Tina Brown has nothing to worry about except perhaps 'infantilism against a backdrop of sexuality'
STEPHEN GLOVER
AI was saying, Judy Bachrach has written a controversial book about Britain's most famous journalistic exports. Tina Brown and Harry Evans, which has recently been published in the United States. Various newspaper articles in this country have claimed that Tina and Harry Come to America is so hot that it can't be published here for fear of litigation. Tina herself has railed at Ms Bachrach in an editorial in Talk magazine while claiming that she has not read the book. (Neither Tina nor Harry would co-operate in its writing with Ms Bachrach.) America itself is split in two, with some saying that it provides great insights into two British adventurers, and others complaining that it is little better than an old-fashioned hatchet job.
Ms Bachrach may possibly have embarked on her project with such a mission in mind. She may even believe that she has accomplished it. But, whatever her intentions, Tina and Harry do not emerge as villains. Far from it. Their unremitting dynamism earns them the plaudit of being 'nature's Americans' — presumably a compliment since the author is herself American — and the United States is said to be 'the only country that could contain them'. Ms Bachrach suggests at the end that her two unwitting heroes may have finally run their course, but so what? Harry has had a good innings, and is into his seventies. If her fledgling Talk magazine really does go under in the coming recession, Tina will able to take up the pen that she unwisely put down so many years ago, and possibly publish her diaries which I suppose she still keeps.
I do not deny that Ms Bachrach has invited many people to dish the dirt, but on the whole they do not deliver. Almost everyone who has ever met Tina has been interviewed — Ms Bachrach is one of those tireless American writers who does not do things by halves. To my surprise I find myself saying a couple of rather unfamiliar things. Others have also succumbed to Ms Bachrach's wiles: Alexander Chancellor, Miles Kington, Simon Carr, Angela Huth, Ian Jack, Jamie Neidpath, Nicholas Monson, Murray Sayle — the list is endless. A few of them grumble a bit, but none of them is prepared to shove in the dagger. The oddest story comes from Alexander Chancellor, the former editor of this magazine. After a rather drunken lunch, he and Auberon Waugh go around to the young Tina's flat. Finding she is not there, they naturally decide to break in, and discover an oddly decorated [flat], infantilism against a backdrop of sexuality'. What can this mean?
Ms Bachrach has some catty things to say about Tina's dress sense and her occasional alleged amnesia when it comes to shaving her legs. But in spite of herself she cannot help handing out the compliments, or charting Tina's circulation successes at Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. Her editorship of the former magazine is said to be 'a wild, ragging, implausible triumph .. . the talk of two coasts', Tina is 'aside from Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana, Britain's most famous woman'. (Can this really he true? What about the Queen? Or Hattie Jacques?) It is the same with Harry, who, we are informed, hails from the 'impoverished North of England'. Ms Bachrach completely and uncritically buys all that stuff about Harry having been 'the greatest editor Britain had ever known' when at the Sunday Times. Surely that can't be quite right either.
The truth is that this book is an enormous, and possibly excessive, compliment to Tina and Harry. Despite her carping tone, Ms Bachrach cannot help admiring them. As she• is herself a Vanity Fair writer in its modern idiom, she might be said to have been invented by Tina. Her pay cheques would certainly not be so large if Tina had not started the estimable practice of raining huge amounts of money on journalists. We really should not be surprised by the outcome, given that Tina Brown and Harry Evans are Queen and King of her domain.
Why, then, all this talk of lawsuits if Tina and Hairy Come to America is published here? Harry is known not to enjoy reading things about himself which are not true. He has from time to time instructed solicitors to send threatening letters — on one occasion to this magazine's last editor, Frank Johnson, who rather effectively dealt with him, So I suppose that there may be a general assumption that Harry would take umbrage if Ms Bachrach's book saw the light of day in this country. But I know of no evidence that anything she has written is untrue — apart from a few factual inaccuracies of the sort I have mentioned — and publication would on the whole increase Tina's and Harry's reputation. They have simply believed the reviews which wrongly suggest that this is a hatchet job. Particularly at this time they could probably each of them benefit from a bit of a boost, and my strong advice is to let this book be published here.
Those who know the writer and journalist Edward Pearce can testify to the fact that he is one of nature's gentlemen, a sweet and benign man who would go to great pains to release an irritating blue bottle rather than crush it beneath his feet. But they would also say that when he is faced by a blank piece of paper, a demon can sometimes creep up on him. If he does not like someone, Mr Pearce is capable of administering a couple of sharp jabs to the solar plexus, before felling his victim with one chop, and then kicking him (or her) to death. This can make for amusing and diverting journalism, especially when one shares Mr Pearce's prejudices about the unfortunate creature he has destroyed.
However, such techniques are best practised on the living. The dead, or at least the recently dead, merit a more generous approach. In particular, there is an old fashioned custom that only South American dictators and convicted felons warrant really harsh obituaries. In his Guardian obituary last week of the former Labour minister, Peter Shore, Mr Pearce did not observe this custom. Though I admired his tireless opposition to European federalism, I should say that I held no particular brief for Mr Shore, and only met him once. But I was shocked to read Mr Pearce's dismissive and vituperative piece. This was one of several insults: 'Drab attachment to the wrong idea would be a constant feature of Shore's political life.'
The dead can look after themselves but we should have some care for the living, for family and friends. I hope that when his time comes Mr Pearce finds a more generous obituarist. I am happy to volunteer for the task.
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