Sex offender and former PR Max Clifford’s daughter’s website for her new company, Borne Media, illustrates that his tawdry spirit lives on and that she plainly does not accept that his grubby style of business was nothing but wrong
There are grubby people and then there’s Max Clifford. When he was jailed, most hoped his trashy “kiss and tell” style of story selling would be consigned to history but plainly his daughter, Louise, decided otherwise. This shameless brat, we have been reliably informed, sought to revive his company after he was locked up in May 2014 but that failed and Max Clifford Associates (MCA) was wound up. Nonetheless, Louise Clifford decided to reinvent herself and her father’s brand of “business” and set up in partnership with three former colleagues – Denise Palmer-Davies, Chloe Gibson and Sally Bett – to run a public relations operation that calls itself Borne Media.
No direct reference is made to the convicted paedophile on the firm’s website but what is especially wrong is that in giving examples of their work – which they call “Borne Exclusives” – such as that of “Andy and Vicky Lamb’s sextuplets”, “Natasha Giggs’ affair with her brother-in-law, Manchester United star Ryan Giggs” and “Helen Wood and Jenny Thompson’s paid for trysts with Manchester United star Wayne Rooney”, Borne Media references the very tittle-tattle Max Clifford himself used to claim he, himself, had traded to the press. They could, at the very least, have chosens stories they’d managed since Mr Clifford was jailed but obviously, in seeking to bolster their reputation and standing, they actually believe sharing such tawdriness will actually impress.
Plainly not ashamed in the slightest of their disgraced former mentor, Borne Media also claim to be experts in “crisis management” and have a mantra that reads: “To be first in your field and the talk of your industry, be Borne”. They boast they “are proud to have developed direct and trusted relations with all major newspaper edditors and journalists, magazines, digital publishers, broadcasters, commissioners and production companies, after many years of successfully collaborating” and provide a full list of clients past and present. Most also used to feature on the MCA website and many publicly – at least – denounced Clifford on his conviction.
Currently Borne Media list, amongst others, boxers Dereck Chisora and Audley Harrison MBE, The Only Way is Essex’s Lauren Goodger and Chloe Sims and Dancing On Ice’s Michael Underwood amongst its clients on their website. Whilst such individuals no doubt believe any route to “fame” will do, others cited include a company owned by the respected businessman and former Dragons’ Den star Theo Paphitis and the estranged wife of Simon Danczuk, one of the MPs who have crusaded against historic abuse by personalities. One would have thought both might have known better but plainly that is not case. Louise Clifford cannot be held responsible for her father’s vile actions but that she takes pride in operating a business in many ways identical to his is indicative that his spirit lives on.
Max Clifford’s school of public relations was nothing but disgraceful. This creep prided himself on building up individuals of his choosing whilst destroying those he deemed less worthy and given that Borne Media’s team actually boast that they “met at one of the UK’s leading PR agencies”, they plainly have yet to come to accept that Max Clifford Associates was a business without a moral compass. Louise Clifford and her colleagues should be ashamed of what they laud as positive and on that basis we make them our most worthy Wallies of the Week.
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I am usually in agreement with most of what the Steeple Times publish but not in this instance. You are doing the same to Louise Clifford as you accuse Max Clifford of doing.
There have, throughout British history, been miscarriages of justice and I believe that Max Clifford’s case is one of them. I was the marketing director of a very large company many years ago and came into contact with Max Clifford on innumerable occasions both socially and commercially. I had 200 very young, attractive marketing girls working for me and can honestly state that whenever any of them came into contact with Max there was never any of the inappropriate behaviour we are led to believe was rife. My character judgement is not usually so far askew that I could have missed this.
Nevertheless, guilty or not, his daughter’s business has nothing to do with his case so are we to penalise her and anyone connected with him? His PR agency was one of the most successful of its time so should we penalise all those who used it? If so I am one of those people. The fact that he may or may not have committed the crimes he has been found guilty of do not detract from the fact that he also did some good in his life, including supporting many charities. Should we penalise those charities for taking his money?
Sorry Matthew, I think you got this one wrong and by publishing this story in the way that you have makes your publication no better in practice than what you accuse Max Clifford Associates of.
You are entitled to your view but justice has been served and Clifford has been found guilty.
