Conrad black

Thursday

Andrew Roberts

From jailbird to social butterfly – the return of Conrad Black

The former proprietor of this magazine, Conrad Black, is in London at the moment with his gorgeous wife Barbara, and I’ve got very bad news for those of his enemies who predicted that he’d be a social pariah when he got out of jail. At lunches, parties and dinners I’ve attended this week in his honour, he and Barbara have been feted by the leader of one of Britain’s largest political parties, a household-name supermodel, a former foreign policy adviser to a revered prime minister, members of the royal family, a senior industrialist, a former Commonwealth prime minister, a former British foreign secretary, several House of Lords colleagues of his and Britain’s most respected publisher, and that’s even before he arrives at the Speccie party this week.

Taki

I think I just went to the greatest ball in history

To Fort Belvedere for a ball that most likely will discourage any more balls because of its brilliance and perfection. Galen and Hilary Weston, who lease the historic house that was once the playground of Edward VIII and the venue where he signed the Instrument of Abdication in front of his three brothers, are amazing hosts. In this age of gushing exhibitionism, their restraint and good taste leave one speechless upon arrival. On a brilliant June evening, with the weather holding, some 400 guests arrived at Windsor Great Park and walked down the immaculate rolling lawns of the Fort. On the right, on a perfect grass court where once upon a time I used to play regularly with Galen, a mixed doubles game was in process. The ladies wore long 1900s dresses and large hats.

Thursday

Taki

The week that tripled the size of my liver

 Gstaad Walking into a dinner party for 50 chic and some not-so-chic people in a nearby village last week, I was confronted by a tall man with horn-rimmed glasses who called me his neighbour, but then added, ‘No, you’re not my neighbour what’s your name?’ No cunning linguist I, nor used to being barked at by nouveaux-riches whippersnappers, I turned my back on him and told him to ‘look it up in the Almanach de Gotha, asshole!’ He wasn’t best pleased, especially as I also called him a dickhead. Now please don’t think for a moment that I approve of my bad manners.

Thursday

Conrad Black

Conrad Black’s diary: Why I won’t join the campaign against Rob Ford

When visiting Britain and Australia last November, I discovered that the mayor of Toronto, Robert Ford, is now the world’s best-known Canadian. He has acknowledged the occasional use of cocaine and, overall, the response to his foibles has been welcome. The world has been astounded to learn that not all English-speaking Canadians are whey-faced, monosyllabic Americans-on-Prozac. They might also learn that the contiguous metropolitan area of Toronto — now home to about seven million — has a very high standard of living and a low crime rate and is one of the world’s more impressive modern cities. The mayor is an ample and florid man who describes himself as ‘350 pounds of fun’, but he departed from Canadian tradition with his candour.

Thursday

Alexander Chancellor

Remembering the journalist John Thompson, who turned down the editorship of The Spectator

John Thompson, who died last week at the age of 93, could have been editor of The Spectator if he had wanted. He was offered the job in 1970 by its then proprietor, Harry Creighton, but with typically good judgment he declined. Creighton, a jovial, rumbustious manufacturer of machine tools, fired two editors, Nigel Lawson and George Gale, before making himself editor in their place. One of his reasons for doing this was almost certainly to save money; for the magazine was in steep decline and its losses were growing. An editor’s salary was a useful saving. So if John Thompson had taken the job, he would doubtless have eventually been fired as well.

Thursday

Conrad Black

Conrad Black’s farewell to the British press

The astonishing level of enthusiasm over the birth of the new prince goes far beyond the pleasure that people naturally feel for an attractive young couple who have had a healthy child. If there is any truth at all to these estimates in the North American media that trinkets and other bric-a-brac, and even increased numbers of tourists, will produce hundreds of millions of pounds for the British economy, the answer lies not just in normal goodwill and the effusions of the most strenuous monarchists. If my memory is accurate,  the last time there was so much public interest in a royal event, albeit of the exactly opposite nature, was at the death of the newborn prince’s paternal grandmother, Diana.

Thursday

Steerpike

Rupert Murdoch bites his tongue

What happens when you get two elderly proprietors, one with a book to sell and the other with a Twitter account? Well, sadly, with Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, the answer is a fairly one-sided fight. Black is enjoying both freedom and the airwaves at present by going on a PR megablitz for his new book, A Matter of Principle. He has called Sky’s Adam Boulton a ‘jackass’ and Jeremy Paxman a 'priggish, gullible, British fool'. But Uncle Rupe got the worst of Black’s sharp tongue: ‘He's a psychopath. Like Stalin, except that he doesn't kill people. I'm not suggesting he's a homicidal psychopath - he just severs people out of his life like that. I have great admiration for what he's achieved but he's a terrible man.