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November 26, 2008updated 27 Nov 2008 7:02pm

Ephraim Hardcastle has soft spot for historian Ferguson

By Axegrinder

The Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle is puzzled by TV critic AA Gill’s attack on the new Channel 4 series, The Ascent of Money.

Written and presented by Niall Ferguson, it is, says Gill, ‘a GCSE-class project’while ‘wee’Ferguson is ‘academe’s answer to Jimmy Krankie”.

Why, wonders Hardcastle, is Gill so rude about the ‘brilliant Scots academic and Harvard historian’and his ‘impressive TV series”?

Axegrinder isn’t surprised that Hardcastle (aka Peter McKay) feels unable to stick the boot into Ferguson.

Some years ago McKay’s son Sinclair, setting out on his journalistic career after leaving university, was given regular shifts on the features desk of the Daily Mail by Sue Douglas.

Douglas – who later went on to edit the Sunday Express – is married to Niall Ferguson.

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