Yahoo News The Londoner: John Simpson's novel revenge on BBC
John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, took revenge on a former boss by portraying an “unfavourable” version of him in his new book.
Instead of making “a public fuss” and shouting “about ageism” when his boss was trying to force him out of the BBC, “I wrote a novel”, he says.
Moscow, Midnight was published in October. “I started writing my current book at a time when the then head of BBC News was trying to force me out,” Simpson says.
“This boss appeared unflatteringly in it... the reason writing novels is bad for your mental stability is that it turns you temporarily into God. You decide which of your creations lives and dies, who suffers and who is made to look like an idiot.” Simpson does not name the boss, but earlier this year The Mail on Sunday explicitly referred to the man who saw “no role” for Simpson as James Harding.
Harding, 49, a former editor of The Times, left his job as head of BBC News in January this year and was replaced by Fran Unsworth. He now runs news website Tortoise.
Simpson, 74, now says: “I was unsighted by being assured regularly how wonderful my contribution to the BBC was. ‘I’d be distraught if you left,’ he said.” The main character in Moscow, Midnight, Jon Swift, says at one point in the novel: “It’s this fascism, which says that only people under 50 can hack it. A few years ago the sodding age-Nazis threw me out of the grand outfit I used to work for.”
But Simpson, writing in this week’s New Statesman, says he was forced into a rewrite after “I spotted a quarter-inch in the newspaper that said he [the boss in question] was leaving to spend more time with his family or something”. Nevertheless, “the boss who tried to get rid of me still features, not entirely favourably”.
Harding did not respond to a request for comment this morning.
Remaining friend
As Brexit drama unfurled yesterday morning, The Londoner was with Remain campaigner Gina Miller at the Bazaar Summit at Sotheby’s. Perhaps surprisingly, she had sympathy for the PM. “On a personal level I have so much admiration for her,” she says. “I have no idea how she’s doing this. And people forget she has diabetes: she’s not meant to have stress.”
She added: “Now at least it goes back to Parliament. [May] would have just pushed through this deal, which is so terrible. I think it’s not actually about her, because anybody trying to do this deal would have found it impossible.”
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Lord Linley and designer Jasper Conran were among those at St James’s Church in Piccadilly yesterday for antique dealer Christopher Gibbs’s memorial service. Said to be the inventor of Swinging London, he had an indelible impact on Mick Jagger. Sitting at one of Gibbs’s dinner parties, Jagger was asked what had brought him there. “I’m here to learn how to be a gentleman,” he replied.
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End-of-match traditions can be the pits, says Gary Lineker. “The worst thing is at the end of a game, when you swap shirts and you get one that’s humming,” the former striker says on his new podcast. “I’ve had one or two of those. You put it on and it’s all wet and you go: ‘Ugh.’”
Scarlett and Green add some curiosity
Model Leomie Anderson was on Regent Street last night for the launch of the Curiosity Rooms, a “discovery hub” created by Google Pixel 3. Professor Green and Munroe Bergdorf were among the guests, as was Scarlett Curtis, the journalist and daughter of romcom writer Richard Curtis and Emma Freud. She had launched her own pop-up at Topshop on Oxford Street last month, selling her new book Feminists Don’t Wear Pink, but it was abruptly removed.
Shortly afterwards, brand owner Philip Green was named in the Lords as the businessman at the centre of “Britain’s #MeToo scandal”.
“Philip Green, money can’t save you. The feminists are coming and they’re wearing pink,” Curtis tweeted in the aftermath. The Google event coincided with a hive of activity in the area: dancer Eric Underwood and retail entrepreneur Harold Tillman were at the launch of fashion brand Isaia’s new London flagship on Conduit Street.
Playing the field
What do Michelle Obama and Theresa May have in common? In her new memoir, Becoming, the former First Lady recalls a date with Kevin, an ex-boyfriend, which reveals that she and the PM have both had mischievous canters through fields. “What are we doing?” Obama asked. “He looks at me as if it should be obvious. ‘We’re going to run through this field.’ And we do. We run through that field. We dash from one end to the other, waving our arms like little kids, puncturing the silence with cheerful shouts.” Naughty.
SW1A
Where was Energy Secretary Greg Clark yesterday as ministers were being hauled out to bat for the Government amid the Cabinet resignations? He was giving his “biggest-ever speech” on energy, civil servants say. “We all thought it would be cancelled,” a source in the department says. “Obviously he’s not one of their go-to media performers.”
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After Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former chief of staff, wrote that she “never believed Brexit can be a success”, his former No 10 colleague Matthew O’Toole tweeted: “Nick is perhaps the single most influential author of this deal. Every one of the shrill threats and red lines he dictated drove the negotiations towards this end. If it’s a bad deal, he broke it.”
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Simon Hoare, MP for North Dorset, was one of many challenged by events yesterday. “Halfway through, my 11th month of no booze has been tested today,” he despaired.
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Will Tina star Adrienne win the Turner Prize?
Singer Natalie Imbruglia posed backstage last night with Adrienne Warren, who plays the eponymous lead in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Warren is nominated in the Best Musical Performance category at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, which take place on Sunday.
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Quote of the day
'I sort of fell in love with her, really'
Rosamund Pike, speaking at a Bazaar Summit, on playing war reporter Marie Colvin
