Truth to Power
Dec. 31st, 2020 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: The Powerful and the Damned - Private Diaries in Turbulent Times, by Lionel Barber
I'm wary of the word "charisma": for me it's generally applied to people capable of bending your will to fit their own ends. Who had charisma? (Let's get Godwin's Law out of the way) Hitler. Farage. Johnson, for a time. Blair, more even-handedly. Obama, more positively. In all-hands meetings during my time at the FT, I came to view Lionel Barber as authoritative and fair-minded, probably the smartest person at the head of an organisation I have worked for. (Strictly speaking, I did not work for him; the management structure was a sort of dual monarchy, with journalists in line to the Editor and everyone else in line to the CEO. Also, strictly speaking though less relevant, that bar for "smartest" may not be set as high as you might imagine.) My other recollection was returning to my desk after lunch one day, when colleagues asked about the day's fare in the FT canteen: "Well, I had the shepherd's pie. It was good enough for Lionel Barber, he was just after me in the queue, he had it too." Though he could probably have afforded something better.
So I was interested to see what he would write as a memoir. He says he didn't keep a diary, so this is a reconstruction based on years of notebooks, written up in diary form in the present tense, with retrospective asides on what he was thinking or how things turned out. It starts in 2005, when he became Editor; apparently there was a sense of listlessness at the time, he felt the need to turn the ship around, both in terms of journalism ("time to return to the Gold Standard") and in technology (going, effectively, from a model where the print newspaper drove what would appear on the website, to a model where the website would drive what appeared in the print newspaper).
Each year gets a chapter, through the financial crisis, coalition, the sale of the FT to Nikkei in 2015, Brexit, to Barber stepping down at the end of 2019. Gordon Brown harangued him after the 2010 election, and though surely the FT's endorsement of Cameron wasn't decisive, there is a progressive suggestion through Cameron, May, and Johnson, that if you were to rewind the clock, it would have to be back at least this far. The book is well written, which is surely what you would expect. David Allen Green, an FT legal contributor, recently compared the Brexit Trade Deal to computer software with respect to the non-linear nature of its complexity. In fact, I would say that good software is almost always simple and clear to read and reason about; so it is with prose, and Barber's writing is simple (not simplistic) and clear to read. It's also honest - he's quite prepared to highlight missed opportunities and mistakes as much as successes and "I-told-you-so"s. Awarded the Légion d'Honneur for "furthering the interests of a foreign government" (according to Jacob Rees-Mogg), I fear the Editor of the Daily Remainer (as the FT became known in some parts) is unlikely to obtain any honours from the British state if his recollection of a couple of conversations with Prince Andrew still carry any weight.
And then there's that bit where Dominic Cummings is a little unguarded in expressing his views of the Great British Public.
There's quite a lot of introspection about succession as Editor. I suppose, having transformed the paper, he wanted to ensure it would continue in a good direction. He concludes the book with some thoughts about the future directions of business and politics. Highly recommended.
I'm wary of the word "charisma": for me it's generally applied to people capable of bending your will to fit their own ends. Who had charisma? (Let's get Godwin's Law out of the way) Hitler. Farage. Johnson, for a time. Blair, more even-handedly. Obama, more positively. In all-hands meetings during my time at the FT, I came to view Lionel Barber as authoritative and fair-minded, probably the smartest person at the head of an organisation I have worked for. (Strictly speaking, I did not work for him; the management structure was a sort of dual monarchy, with journalists in line to the Editor and everyone else in line to the CEO. Also, strictly speaking though less relevant, that bar for "smartest" may not be set as high as you might imagine.) My other recollection was returning to my desk after lunch one day, when colleagues asked about the day's fare in the FT canteen: "Well, I had the shepherd's pie. It was good enough for Lionel Barber, he was just after me in the queue, he had it too." Though he could probably have afforded something better.
So I was interested to see what he would write as a memoir. He says he didn't keep a diary, so this is a reconstruction based on years of notebooks, written up in diary form in the present tense, with retrospective asides on what he was thinking or how things turned out. It starts in 2005, when he became Editor; apparently there was a sense of listlessness at the time, he felt the need to turn the ship around, both in terms of journalism ("time to return to the Gold Standard") and in technology (going, effectively, from a model where the print newspaper drove what would appear on the website, to a model where the website would drive what appeared in the print newspaper).
Each year gets a chapter, through the financial crisis, coalition, the sale of the FT to Nikkei in 2015, Brexit, to Barber stepping down at the end of 2019. Gordon Brown harangued him after the 2010 election, and though surely the FT's endorsement of Cameron wasn't decisive, there is a progressive suggestion through Cameron, May, and Johnson, that if you were to rewind the clock, it would have to be back at least this far. The book is well written, which is surely what you would expect. David Allen Green, an FT legal contributor, recently compared the Brexit Trade Deal to computer software with respect to the non-linear nature of its complexity. In fact, I would say that good software is almost always simple and clear to read and reason about; so it is with prose, and Barber's writing is simple (not simplistic) and clear to read. It's also honest - he's quite prepared to highlight missed opportunities and mistakes as much as successes and "I-told-you-so"s. Awarded the Légion d'Honneur for "furthering the interests of a foreign government" (according to Jacob Rees-Mogg), I fear the Editor of the Daily Remainer (as the FT became known in some parts) is unlikely to obtain any honours from the British state if his recollection of a couple of conversations with Prince Andrew still carry any weight.
LB: Have you read any of Simeon's articles from Dubai?
HRH: No. Of course not.
LB: Well, I've read every word that Simeon Kerr has written about Dubai and I don't see a problem ...
The conversation ended shortly thereafter.
And then there's that bit where Dominic Cummings is a little unguarded in expressing his views of the Great British Public.
The Vote Leave campaign is coming to lunch, at last. They've been holding out, arguing there was no point talking to the Remain establishment over a fancy meal. I instruct Sebastian Payne, a new recruit from the Spectator magazine, to deliver a message: the FT is happy to serve shitty sandwiches from our canteen. That does the trick.
There's quite a lot of introspection about succession as Editor. I suppose, having transformed the paper, he wanted to ensure it would continue in a good direction. He concludes the book with some thoughts about the future directions of business and politics. Highly recommended.