Paul Dacre: Sex Pistols were No Fun

Paul Dacre ... and Sid Vicious – in the same picture?! No, really. Turn to page 22 of today's Daily Mirror if you don't believe it (or click on the web version and scroll to the third pic in the gallery). The Mirror's spread on photographer Bob Gruen's work includes a snap of the Sex Pistol at the airport in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1978 – check out the second guy to his left, giving the scruffy oik a suitably disapproving glance. Yup, that's the future Daily Mail editor-in-chief, who was at the time the Daily Express's man in New York. Legend has it that Dacre was a bit of a leftie when he went to the US, but came back with, er... slightly different views. Could this encounter with the late Mr Ritchie have influenced the Daily Mail editorial stance we all know and love today?