The British are coming! Yes, once again, British editors and reporters are arriving in droves on our shores to show American magazine and weekly staffers how it really should be done. More than a decade after Tina Brown and Anna Wintour added buzz to Conde Nast’s Vanity Fair and Vogue, Brits are again taking over our celebrity-infused tabloids as well as the more upscale men and women’s magazines.

For example, Paul Field, former associate editor of The Sun in London, a paper so cheeky it used the headline “Boring Old Gits To Marry” to announce Camilla and Charles’s upcoming nuptials, has been appointed editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer. He says he will “relaunch” the tabloid in April.

For the past several months, Mr. Field has been on a head-hunting spree in London and is bringing 24 Fleet Street regulars with him to work on the new Enquirer. They include the investigations editor from the Mail On Sunday, an ex-Daily Mirror reporter who broke stories about Diana’s butler Paul Burrell, as well as reporters from two Sunday tabloids, the News of the World and The People. All have years of experience in the fiercely competitive world of British national papers, where as one veteran told me, “You just don’t go back to the office unless you’ve got the story.”

About the Enquirer, Mr. Field said, “It’s an American icon but it could sell more.” At one time the Enquirer, best known for its exclusive photo of Elvis in his coffin and solid reporting during the O.J. Simpson trial, sold more than 6 million copies a week. Currently it is selling just over 1 million, a challenge for its current owner, American Media, whose CEO, David Pecker, has plans to take the company public.

Mr. Field said that he wants the Enquirer to continue to break big “scoops” while running more first-person, “real-life” stories and health features that appeal to the weekly’s primarily middle-aged, female audience. “The Enquirer lost its reader interaction and it’s lost its identity,” Mr. Field told the London Observer. “We want to make it female friendly. It hasn’t spoken directly to its core audience, women in their 40’s who’ve got busy lives.” Mr. Field’s first American hire is Anna Nicole Smith, the buxom former stripper known for marrying an aged millionaire and for her fey appearances on her own reality television show, to write a weekly column. Not exactly the first person who comes to mind when one thinks of connecting directly with “women in their ’40’s who’ve got busy lives.”

As part of its re-launch, the main office of the Enquirer is moving to Manhattan from Florida and will share space with Star Magazine, another American Media publication, where several British editors and reporters are already on the staff. Bonnie Fuller, the controversial former editor of YM, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and US Weekly, has been editorial director of American Media for a year-and-a-half. Insiders say she has never had much to do with the Enquirer, and Mr. Field will not report to her. Besides being hardworking, hard-drinking, and fiercely competitive, veterans of Fleet Street are also masters at office politics.

Another British editor currently making news instead of editing it is Nicola McCarthy, who was the executive editor of US Weekly until just recently. Before coming to America, she was editor-in-chief of OK!, the successful celebrity weekly in London, and in January was named the editor of the projected American edition of OK!. But a New York judge has issued an order, which, for the time being, prevents her from taking up her new appointment. The injunction was requested by Jann Wenner, publisher of US Weekly, which would be one of OK!’s competitors. Mr. Wenner claims that McCarthy’s contract, which paid her $240,000 a year plus bonuses, prohibits her from working for a rival publication until April of next year. In a court hearing it was alleged that McCarthy had tried to lure away US staffers and had even acted like a “Trojan horse,” tapping the computers of US for “secret information.” Yes, the tabloid wars can be that nasty, and not merely when they are going after the first exclusive photo of Brad or Jennifer’s new squeeze, whomever that might be.

But why are Brit editors so sought after? “They are simply great at packaging,” said Karen Danziger of the Howard-Sloan-Koller Agency, which recruits publishing professionals. “They seem to be able to be very clever, to write scintillating copy, to make publications that are very, very lively.”

Steve LeGrice, who was the launch editor of another celebrity weekly, In Touch, and is now working on the launch of TV Guide’s Inside TV, said, “Look, I think American editors are very good, too. But British editors are trained to always put the reader first. There are just so many newspapers and magazines there. It is so competitive that it is great training.

Isobel McKenzie-Pryce, who was editorial director of a group of British women’s magazines, agrees that magazines in Britain are totally “reader-focused.” She is editor-in-chief of Time Inc’s All You, a woman’s monthly that is sold exclusively in Wal-Marts. “They have to be because magazines there are almost exclusively sold on newsstand. Subscriptions are a rarity. Editors know that covers are very, very important. So they have to be consistent, and they are always packaged to emphasize the benefits to the reader.” Ms. McKenzie-Pryce said her greatest concern as an editor here is not getting newsstand sales information back promptly enough, even though Time Inc’s newsstand team is among the best.

British editors are also used to working with smaller staffs, do less in-house editing of freelancers’ copy, and generally see their work more as a game than Americans do. “Let’s face it,” the former Fleet Street-er also told me, “We know it is a business, and we can laugh about it. American editors seem to take themselves a lot more seriously than we do.”

This innate irreverence has been especially important in remaking the men’s magazine field, where the American editions of Maxim and FHM have added millions of new readers in the last few years. The editorial director of Dennis Publishing – which publishes Maxim – Andy Clerkson, said, “I think American editors of the glossies can be a bit pompous. British editors do try to be witty and do add a breath of fresh air. But, remember, the first two editors of Maxim were Americans who had a great sense of humor and understood that British magazines have a formula and that every page has to be impactful. British tabloids for years have had very skilled subeditors who are held to very high standards. Maxim took a leaf out of their book.”

Even editors who work at fashion magazines can see differences. The executive editor of Harper’s Bazaar, Sarah Bailey, who was editor-in-chief of Elle in London, said, “It is more formal in New York. American magazines seem to have a seating plan based on a hierarchy. In London, we’re all joking over each others’ terminals. There just is a looser, chatty attitude that helps contribute to the whole tone of a magazine.

“Another difference is that British editors and writers, whether they work for down-market tabloids or upmarket fashion magazines, tend to hang out with each other. “At Elle,” she recalled, “we all had a bonding process after work. We would all go to the Covent Garden Hotel and drink. I’m not saying it isn’t fun here, but at the end of the day everyone does go their own way.”

Still, with all their highly polished skills, can British editors really relate to all-American red-state, blue-state readers? “Before I came I was really worried if I could tap into women’s lives here” said Isobel McKenzie-Pryce. “But research shows the magazine I’ve helped create has very high readers’ satisfaction. I’m the mother of four and I quickly learned what I always suspected, that women really do have the same interests and the same concerns the world over.”