The latest chapter in Britain’s never-ending sex scandal, however, may the most ironic of the bunch. Owner of amazing eyebrows Max Clifford is a bigtime UK PR man who we’ve covered before (and who represented such clients as a certain obscure goat-herder named Simon Cowell). He made his name breaking trashy tabloid stories—and getting sued for them! Many of his “greatest hits” happened to involve sexual scandals, “toe sucking” and “hamster sandwiches”—classy stuff, that.

This week the esteemed Mr. Clifford found himself arrested for undisclosed sexual offenses dating back three decades as part of an ongoing “inquiry” by UK law enforcement.

That’s not the worst part of this story, though. Here’s a quote from an interview that the oh-so-wise Clifford granted a couple of weeks ago:

“I think there’s a lot of very famous people that are very concerned, very frightened. In the 60s and 70s, everything opened up. All kinds of things were going on. At the time, these were young guys, many of them were being pursued in dressing rooms and concert halls and everywhere they went by young girls. A lot of them have trouble remembering what happened two weeks ago, let alone 40 years ago or more.”

Ah yes, the eternal struggles of successful men “being pursued” by young, sex-crazed girls. Next week we’ll bring you the latest chapter in our definitive PR guidebook, How to Make Yourself Look Like a Horse’s Ass.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Freud Communications' Matthew Freud is among those on the 'Guardian' media list.

The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper has published it’s top 100 in the media and there are some PR and communications pros taking spots on the list.

Max Clifford, the founder of Max Clifford Associates known for his work managing tabloid news and the PR for high-profile names like Simon Cowell, has moved up 10 spots to number 25. Matthew Freud, chairman of Freud Communications and husband to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, is at number 31. And Alan Parker, the founder and chairman of powerful financial and corporate comms firm Brunswick Group, is in at number 65.

The top marketing and PR spot goes to Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP‘s CEO, coming in at number 8.

As we mentioned this morning, Mark Zuckerberg comes in at number one. Also in the top 10 are Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs, and the aforementioned Simon Cowell. For more of the marcomms leaders on the list, click here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The majority of you were correct in answering 7 or more in our poll this morning as the number of Michael Jackson’s publicists mentioned in the ongoing news cycle.

Despite her very current relationship with the King of Pop, publicist-turned-manager Raymone Bain was outpaced by 90s publicist Michael Levine by about 4 to one in mentions.

It could be Bain is being careful due to her monster lawsuit against Jackson, or because Levine, as we figured out, spammed countless journalists with an I-knew-this-was-coming statement a little over an hour after TMZ broke the story of his death.

In fairness to Levine, I did nearly do a legit interview with him. After a number of voicemails back and forth of the course of the day, I finally got him on the horn only to be denied an interview because I was using a cell phone. He also declined to answer questions over email. By then the opportunity had passed.

The other five former publicists include:

Stuart Backerman, publicist from 2002 to 2004

Max Clifford, UK PR legend helped launch the Jackson 5 in ’67-’68 when working in the press office at EMI

Kevin McLin, Chairman of the Mass Comm Department at Dillard U., publicist from 1996 – 2005. Or is it spelled McLyn? Local Louisiana media has both.

Jonathan Morrish, while at CBS in the 70s, now Director of music licensing company PPL (op-ed in The Independent)

Arthur Phoenix, publicist to the family and advisor to Tito in fact said on 6/10 Jackson would not be able to handle the 50 show marathon planned for this summer

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Max Clifford, the legendary British publicist spoke on camera to one of the kids from the Islamia Girls’ Secondary School as part of the BBC’s School Report program.

He’s known for endless episodes of flackery in his 47 year career, including inventing the classic British tabloid story, “Freddie Starr Ate My Hampster” for client in need of attention, and a sandwich.

Though Clifford has amassed fame and wealth representing celebrities, he advises the kid to avoid unhealthy obsession with them, and says the only bold face name he cared about as a kid was footballer Johnny Haynes.

Clifford ranked fourth on the new PRWeek UK Power Book, out this week. He was bested by Matthew Freud, Roland Rudd, and Alan Parker in the first three spots.

For reference, his 2006 10-point guide to getting famous (below) is still relevant, except in the U.S. #5 and #7 are the same thing:

1. Appear on a reality series
2. Enter a talent contest
3. Be abysmal on a talent show
4. Gain fame by association
5. Date a celebrity
6. Flaunt your body
7. Date a Royal Family member
8. Make a home sex video
9. Be a success on MySpace
10. Be in the right place at the right time

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.