My beef with the columnist Bruce Anderson began, as beefs do, at the Spectator summer party. Not this year’s – we will come to that – but at another brilliant edition of the annual gold-plater some years ago.
On that occasion, after arrival I’d gone to my usual peg outdoors by the stairs up into the garden, a liminal position from where I can bag the famous and important and am unlikely to be bed-blocked by bores.
Bruce, aka ‘Brute Anderson’ – a baggy, shaggy bruiser of whom P.G. Wodehouse would doubtless have written that he looked as though he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when’ – loomed. ‘Lassie,’ the Scot boomed. I mounted a step to be closer to him in height. A bit crook and half-cut, he still loomed over me like the leaning tower of Pisa made man. ‘Lassie, you need to shave!’
I would like to stress at this point that this was not only uncalled-for but it was also incorrect. As far as I’m concerned, any facial fluff or down I may sport is fine and baby-blond and therefore quite invisible to the naked eye. I will not be taking questions on this matter.
A bit crook and half-cut, he loomed over me like the leaning tower of Pisa made man
I gave Brute, whose blotchy countenance was sprouting a wild bed of straggly whiskers and copious nasal hair, a nasty look. ‘How dare you,’ I snapped. I wasn’t quite sure what to say next. I didn’t know how to convey the extent of his grievous miscalculation. My younger brother Jo was standing next to Brute and knew this was bad.
‘What do you want me to do, Rake?’ Jo asked. He was a bit pale. I think he was a government minister at the time. We stood there as people pushed past us to find prime ministers, party leaders, members of the cabinet, national newspaper editors, our brother, Joan Collins, Piers Morgan, etc. ‘Do you want me to hit him?’
Fast forward to the Spectator party last week at the height of this golden, sun-soaked summer of 2026. Brute was there, even more beardy and bulky, when I arrived, and there he stayed, as I circulated asking guests how long they’d been coming to the Speccie party. I had to hand my flute of Pol Roger for them to hold as I made notes of their answers on my iPhone.
This reporting technique has not stood the test of time. I’ve been examining my notes, and one entry reads: ‘Joanna Coles was the Spec’s business manager. My only job was to mend the blinds in Doughty St.’
I have no idea who told me this.
Anyway, the BBC’s Amol Rajan told me he’d been coming for five years, i.e. he started under Fraser Nelson’s editorship. The Mail’s Quentin Letts told me he’d been coming since Charles Moore took over (me too – I first gate-crashed as a pushy fresher in the 1980s). Quentin had the traditional entrée to the event: he’d come when a young pup on the Peterborough column (the party remains a gobbet-generating machine). He said he’d watched in admiration as the Spectator’s circulation manager became so drunk he chatted up a female statue, and then a brawl broke out. ‘I think Bruce Anderson was involved,’ Letts recalled happily, as last week’s party, the best of Westminster and Fleet Street, roared on around us. ‘That’s when I thought, this is my world. I decided to become a journalist.’ London’s new hot couple, Kate Garraway and Liam Halligan, were glowing. It was their first time at the party together, and that’s what mattered. They were happy as newlyweds.
Sir Keir’s Ginger Ninja was also there. I forgot to ask Morgan McSweeney whether it was his first time. Damn. But I did ask him whether he wasn’t a bit ‘fish out of water’ in this right-wing throng, where Restore’s Rupert Lowe seemed to have bumped Nigel Farage from the winners’ enclosure.
McSweeney looked stunned by the ploddingness of my observation. I followed up with another predictable question – you can guess – to which he replied, ‘I’ve retired.’
And then the miracle of Old Queen St. I saw Bruce under an arbour as I was making my way to the caviar and blini bar, and found myself approaching to pop the question. Side note: after decades of the party being strictly nil-by-mouth – apart from champagne – Michael Gove has introduced solids in the shape of these very welcome ‘fishy nibbles’. I didn’t pile into the élite canapés or Pol Roger much, though, as I was on best behaviour. Two of my editors, Ben Taylor of the Sunday Times and Chris Evans of the Telegraph, were there, plus the Tel’s new proprietor, Mathias Döpfner, and of course Michael Gove of this parish, whose peg is where it should be: at the top of the stairs.
Back to Bruce. ‘Fifty years,’ he replied. ‘Since Alexander Chancellor.’ We inspected each other’s facial hair for old times’ sake. ‘Even though I enjoyed being angry with you, you’re forgiven,’ I told him, amazed I had nursed my grievance for so long, as I tend to forget whom I’m supposed to be cross with, and why, within minutes. ‘And I enjoyed being angry with you, monkey,’ he replied.
Comments