Diary – 12 March 2005

About once a decade, the editor of The Spectator asks me to write a diary column. I always accept, though diaries, contrary to what might be supposed, are among the most difficult types of journalism to write. I accept partly because I like The Spectator, and partly because of an early memory of Peter Fleming; he was Ian Fleming’s brother and, before the Bond books appeared, much the better known of the two. He was the author of a weekly Spectator diary. As a schoolboy I wrote a letter of comment on something he had written. Peter was a kind man and replied with the sort of encouraging letter journalists ought to write to 13-year-old critics of their arguments.

I have known nine editors of The Spectator, all as personal friends and none as personal enemies. I am not now sure of the exact order in which they come, but I think it runs Ian Gilmour, Brian Inglis, Iain Macleod, Nigel Lawson, Alexander Chancellor, Charles Moore, Dominic Lawson, Frank Johnson, Boris Johnson.