Times Radio.
PETERING OUT
Embarrassment at the New Statesman as editor Tom McTague has been outed as that most shameful of things: a friend of Peter Mandelson.
PUFF PIECE
The Times and Sunday Times are to host a breakfast briefing – “in association with” a tobacco giant – about the dangers of an increase in tobacco duty.
DOLLAR BILLS
Ex-Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was keen to claim credit for its record income at its US arm, is any recent success really down to him?
UPPER REACHERS
The latest voluntary redundancy round at Reach plc is limited to management positions, with hacks and photographers explicitly excluded.
