Boxing Glover
Sir: As one autodidact to another, allow me to express my growing irritation with your media commentator, Stephen Glover. The fact is, he has annoyed me for years. Now, though, following his piece on Simon Kel- ner and Peter Wilby (Media studies, 9 May), he places himself beyond the pale. Kelner, the new editor of the Independent, is, we are told, 'a rough dia- mond who enjoys long lunches' (code: a common little man who drinks too much). His 'want of a college education' (code: Oxbridge) is not a 'cause for disquiet'. A part of Glover 'warms', in fact, to Kelner. But the Independent's latest leader is, clear- ly, not the sort of chap one would invite to the Beefsteak.
Later in the same piece, Wilby, the newly appointed editor of the New Statesman, is damned with faint praise as the kind of cove who, though clever, appears 'down at heel' and likely to be 'more appreciated in Bolton and Bristol than he is in Islington and Westminster'. It is to be hoped that Wilby's 'real, deep-seated beliefs' will prove of some comfort in the wake of this dis- tressing analysis.
I have never met Stephen Glover. No doubt we move in different circles. But his unintended conflation of hauteur and hot air are — appropriately — breathtaking.
Walter Ellis
94 Ferndale Road, London SW4
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