Andy Coulson

Williams, that kind of crew era, right? To give it a bit of context, the Bizarre column was edited by people you may remember.

So Nick Ferrari, John Blake, Rick Skye, Andy Coulson, Dominic Mohan, Victoria Newton did it.

So I followed on from Victoria.

And when I got the gig, I thought, I'm going to try and do this a bit differently and just not pick fights with people.

It was media.

It was the world of politics because the then News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, had been hired as communications director in Downing Street.

So he led straight into the government.

He is sacked.

Hello, welcome back to Crisis What Crisis.

I'm Andy Coulson.

In these bonus compass episodes, I asked my guests from the previous week to reflect on the four points of personal navigation that they rely on when life gets hard.

A person, a habit, a comfort and a single piece of advice.

It exists for one simple reason, to help you through.

I'm Andy Coulson, and before we get started, please do follow and subscribe so you never miss another episode.

Now, my guest today is one of the world's greatest living spymasters.

Sir Richard Dearlove joined MI6 in 1966 at the age of 21.

So the official Inside Story book says, "Reviews were mixed.

Andy Coulson, who was the TV editor of The Sun at the time, called the two-parter a double delight." Um, but it does mention that The Sun was always very positive about Only Fools and Horses.

Mm.

Um, Gary Bushell of the Daily Star wrote that, "The show started slower than Trigger on Mastermind."

It was very strange.

And one of the latest series, they have Tom Hollander playing someone who's supposed to be Andy Coulson.

And so watching him and Stuart Pearson arguing in the show and then going to work and watching And Steve Hilton arguing in real life.

It was a bit weird and a bit uncanny, actually.

It exists for one simple reason, to help you through.

I'm Andy Coulson.

And before we get started, please do follow and subscribe so you never miss another episode.

Now, my guest today has lived one of the most extraordinary and varied public lives in modern Britain.