Don’t fight racism with racism

Dear 2016 WriteNow mentees,

Thanks so much for your open letter to me. It seems only good manners for me to write back.

You’re rightly proud of having been admitted to a challenging programme at Penguin Random House that mentors gifted young minority authors and helps to cultivate their talents. My own publisher, HarperCollins, runs a similar programme, which enjoys my full support. Such proactive outreach is exactly the approach I endorse for helping to vary the voices on our bookshelves. That is why my column of a fortnight ago said not one discouraging word about WriteNow. Indeed, I made no reference to your programme whatsoever.

Apologies to Spectator readers, any number of whom have contacted me to express their agreement with my real point, and none of whom seemed confused about that point, or ashamed of themselves for concurring with some bigoted screed. To most of them, this column will seem a tortured rehashing of what was perfectly clear the first time. But we live in a dour and censorious age. Perhaps in future it will prove necessary to write every column twice, the original with wit, playfulness and brio. Then I’ll draft a pedantic, leadenly prosaic rendition without any jokes.

To recap: I took specific exception to PRH’s declared intention to have both its staff and list of authors mirror the UK population by 2025 in regard to race, ethnicity, class, disability, sexuality and gender. (As for the last, the company may have to sack a raft of women, who are over-represented in editorial.) These demographic proportions are statistically ascertainable. So while PRH may claim that the planned reconfiguration of its workforce and catalogue over the next seven years is an ‘aspiration’, the aspiration is to pursue numerical quotas.