MEDIA STUDIES
To two who played the columnist, I bring them tribute
STEPHEN GLOVER
Last week the two most famous colum- nists of their era were dethroned by their newspapers: Bernard Levin and Peregrine Worsthorne. They have both been masters of their trade. Now, in the serious papers, there are columnists wherever you look, writing about every subject under the sun. Mr Levin and Sir Peregrine were once pre- eminent when there were very few colum- nists. What they wrote was noted and remembered by many people.
Of the two, Mr Levin's unseating was han- dled more sensitively. His editor at the Times, Peter Stothard, was at pains privately to emphasise that Mr Levin's health is not very good. He will continue to write for the paper, though less regularly. But it is, I think, no secret that Mr Stothard believes that Mr Levin's best work is behind him, and that the time had perhaps come for him to pass the baton to someone else. Already he had handed one of his twice—weekly columns to Libby Purves, and last week he bequeathed the other one to Matthew Parris.
It is difficult to say this about a columnist as venerable as Mr Levin, but on the whole I think Mr Stothard was right. Mr Levin's heart is no longer in it. My God, he had kept going long enough, and in this sense is an example to us all. Most columnists burn themselves up but, from his glorious early days 40 years ago as 'Taper' on this magazine to his stint on the Daily Mail and until quite recently on the Times, Mr Levin remained full of zest, his satire and his sense of con- tempt undimmed. He believed that men of power, and therefore all politicians, except for a few grand liberals, are inescapably untrustworthy and quite possibly corrupt. For a time such a standpoint was regarded as rather shocking by many respectable readers, but after many disappointments it has come to be accepted as orthodox.
Mr Levin's world view is not my own, but no matter. For many years I loved reading him. It is true that he has recently become a little self-indulgent, on one famous occa- sion beginning a column with 109 consecu- tive adjectives describing this Government as 'worm-eaten, exhausted, incompetent, lazy' etc., etc., until he ended by finding it `flagitious, gross, unpardonable and scabrous'. His personal whims and prefer- ences have sometimes entirely supplanted argument, so that in another piece he finds John Redwood absurd merely because he makes him giggle. But let me not quibble. In his glorious heyday as a journalist Mr Levin was afraid of nothing and of no one. I shall miss him on Fridays.
Between Mr Levin and Peregrine Worsthorne there are many differences. As a High Tory, Sir Peregrine certainly does not believe that power inevitably corrupts. Another difference is that, although at 73 he is nearly five years older than Mr Levin, Sir Peregrine remains at the height of his powers. This, of course, is disputed. Dominic Lawson, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, and the man who sacked Sir Peregrine, told the Guardian that 'every column has its natural lifespan . . it would be cruel to let a column go beyond its natu- ral span.' In other words, poor Perry is past it. I cannot understand how Mr Lawson can have formed this opinion.
I read Sir Peregrine's column every week in the Sunday Telegraph because his writing is irresistible. He has been enjoying an Indian summer. Of course, I also used to read him in former days, when it was his job to write a weekly political column. His great gift then lay in the independence of his thinking, his willingness to take a para- doxical and original line — rather than the party line — within the general bounds of his High Toryism. When he began to write his notebook a few years ago he adapted these skills, and brilliantly added a personal touch. It is very difficult for any columnist to write interestingly about his own life. Sir Peregrine does it so well because he is almost recklessly honest.
I remember his account in this magazine of his sacking by Andrew Knight from the editorship of the Sunday Telegraph when he related how, tears running down his face, he felt consumed by a need to finish his scram- bled eggs. His description of climbing over Conrad Black's wall in the middle of a snowy Toronto winter is equally unforgettable. So too was his account in the Sunday Telegraph of his revenge on some noisy yobs in the far reaches of the Central line by a covert fart: that story spoke to Middle England. The point about all these pieces is that they are in part directed against their teller. He under- stands that he will emerge as a little absurd.
None of his gifts has been lost. In his last Sunday Telegraph column Sir Peregrine portrayed himself as a thoughtless adult pouring champagne down the throats of his young grandchildren. I can't believe that Mr Lawson — for whose judgment as an editor I normally have the greatest respect and with whom I am on the friendliest of terms — can honestly think that Sir Pere- grine has passed his sell-by date, or that his young successor, Adam Nicolson, is likely to outshine him. The truth is that there is something of an animus between Mr Law- son and Sir Peregrine. Those of us who knew this could see Sir Peregrine's demise coming from the moment his column, already unpropitiously situated at the bot- tom of the page, was reduced in length by Mr Lawson when he became editor of the Sunday Telegraph a little over a year ago.
This is not the moment to determine the rights and wrongs of this relationship. I can see that Sir Peregrine, with his somewhat de haut en bas manner, might be very irritating to Mr Lawson. Sir Peregrine once tried to blackball Mr Lawson from the Beefsteak club. But a great editor must rise above such considerations. If Mr Lawson really believes Sir Peregrine is past it, then he is merely guilty of a bad misjudgment. But if he has, as I fear, let his personal feelings influence his decision, that is more regret- table. When I returned from Switzerland last Thursday to read of Sir Peregrine's dis- missal, I felt something close to shame that a man who has served the Sunday Telegraph so magnificently for 36 years, having earlier joined the Daily Telegraph in 1953, should be treated in such a manner — dismissed with a curt letter — when still at the height of his powers. It would not happen in any other business, not even politics.
Several people have written to me point- ing out a mistake in my piece in the Christ- mas issue about the 2nd Indian Field Regi- ment and the battle of Bir Hacheim. I stated that after the battle on 27 May 1942 Rommel 'never did retake Tobruk'. In fact, as has been pointed out to me, he did cap- ture Tobruk on 20 June, and held it for sev- eral months, I am sorry about this error, but the 2nd Indian Field Regiment is no less deserving of the praise it received from Churchill and Rommel.
Previous page
