The travails of Matthew Freud and the death of Lucian Freud call to mind the former's father, the latter's brother, the late Sir Clement Freud. He did eventually join the Lib Dems, but at least once he threatened to stand as an Independent Liberal against them, having sat as an MP for the Liberal Party, which still exists and which continues to use the orange sun symbol of old. Very appropriately.
I have written here in the past that Fleet Street needs Lib Dem columnists, not least because the Lib Dems need the scrutiny. The Sun, of which Sir Clement's son's father-in-law was and is not only the proprietor but also the editor-in-chief, for many years would not even send a reporter to the Lib Dem Conference. Yet, now that I think about it, it also carried fairly or very regular pieces by Sir Clement over a good number of years, making him the only regular Liberal or Lib Dem, as such, on Fleet Street.
The Lib Dems are probably feeling very smug at the moment. After all, that is their usual aspect. They should consider, and be reminded, that their only newspaper voice over a prolonged period was in a paper of which Rupert Murdoch was not only the proprietor but also the editor-in-chief, the voice of a Liberal and then a Lib Dem whose son was by happy coincidence married, and still is, to Murdoch's daughter.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh please come back to the Telegraph, David. Even if it's only to post comments. This one, the one on the Masons, the other ones on the Norway shootings, the one on Europe, the ones on Ireland and child abuse, we need you desperately. Failing that, FFS you need a bigger platform somewhere.
ReplyDeleteNo contributor to the comments section on the Telegraph blogs takes him seriously. Haven't you noticed?
ReplyDeleteSeveral of them and I maintain very extensive correspondences. You'd be amazed who some of them really are. But on topic, please.
ReplyDeleteAll the criticism of him on there has always come from people who could not cope with long words or complicated concepts and wanted the thing to be an online text version of Fox "News". Not only below the line and no doubt including Colin Whittaker.
ReplyDeleteWho the hell would care about being taken seriously by people who want Sarah Palin to be President of the United States? Least of all one's own underserving university contemporaries of that way of thinking. Does that include you, Colin Whittaker?
On topic, please.
ReplyDeleteBut no, my days as Claude Lévi-Strauss or Margaret Mead among the birthers will not be resumed.
And that's just Andrew Gilligan, Con Coughlin, Janet Daley, Katharine Birbalsingh, Michael Weiss, Nile Gardiner, Neil O’Brien, Toby Young and whoever appointed them or lets up their stuff.
ReplyDeleteSorry, off topic. Or is it? On the day of the last ever News of the World, you wrote, "In today's farewell souvenir edition, it is heartbreakingly easy to trace the decline in the writers' educational and cultural expectations of their readers."
Time was when Clement Freud, whom I assume you loved on Just A Minute, wrote for the Sun. Now look who writes for the Telegraph.
Yes, I loved him on Just A Minute.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, Matthew Freud's best mate and sometime business partner is one Piers Morgan, with whom he owns the Press Gazette and the British Press Awards. His other chum is George Osborne.
ReplyDelete