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Axel Springer Die Welt's owner is a bidder for the broadsheet

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Axel Springer, Die Welt's owner, is a bidder for the broadsheet.Enemy at the gatesIs Alastair Campbell going soft? Last week he was waxing lyrical in public about his old enemy, the Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre (below). "Never let it be said that the Mail has done nothing for the public services of this country," said the King of Spin, referring to new gates at his children's former primary school in Hampstead, paid for by Associated Newspapers. "Every time I walk past I can see to my great satisfaction the Paul Dacre playground, the Paul Dacre climbing frame and the Paul Dacre gates." It seems the Mail dug deep after claiming the death of Campbell's father had made him "the horrible man I am" "You can't libel the dead," Campbell says. "But my father is very much alive."Deportation orderIn a reshuffle at The Daily Telegraph, the paper's sober-suited Washington man, David Rennie, is off to Brussels, having already served in China and Australia. Rennie is highly rated as a reporter, but his stint on the title's Peterborough column was not thought to be a success. "I know Peterborough's not very good," then editor Max Hastings (left) said of Rennie's move to Oz, "but I didn't know they'd brought back transportation."Sale of the century?The submission from Scottish Media Group to the Government for its BBC charter review will make uncomfortable reading for Michael Grade, a former non-executive director of SMG who stepped down on being appointed chairman of the BBC. SMG says the Government should sell off the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, giving the proceeds to the Treasury or using them to reduce the licence fee.

A mole at SMG says Grade was not involved in drafting the radical submission But he'll have some explaining to do at the Beeb.. Piers Morgan, the editor of the Daily Mirror, thought he had the perfect scoop when the images of torture from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad were first broadcast in America 10 days ago. As first General Mike Jackson, Britain's most senior soldier, and then Tony Blair condemned the apparent abuse, the tabloid's billing of a "world exclusive" seeming, for once, entirely justified.Within 24 hours the newspaper's scoop was buried beneath an avalanche of doubts over the pictures' authenticity. "Not one new fact has emerged that exposes our story or pictures as a fake."The editor's confidence appeared to be borne out by authoritative briefings from inside the military investigation that the pictures may be impossible to verify.

In the absence of a confession from the men involved - and the newspaper refuses to reveal its sources - it is left to the sceptics to disprove the images by other means, and no definitive technical evidence has yet been advanced.Nevertheless, Mr Morgan has subtly prepared a second line of defence should they be proved fakes. Russ Smith, executive producer of Johnny Depp's British-based project The Libertine, warned that his movie could be moved out of the UK within weeks. It proclaimed its duty to be consistent in closing abusive schemes and insisted closure of the loophole did not prevent film-makers benefiting from legitimate tax breaks.Film-makers were incensed. The Inland Revenue said the "sideways loss relief" was being targeted by investors who routinely pulled out of film projects before the films could make profits so as to maximise their eligibility for relief. The Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo, said: "These schemes exploit tax reliefs that are intended for people who risk their own money in running genuine businesses."The Treasury said the scam was blatant.

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