brief period as the editor of the London American, a London weekly with Arthur Christiansen as the publication's consultant, he joined the Daily Express for the first time in 1961. After working in the features department there for two years, he then became a picture editor for the Sunday Mirror. From 1965 he was assistant editor of the Daily Mirror, and from 1972 the northern editor based in Manchester. Later, in 1976 he became managing editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper, and introduced the paper's own photographs of topless models. He was appointed editor of the Daily Express the following year by its new proprietor, Victor Matthews, with whom he initially had a good rapport; the two men had a similar start in life. By the time Jameson left Express Newspapers in 1980, the title had increased daily sales by 500,000, a 25% increase. In 1978, in addition he became editor-in-chief of the group's new more downmarket tabloid, the Daily Star (with Peter Grimsditch as editor). Jameson was involved in the publicity at the time of the launch, and it was aimed at the lowest end of the market, even below The Sun. He was quoted in one newspaper as commenting that the new paper would be "tits, bums, QPR and roll your own fags", but while under oath several years later during his libel case, he insisted that this had been invented by the reporter. The Daily Star had achieved sales of a million copies each day a year after it had begun publication. By now Jameson had gained a reputation of being able to increase the circulations of tabloid newspapers, after ending his employment by Matthews over differences which had emerged. Matthews refused to return him full-time to the Daily Express, and Jameson was himself then (briefly) editing the Daily Star in Manchester. He became editor of the News of the World in 1981. Rupert Murdoch, though, fired him in January 1984 after the publication of a story implying that Harold Holt, the Australian Prime Minister who disappeared from a beach in 1967, had been a communist spy. The Murdoch and Holt families had, in fact, known each other well. Libel case Jameson's cockney accent and abrasive persona caused Private Eye to coin the sobriquet Sid Yobbo in his honour, although Jameson himself protested at such caricatures. Despite his success and affluence, he remained sensitive about his origins.