Ex-press baron Conrad Black has taken another swipe at Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman — branding him an “an asshole” on TV’s Have I Got News For You.
The abrasive peer resumed his attack on Paxman after calling him a “priggish, gullible, British fool” and declaring he was proud to have endured their tense Newsnight exchange without “getting up and smashing your face in”.
At last night’s filming of the satirical show episode — on BBC1 tonight at 9pm — he was unrepentant, insisting: “I like Jeremy, he’s just an asshole.”
He was challenged by his fellow guest, poker player Victoria Coren, and show regular Ian Hislop — who described the statement as “unbelievable”.
But Lord Black went on: “He’s a perfectly nice man. I’ve met him socially many times. He’s fine but he has a technique and is compulsively belligerent and the only way to deal with it, unless he has reason to be so self-righteous, is to be belligerent back.” He then dismissed the comment as “an attempt at humour”.
Lord Black, former proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, is in the UK to promote his new book A Matter Of Principle and has made several defiant TV appearances.
He was jailed for three years for defrauding investors but, despite being freed from a US prison this year, he insisted that he had nothing to be ashamed of — even indicating his plans to retake his seat in the House of Lords.
This week he branded Sky News political editor Adam Boulton a “jackass” before telling him: “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Last night’s filming was peppered with jokes about Lord Black’s convictions. Host Alexander Armstrong referred to the film Citizen Kane, saying pointedly it was about a newspaper boss’s “humiliating demise on account of his own greed”.
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Later Lord Black suggested that Hislop was lying over how the peer had behaved as a newspaper owner, before the Private Eye editor retorted: “The Black calling the kettle a crook.”
Lord Black referred to Hislop’s celebrated quote “If that’s justice then I’m a banana”, before calling him a banana. Hislop said: “I’m not a banana. All I’m saying is you were found guilty on two counts. You went to jail, you’ve come back, you would like to be rehabilitated. You’ve come here to say you’re innocent, which is sweet but not true.”
