his career he has been on the outskirts of politics, and while the autocratic rule he exercised over his newspaper empire was real enough, the power it conferred was illusory.
For like Hearst in America, it was power he wanted, and, also like him, he apparently thought he could reach his objective through his newspapers. Both men imagined that X-million readers represented X-million supporters in the struggle for political influence. They were wrong. American politicians were terrified of Hearst’s support, which invariably proved fatal to them. Possibly at this moment Sir Anthony Eden would welcome a return to the time when he was daily abused in the Beaverbrook press. The more frenziedly the
Daily Express
shouts an opinion the more decisively (it sometimes seems) do itsreaders reject that opinion.
Between the wars Lord Beaverbrook’s ambition soared. His invariably successful opponent in the Tory party was Mr Baldwin, who was neither so rich, nor so clever, nor so energetic as he, and who owned no newspapers. What had Baldwin got that Beaverbrook lacked? He was an educated man; but Lord Beaverbrook’s enemy of later years, Ernest Bevin, had probably less education than the press lord himself. Presumably the answer is that Baldwin’s character and principles were acceptable to the public, and that Lord Beaverbrook’s (even had he not hobbled himself with a peerage) were not.
Many people, reading this book, will be amazed to learn that he ever for one moment set his hopes so high. Nevertheless, looking back over the years, it is no wonder if he feels surprised at the extent to which political influence eluded him. Possibly he even now imagines that his newspapers guide their readers’ thoughts and actions. Yet the fact remains that however good the racing tips, however witty the Osbert Lancaster drawing, however exciting the strips, however unconsciously funny Mr John Gordon may be, the readers of these delightful features pay no attention when they are ordered to vote for X, Y and Z, and are very apt instead to vote for A, B and C. As to the proprietor’s vendettas , his likes and dislikes and policies, they are so kaleidoscopic and unpredictable that the public, though much entertained by his newspapers, does not take them seriously.
Mr Driberg’s book would probably have been more successful had it been less thoroughly bowdlerised. As it is, though cattiness pervades it, the scratches are slight. If (as is possible) he had the power and the desire to wound, he has been frustrated; thus the title of his book has a double meaning.
Beaverbrook: A Study in Power and Frustration
, Driberg, T. (1953)
Fellow Travellers
Evidently Mr Tom Driberg finds poor fat grubby chain-smoking communist Guy Burgess a more sympathetic subject for biography than he found rich energetic transatlantic bossy buccaneering Lord Beaverbrook. Nothing could exceed his tender regard for the former unless it be his spiteful resentment of the latter. Guy Burgess, of course, is not a man calculated to arouse either envy or malice; he is too far down the ladder.
Mr Driberg relates of him that he so much dislikes violence and cruelty that he ostentatiously turned his back when a boy was beaten at school. It may seem strange that someone so sensitive about the barbarous practices of his own countrymen should be so insensitive to the vast organised cruelties of Soviet Russia; but perhaps he simply turns his back again. The child father to the man?
Burgess appears to have disclosed little or nothing that we did not know already from Cyril Connolly’s book, from Petrov, and from the reluctant Foreign Office White Paper,about the case of the ‘missing diplomats’. It is curious that the
Daily Mail
should consider extracts from Mr Driberg’s book the scoop of the decade, or of the century, I cannot remember which it was supposed to be. Surely not on account of Burgess’s sentimental and amateurish little sketch of a night view of Eton College
For like Hearst in America, it was power he wanted, and, also like him, he apparently thought he could reach his objective through his newspapers. Both men imagined that X-million readers represented X-million supporters in the struggle for political influence. They were wrong. American politicians were terrified of Hearst’s support, which invariably proved fatal to them. Possibly at this moment Sir Anthony Eden would welcome a return to the time when he was daily abused in the Beaverbrook press. The more frenziedly the
Daily Express
shouts an opinion the more decisively (it sometimes seems) do itsreaders reject that opinion.
Between the wars Lord Beaverbrook’s ambition soared. His invariably successful opponent in the Tory party was Mr Baldwin, who was neither so rich, nor so clever, nor so energetic as he, and who owned no newspapers. What had Baldwin got that Beaverbrook lacked? He was an educated man; but Lord Beaverbrook’s enemy of later years, Ernest Bevin, had probably less education than the press lord himself. Presumably the answer is that Baldwin’s character and principles were acceptable to the public, and that Lord Beaverbrook’s (even had he not hobbled himself with a peerage) were not.
Many people, reading this book, will be amazed to learn that he ever for one moment set his hopes so high. Nevertheless, looking back over the years, it is no wonder if he feels surprised at the extent to which political influence eluded him. Possibly he even now imagines that his newspapers guide their readers’ thoughts and actions. Yet the fact remains that however good the racing tips, however witty the Osbert Lancaster drawing, however exciting the strips, however unconsciously funny Mr John Gordon may be, the readers of these delightful features pay no attention when they are ordered to vote for X, Y and Z, and are very apt instead to vote for A, B and C. As to the proprietor’s vendettas , his likes and dislikes and policies, they are so kaleidoscopic and unpredictable that the public, though much entertained by his newspapers, does not take them seriously.
Mr Driberg’s book would probably have been more successful had it been less thoroughly bowdlerised. As it is, though cattiness pervades it, the scratches are slight. If (as is possible) he had the power and the desire to wound, he has been frustrated; thus the title of his book has a double meaning.
Beaverbrook: A Study in Power and Frustration
, Driberg, T. (1953)
Fellow Travellers
Evidently Mr Tom Driberg finds poor fat grubby chain-smoking communist Guy Burgess a more sympathetic subject for biography than he found rich energetic transatlantic bossy buccaneering Lord Beaverbrook. Nothing could exceed his tender regard for the former unless it be his spiteful resentment of the latter. Guy Burgess, of course, is not a man calculated to arouse either envy or malice; he is too far down the ladder.
Mr Driberg relates of him that he so much dislikes violence and cruelty that he ostentatiously turned his back when a boy was beaten at school. It may seem strange that someone so sensitive about the barbarous practices of his own countrymen should be so insensitive to the vast organised cruelties of Soviet Russia; but perhaps he simply turns his back again. The child father to the man?
Burgess appears to have disclosed little or nothing that we did not know already from Cyril Connolly’s book, from Petrov, and from the reluctant Foreign Office White Paper,about the case of the ‘missing diplomats’. It is curious that the
Daily Mail
should consider extracts from Mr Driberg’s book the scoop of the decade, or of the century, I cannot remember which it was supposed to be. Surely not on account of Burgess’s sentimental and amateurish little sketch of a night view of Eton College
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