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.