Congratulations, Sir Peter, but is it wise for journalists to accept baubles?
STEPHEN GLOVER
Should journalists accept honours? The question is prompted by last week's news that my old friend Peter Stothard has been made a knight, and my old colleague Andreas Whittam Smith given the CBE. This follows hard upon the recent elevation of Sir Max Hastings. You might say that three of this column's most treasured friends have been rewarded in one fell swoop. My immediate thought was that Andreas had been treated a little harshly. He did, after all, have the idea of launching a newspaper — the Independent — and steered it with great aplomb in its early years. Moreover, he then served as our chief film censor, in which role he allowed us to see things which others had previously thought wise to keep off the screen. He is now virtually in charge of the Church of England's finances. One might have thought that these achievements would have merited the same recognition as bestowed on my old friend and Sir Max. Perhaps the explanation is that Andreas has never edited a newspaper which supported Tony Blair.
This is not to suggest that Sir Peter and Sir Max were undeserving recipients. The former was editor of the Times for ten years, and if he dumbed down that once great paper this is unlikely to have troubled Tony Blair, who numbers Richard Desmond among his friends. Sir Peter (how strange it sounds) also doubled the circulation of the Times as a consequence of slashing its cover price. As for Sir Max, he was first editor of the Daily Telegraph and then of the London Evening Standard. To have edited two such newspapers for 16 years in all is surely an achievement that should be celebrated in some way. But it would be idle to suppose that it was mere merit that earned these two men their knighthoods. Sir Peter was an avowed Thatcherite whose paper turned to Mr Blair and supported New Labour in the most loyal fashion. Sir Max was a liberal Tory who made a similar pilgrimage at the Evening Standard. In fact it would be difficult to think of two editors who have done more for New Labour than Sir Peter and Sir Max.
In rewarding his own cheerleaders Mr Blair is behaving no worse than Mrs Thatcher did. There was a time when it was not uncommon to honour the distinguished among your political opponents. Harold Wilson gave a life peerage to Michael Berry, who became Lord Hartwell. Admit tedly he was the proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, and not a mere journalist, but the paper was, and remained, staunchly anti-Labour. (Conrad Black, the present proprietor of the Telegraph, has been made a life peer during Tony Blair's watch, but it was on the recommendation of William Hague.) Wilson also gave a knighthood to Harry Boyne. the Telegraph's legendary political correspondent. It was Mrs Thatcher who developed the habit of showering honours on her supporters while they were still in situ. Sir John Junor at the Sunday Express, Sir Larry Lamb at the Sun, Sir Nicholas Lloyd at the Daily Express, Sir David English at the Daily Mail and Sir Peregrine Worsthorne at the Sunday Telegraph are the most obvious examples. All were knighted while they were still editors. John Major, perhaps because he hated the press so much, was less munificent. I have always thought that, if one were in favour of giving journalists honours, an unanswerable case could be made for Stewart Steven, editor of the Mail on Sunday and subsequently of the Evening Standard. Mr Steven was, in the first place, an outstanding editor. Not only that. In his second editorial incarnation he was forever popping around to No. 10 to mop John Major's anxious brow and pat his trembling hand. But Stewart got no recompense for his kindhearted attentions. His name is not even mentioned in John Major's autobiography.
Perhaps Stewart was fortunate. There is nothing more valuable to a journalist than a reputation for independence. One can be identified as a Tory or a supporter of New Labour or as an anarchist, but an editor or columnist or political correspondent who is seen as a political stooge is certain to be weakened. Is there a more contemptible figure in journalism than Alfred Austin, a leader writer on the Standard and later an undeserving poet laureate, who used sometimes to write leaders at Lord Salisbury's dictation? An editor who accepts an honour while still en poste is very likely to be compromised because readers will believe that he is under an obligation to his benefactor, even if he is not. Such was probably the fate of all Mrs Thatcher's editor-knights with the exception of the mercurial Sir Peregrine Worsthorne. Even before he was knighted, he was sometimes rude about the Lady, and coined the term 'bourgeois triumphalism'. Afterwards he declared that he was going to perpetuate her myth, which he has only done very fitfully. I doubt whether Sir Peregrine has been corrupted in any way, but he is the exception who proves the rule.
Editors should not take honours while they are still editors. They risk too much. (They may also irritate their proprietors. Rupert Murdoch resented the airs and graces of Sir Larry Lamb.) But there is also a strong case for editors not accepting baubles after stepping down. Has the reputation of either Sir Peter Stothard or Sir Max Hastings risen as a result of their being knighted? Inevitably one looks back at their editorships and remembers examples, which one might otherwise have forgotten about, which testify to too uncritical a commitment to the New Labour cause. I would suggest they may have lost more than they have gained by accepting these honours. Furthermore, they remain working journalists — Sir Peter as editor of the TLS, Sir Max as a columnist on the Daily Mail — in which roles their reputations for independence of mind should be precious to them. Perhaps there is no harm in a journalist who is approaching senility, and is far removed from the field of battle, in accepting a bauble. Even so, I hope that in the most unlikely event of my being offered an OBE when I am on my deathbed I should have the strength of mind to refuse.
How brilliantly cunning our political establishment is. It continues to hand out its time-worn douceurs to journalists and, incredibly, they have not lost their power. My mind is drawn back to that indelible picture of my old friend all those years ago, as he wandered in his billowing kaftan along the banks of the Cherwell, his wellthumbed copy of Virgil clasped firmly in his hand. If you had told us then that this fey and poetic creature would end up as Sir Peter Stothard, none of us would have believed it. It was simply not possible. And yet it has happened. The only thing to do is to offer him our congratulations, and to hope that he will be very happy indeed.
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