LG Commenting on the Honours List is a tedious business,
and fortunately a dying convention. But I can't let this occasion go without saluting the knighthood given to Gordon tslevvton, the editor (for the past sixteen years) of the Financial Times and probably the least known and most successful editor in Fleet Street. In its specialised field the FT is supreme: better than the Wall Street Journal and streets ahead of its European contemporaries. Over the past ten years its circulation has more than doubled : no other national newspaper can approach a record like this. The secret of Newton's success lies partly, as other columnists have suggested. in his flair for picking the right men when they are young, un- trained, and often the most unlikely candidates for financial journalism; but partly, too, in his instinctive rapport with the average FT reader. But let me declare my interest it was Gordon Newton who gave me my first job and for this and subsequent kindnesses I remain eternally grateful. His minor malapropisms are a source of constant delight; equally characteristic is his caution. On one occasion, the story goes, he was presented with a powerful leading article, its trenchant arguments leading inexorably to a ringing conclusion. Gordon read it, tapped his teeth, read it again, took up his pen, paused . . . and then added, at the end of the last paragraph, 'Or perhaps not.'
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