That his daughter references tawdry stories that her father shamelessly sold as “success stories” for Borne Media sums up how wrong you are in my view though. These are all examples where lives have been ruined as a result and nobody should celebrate them or anything else that Max Clifford did.
He is a vile man and he deserves to rot; his daughter, on the other hand, needs to reassess her warped view on what is good and bad.
Tina, I must agree with Matthew. Max Clifford is a CONVICTED paedophile who faces another trial shortly. You are defending the indefensible and all Matthew has pointed out is that Clifford’s daugter is trading on a tarnished name.
If she had any self-respect, she would use examples of her OWN work and not the tacky activities of her evil father.
Equally, your charity allegation is spurious. Jimmy Savile gave lots to charity also and so did Stuart Hall. Does that make them saints also?
“I had 200 very young, attractive marketing girls working for me”
I need to know what sort of business you could possibly have been in
I second everything Tina has said. Matthew, I like you and respect you but I cannot agree that you condemn with such venom both Louise and Max in my statement.
Every client Max represented and exposed her story was never shown not to be true – so the important people whose lives you say have been destroyed: should they have been covered up and not disclosed then? Max had the guts to expose famous important people and support the underdog.
Why didn’t they sue him at the time? Because the stories were true with facts to prove them. These important people have taken their time to take revenge. It is a vendetta against Max: it has taken them years for revenge and get someone to lie about the truth of what happened so many years ago! Many people support my view that the accusers would have done anything to get themselves noticed by celebrities including lying about their age and throwing themselves at their feet : the typical adoring syndrome.
The Jimmy Saville case is very different and it is wrong to have gone to the extreme to persecute some innocent people. Just like rape: Should a celebrity be accused and sentenced for ‘rape’ when the woman has been sitting on his bed at his hotel room at 4 am ? Is this the same as a total stranger raping a woman walking home from the Underground?
You are entitled to your view but you neglect many important details about this muckraker.
Max Clifford did not support “the underdog”. He, in fact sided, with whoever would pay the most. He was motivated by money first and power second. He chose his “causes” on that basis and it is unfair to suggest he is some kind of saint.
As for examples of what he did wrong in business life, take the case of Nadine Milroy-Sloan (represented by Max Clifford). This woman falsely accused Neil and Christine Hamilton of rape. Clifford got her a deal with the papers, a huge payout (made to her children so she could avoid repaying it when the false allegations she concocted with Clifford were exposed) and ended up jailed. She has since been freed and then ruined another person’s life with a false allegation and is now in jail again. If Clifford had an ounce of decency, he would never have represented her – especially as her allegations were so ludicrous.
To add to that, Clifford then went on the television and libeled the Hamiltons. They successful sued him and he had to pay damages.
Here is a tawdry man with no shame and that he got caught for the appalling things he did to innocent women is disgusting. He deserves to rot in jail and that his daughter is building a new business that trades on what her father’s firm did is equally reprehensible.
UPDATE: One “past client” listed by Borne Media contacted us to say he had never been represented by the firm and had only been a client of MCA for a very short period. Alex Karidis has now asked Borne Media to remove all reference to him and his business after we alerted him to it.
Take a shower; forget these vermin and move on
If you’d met victims of Max Clifford – and I have – you wouldn’t laugh it off so easily sadly.
Miss Clifford is celebrating her father’s “work” on her pages. She should hold her head in shame instead.
Max Clifford was a shrewd spin doctor and he was very successful in enhancing the profile of Simon Cowell and transforming him into almost superstar status. The courts can’t prosecute without concrete evidence, end of story.
This sounds like a personal vendetta, and I am not sure why, but perhaps it is best kept behind closed doors. You are currently making yourself look foolish and very bullyish. A daughter has a right to stand by her father. And former employees have a right to a career. Max Clifford is not the only publicist to broker “tawdry” stories, and by your standards are we to vilify all story-brokering publicists (I mention no names *Phil Hall*) and indeed the publications that print a salacious story? And in making your point, via harassing tweets, you have only made yourself appear as a low-life troll, not a respectable journalist you clearly aim to be. I have read some of your previous stories with interest and respect, but feel this is a cheap shot and shoddy journalism at its lowest form. What a pity.