Blood flows in Richard Desmond's battle with 'fat butcher'

So it is war, after all. A couple of days after Richard Desmond called Paul Dacre the "fat butcher" in a MediaGuardian interview, the Daily Mail responds. Clearly Dacre (who already tactfully described Dirty Des as a "man who made his money from porn") is not so impressed. Page 8 of Wednesday's Mail targets Desmond's Health Lottery, lambasting the "controversial" new contest under the headline "Stop selling the Health Lottery, plead charities". Dacre's title notes, no doubt reluctantly, that the Health Lottery is run by "Mr Desmond, the proprietor of the Express newspaper titles..." But like a trained martial artist, Desmond anticipates the attack and responds in kind. Wednesday's Daily Express devoted its front-page picture splash to Cherie Blair's former lifestyle guru Carole Caplin, who yesterday won a "substantial" payout in damages from the Mail. There's more detail on page 5, where the third paragraph reflects on "the lies of the Daily Mail – edited by Paul Dacre – [that] had left her 'extremely upset and distressed'." Over to you, Mr Dacre. Monkey can hardly wait.