London Diary : Was the foreign secretary a ‘thug and a liar’?

A catastrophe called Boris Johnson

In a brutal editorial, The New York Times called Boris Johnson’s resignation as foreign secretary “good riddance”. He quit after falling out with Theresa May over Brexit. And, boy, wasn’t he a disaster?

A surprise choice for such a sensitive post in the first place, Johnson was Britain’s worst and most embarrassing foreign secretary of modern times —mocked on both sides of the Atlantic for “a procession of follies, gaffes, idiocies and scoundrelisms,” to quote one commentator. There is palpable relief across Europe that he has gone finally.

Here’s a man who was sacked from his first journalistic job at The Times for making up quotes for a story, and his stint at The Daily Telegraph as its Brussels correspondent was dogged by persistent allegations of cooking up anti-EU stories. And his personal life has been no less controversial.

The most stinging criticism has come from Max Hastings, his editor at The Telegraph, effectively calling him a thug and a liar.

“It is a common mistake to suppose Johnson a nice man. In reality he often behaves unpleasantly. I myself have received some ugly letters from Johnson, threatening consequences for writing about him in terms that he thought unflattering,” he wrote warning that if he ever achieved his ambition to become prime minister, Britain will have “abandoned any residual aspiration to be viewed as a serious nation”.

And Hastings knows a thing or two about “Bo Jo”.

Has sisterhood gone mad?

Remember the bad old days of purdah? Of women banished to the “zenana”, women-only rail compartments, and cinema stalls? And also, remember how women fought to get rid of these symbols of male chauvinism and misogyny? In many countries—Saudi Arabia, Iran—they’re still fighting. But ironically in the West—Mecca of feminism —a new generation of feminists seems to be harking back to the “zenana” era.

The latest example of this is Britain’s first “man-free festival”. The “Women Fest”, to be held on a farm in the English county of Somerset next month, advertises itself as “a shameless celebration of all that makes us (women)”.

The aim, its young founder Tiana Jacout says is to offer women a male-free environment to share experiences and ideas that will unite and strengthen the “sisterhood behind us”. It promises, among other things, a “sacred womb tent...a place for contemplation” whatever that might mean.

“THE SISTERHOOD IS GATHERING ...YOU SHINE, I SHINE”, screams its breathless slogan. And at a starting price of £165 a head for the three-day gig, it doesn’t come cheap.

The event has been mocked, including by women, as an extended hen’s party. And as “sisterhood gone mad”.

“I’m scared of sisterly solidarity,” wrote the London Evening Standard columnist Charlotte Edwardes. While insisting that “of course, I am a feminist”, she thought the festival was a travesty of feminism. And she’s not the only “sister” to think it’s a bad idea.

Booker branding

Anniversaries can be cringingly smug and self-congratulatory affairs. So, it was a relief to see the Man Booker Prize golden jubilee celebrations marked by a candid conversation about its future amid growing criticism that its sponsors are trying to turn it into a corporate brand to benefit their business.

Man Group is an investment firm and its controversial decision five years ago to open up the prize for American writers is seen by critics as a commercial decision —“corporate branding” — than motivated by literary considerations.

“If you are in the Man Group and you are investing in this, you’d want this to mean something in New York...I think it makes a lot of sense as far as global corporate branding goes. But I don’t think it makes any sense as far as literature goes,” said Peter Carey, the Australian novelist, a twice Booker winner.

Speaking at the inaugural anniversary event, he said the decision was a betrayal of the Booker’s original aim of discovering exciting new voices from the Commonwealth countries and Ireland. That gave it a “very distinctive quality” which it was in danger of losing because of its “Americanisation”.

Another Booker winner, British writer Julian Barnes, called it a “daft” decision.

“I thought it was daft when it was announced and I think it is daft still,” he said echoing Carey’s argument that the big names in American literature were squeezing out the lesser known Commonwealth writers. Last year alone, three out of six shortlisted writers were American. Which meant three fewer Commonwealth writers. The argument is not about excluding Americans but about preserving Booker’s identity, its USP. Just as the Pulitzer Prize has an American identity which it has jealously guarded and would never dilute “in a million years”, as Carey put it, by opening it to non-Americans.

And, lastly, the British media is the least trusted in Europe, according to a poll of 33 European countries. In Britain itself, only 23 per cent trust their journalists.