People you'd expect
Although the closing date for applications for the position of Editor of the New Statesman is not until Friday of this week, by Friday of last week a short-list of five had been agreed by the two-sided selection committee. There are, I am told, no surprises on the list: "they are the people who you'd expect, whose names have been mentioned." The selection procedure, unavoidably,I suppose, under the circumstances, is cumbersome in the extreme and could, quite conceivably, break down. The short-listed five are to be interviewed by the joint selection committee at the end of this week. Interviewing for the management side will be chairman Jock Campbell, former editor Paul Johnson (who, with lawyer and Board member Ben Huberman, seems to have taken the chief role, in firming up Campbell to dismiss Dick Crossman) and Hugh de Quetteville the efficiency man. Representing the workers, or at any rate the journalists, will be Alan Watkins (their first-class political correspondent, whose political commentaries readers of the Spectator will recall), Corinna Adam and Benedict Nightingale.
After the interviews, these last three will report back to a full chapel meeting. (` chapel ' being the name of a union branch in the printing world). I had thought there would only be about half a dozen journalists in the New Statesman chapel, but it turns out that there are no less than sixteen. Most of these are freelance journalists who choose to regard the New Statesman chapel as their home base.
Anyway, having heard the report of the interviews, the entire chapel will endeavour to determine, by majority vote (or, conceivably, by spontaneous acclamation or combustion), its favoured candidate.
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