Eddy Shah Selim Jehan Shah (born 20 January 1944), commonly known as Eddy Shah or Eddie Shah, is a Manchester-based

businessman, the founder of the then technologicallyadvanced UKnewspaper Today in 1986, and of the extremely short-lived tabloid The Post, and current owner of the Messenger Group.[1] Shah was born in Cambridge. His mother was English and his father was Iranian. Shah was educated at the Scottish co-educational independent boarding school, Gordonstoun, and at both Haywards Heath Grammar School and Haywards Heath Secondary Modern School, at Haywards Heath in Sussex. He then attended a Brighton crammer(Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term "cramming", meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time.), where he obtained seven GCE 'O' Levels. He confronted the trade unions at his Warrington print works and Manchester news offices in 1983. As the owner of the 'Warrington Messenger', he sacked six workers in a declared antiunion move. In response, the National Graphical Association (NGA) began mass picketing of the Messenger's offices. On 30 November, over four thousand trade unionists attended a mass picket. The police brought in riot-trained Police Support Units from five surrounding forces and after some pushing and shoving the climate became hostile. The National Graphical Association speaker van was attacked and overturned by police, and squads with full riot gear repeatedly charged the pickets. The National Graphical Association immediately suspended mass picketing. For the first time in an industrial dispute para-military policing more akin to that used in Northern Ireland had been used to attack strikers.[2] As the owner of six local newspapers, he employed anti-trade union laws introduced by the Thatcher Governments to defeat the print unions after national strikes that went on for seven months despite receiving death threats. He was the first person to invoke Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws to force the unions to the bargaining table. The Wapping dispute followed three years later. The Wapping dispute was, along with the miners' strike of 1984-5, a significant turning point in the history of the trade union movement and of UK industrial relations. It started on 24 January 1986 when some 6,000 newspaper workers went on strike after protracted negotiation with their employers, News International (parent of Times Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, and chaired by Rupert Murdoch). News International had built and clandestinely equipped a new printing plant for all its titles in the London district of Wapping, and when the print unions announced a strike it activated this new plant with the assistance of the Electrical, Electronic,

Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU). Although individual members of the National Union of Journalists went to work in Wapping and NUJ Chapels continued to operate, the National Union continued to urge their members not to work inside the wire unless there was an agreement covering the transfer to Wapping and the responsibilities taken on by journalists. Many NUJ members accepted this advice and refused to go to Wapping. During the dispute they became known as "refuseniks".

Shah is also the author of several novels including The Lucy Ghosts (1991), Ring of Red Roses (1992), Manchester Blue (1993), and Fallen Angels (1994). After a break from writing, he returned in 2008 with a thriller entitled Second World. He now owns and runs golf courses, leisure centres and hotels, including the Wiltshire Golf and Country Club, Royal Wootton Bassett. He has recently built 44 holiday homes at his Wiltshire Golf club.[3] He is currently married to actress Jennifer White Shah with whom he has had three children.[4] On September 21, 2011, he was arrested with four other individuals by the Metropolitan Police "in relation to allegations of sex with an underage girl eight years ago". [5] He has subsequently been charged with nine counts of sexual offenses involving children.[6] [edit]

The Post was a national tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom, owned by Eddy Shah. It ran for only five weeks in November and December 1988. Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves, then the hosts of an ITV football series called Saint and Greavsie, had a column in the paper. The Post was produced at Messenger Newspapers, Warrington, UK. With Apple Macintosh computers and Quark Xpress software giving it a "what you see is what you get" page design, it had, for its short life, the most advanced production techniques. In addition to this, the pages were transmitted by phone line to the printshop, which gave extra lead time (no courier service).

Today was a national newspaper in the United Kingdom, which was published between 1986 and 1995.

Today, with the American newspaper USA Today as inspiration, launched on Tuesday, 4 March 1986, with the front page headline, "Second Spy Inside GCHQ". At 18 pence, it was a middlemarket tabloid, a rival to the long-established Daily Mail and Daily Express. It pioneered computer photosetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when national newspapers were still using Linotype machines and letterpress. The colour was initially crude, produced on equipment which had no facility for colour proofing, so the first view of the colour was on the finished product. However, it forced the conversion of all UK national newspapers to electronic production and colour printing. The newspaper's motto, hung in the newsroom, was "propa truth, not propaganda". Launched by regional newspaper entrepreneur Eddy Shah, it was bought by Tiny Rowland's Lonrho within four months. (Shah would launch the short-lived, unsuccessful national tabloid The Postin 1988.) Alastair Campbell was political editor and his partner, Fiona Millar was news editor. The newspaper began a sponsorship of the English Football League at the start of 1986-87, but withdrew after a season. Today was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News International in 1987. Today ceased on Friday, 17 November 1995, the first long-running national newspaper title to fail since the Daily Sketch in 1971. The last edition's headline was "Goodbye. It's been great to know you", the editorial saying "... Now we are forced into silence by the granite and unforgiving face of the balance sheet...". Its offices are now used by one of News International's other papers, The Sun. Richard Stott was editor when Today ceased publication; he died in July 2007. Other journalists at the close included Peter Prendergast (city editor), Anne Robinson (columnist), Barry Wigmore(US editor, based in New York), David McMaster (managing editor) and Tony Banks (football correspondent). [edit]Editors 1986: Brian MacArthur 1987: Dennis Hackett 1987: David Montgomery 1991: Martin Dunn 1993: Richard Stott