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Authors: Julian Barnes
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nonintervention “quite right”) In other respects, he has reservations about Mrs. Thatcher—“I feel much more worrying is her appeal to basic instincts on social questions”—and on education Jenkins says he is “quite left-wing.” (This, by the way, is the British
quite
, meaning “fairly,” rather than the American
quite
, meaning “very”) He is also sophisticated or canny enough to know the dangers of a newspaper being seen as a political camp follower. Cautiously declining to criticize his predecessors, he notes that “The
Times
has been too closely identified with the present incumbent of Downing Street”—a polite way of saying that for some years it has wagged its tail off, rolled delightedly on its back, and brought Mrs. Thatcher her slippers in the evening.
Jenkins’s first influence has been to calm down the strident—some would say vulgar—design of the paper: smaller headlines, no stories in bold, no double rules, less boxing of items, and a “light basement” (i.e., a nonpolitical, human-interest story) on the news pages. There is still a long way to go in terms of substance: he needs to win back some of the good writers
The Times
has lost over the years, or, preferably,to discover their successors; he needs better feature coverage, friskier arts pages, solider news; he needs to reimpose accuracy and authority. He also knows that there is an inevitable time lag between such things being established and their being spotted and relied upon by readers: for some time, dinner parties will continue to feature that impaling moment for Mr. Jenkins when the agreeable neighbor to his right congratulates him on his appointment and adds smilingly, “But of course I read
The Independent?
Before his job is finished, he will need to delete a few bylines, and there can be little security in knowing that so far each of Murdoch’s four editors seems to have been chosen for virtues that exactly contradict those of his immediate predecessor. Hearteningly, though, Jenkins is the first
Times
editor in recent years to be appointed with an evident brief to take the newspaper back upmarket. The office from which he seeks to do this is a small, windowless hutch in London’s docklands—“the submarine captain’s cabin,” he calls it—whose walls are covered with ancestral portraits of previous editors. History breathes down his neck, and there is no contemporary view: skeptics might find these surroundings singularly appropriate for an editor of
The Times
. But for the moment even political and journalistic opponents are wishing Simon Jenkins well. You don’t have to believe in feudalism to want the local castle to be in good repair.
June 1990
Simon Jenkins lasted until 1992;
The Times
and
The Independent
are currently involved in a price-cutting war—not so much tanks on lawns as thumbs in eyes. Tiny Rowland and Mohamed Al-Fayed shook hands in the food hall of Harrods in October 1993; their reconciliation was brokered by Bassam Abu Sharif of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Inland Revenue has so far declined to take up Mr. Rowland’s invitation to investigate Mr. Al-Fayed
.
3
Mrs. Thatcher Discovers
It’s a Funny Old World
I n May 1979, when Margaret Thatcher formed her first Cabinet, she and her ministers sat for the traditional school photo. Twenty-four men, plus one central woman, lined up beneath the dewdrop chandelier, Axminster at their feet, Gainsborough behind them. Twenty-four men trying, variously, to exude gravitas, to look youthfully dynamic, to dissemble serious surprise at being there in the first place. Ten of the two dozen are faced with the first real problem of political office: what to do with your hands when sitting in the front row of an official photograph. Folding your arms, like Keith Joseph, looks a defensive, prim, keep-off gesture. Clasping your hands over your capacious stomach, like Lord Hailsham, looks the boast of a gourmandizer. Grasping the left wrist with
quite
, meaning “fairly,” rather than the American
quite
, meaning “very”) He is also sophisticated or canny enough to know the dangers of a newspaper being seen as a political camp follower. Cautiously declining to criticize his predecessors, he notes that “The
Times
has been too closely identified with the present incumbent of Downing Street”—a polite way of saying that for some years it has wagged its tail off, rolled delightedly on its back, and brought Mrs. Thatcher her slippers in the evening.
Jenkins’s first influence has been to calm down the strident—some would say vulgar—design of the paper: smaller headlines, no stories in bold, no double rules, less boxing of items, and a “light basement” (i.e., a nonpolitical, human-interest story) on the news pages. There is still a long way to go in terms of substance: he needs to win back some of the good writers
The Times
has lost over the years, or, preferably,to discover their successors; he needs better feature coverage, friskier arts pages, solider news; he needs to reimpose accuracy and authority. He also knows that there is an inevitable time lag between such things being established and their being spotted and relied upon by readers: for some time, dinner parties will continue to feature that impaling moment for Mr. Jenkins when the agreeable neighbor to his right congratulates him on his appointment and adds smilingly, “But of course I read
The Independent?
Before his job is finished, he will need to delete a few bylines, and there can be little security in knowing that so far each of Murdoch’s four editors seems to have been chosen for virtues that exactly contradict those of his immediate predecessor. Hearteningly, though, Jenkins is the first
Times
editor in recent years to be appointed with an evident brief to take the newspaper back upmarket. The office from which he seeks to do this is a small, windowless hutch in London’s docklands—“the submarine captain’s cabin,” he calls it—whose walls are covered with ancestral portraits of previous editors. History breathes down his neck, and there is no contemporary view: skeptics might find these surroundings singularly appropriate for an editor of
The Times
. But for the moment even political and journalistic opponents are wishing Simon Jenkins well. You don’t have to believe in feudalism to want the local castle to be in good repair.
June 1990
Simon Jenkins lasted until 1992;
The Times
and
The Independent
are currently involved in a price-cutting war—not so much tanks on lawns as thumbs in eyes. Tiny Rowland and Mohamed Al-Fayed shook hands in the food hall of Harrods in October 1993; their reconciliation was brokered by Bassam Abu Sharif of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Inland Revenue has so far declined to take up Mr. Rowland’s invitation to investigate Mr. Al-Fayed
.
3
Mrs. Thatcher Discovers
It’s a Funny Old World
I n May 1979, when Margaret Thatcher formed her first Cabinet, she and her ministers sat for the traditional school photo. Twenty-four men, plus one central woman, lined up beneath the dewdrop chandelier, Axminster at their feet, Gainsborough behind them. Twenty-four men trying, variously, to exude gravitas, to look youthfully dynamic, to dissemble serious surprise at being there in the first place. Ten of the two dozen are faced with the first real problem of political office: what to do with your hands when sitting in the front row of an official photograph. Folding your arms, like Keith Joseph, looks a defensive, prim, keep-off gesture. Clasping your hands over your capacious stomach, like Lord Hailsham, looks the boast of a gourmandizer. Grasping the left wrist with
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