Diary – 14 June 2018

Awake to the Today programme and ordure being dumped on me by Polly Toynbee while the Mail’s legendary Dame Ann Leslie sings my praises. I recall how Toynbee penned a venomous piece about my predecessor, Sir David English, only days after he died at 67 (though, through a slip in the actualité, his Who’s Who entry had him at 66). I never cease to be amused by the way the left demonise anyone they disagree with, but poor Polly’s obsession with the Mail is almost psychotic. Roger Alton, the ex-editor of the Observer, wades in, writing to the Guardian that I am ‘a very great man and a newspaperman of genius who has done as much to improve the quality of life in Britain as anybody I can think of’. It seems I’m a somewhat divisive character…

David’s premature death was on my mind when I announced last week that, after 28 years — and six prime ministers — I will step aside from day-to-day editing to become chairman and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers by 14 November, when Prince Charles and I celebrate our 70th birthdays. At the Palace, I’m known, somewhat disparagingly, as The Twin. The Mail, which was unashamedly in Diana’s camp, has over the years been a mite beastly to the prince, who’s basically a good man. I thank my stars for a career that’s been enthralling, privileged and profoundly fulfilling. My Twin, for his part, is yet to start his.

It’s been a good week for the Dacre family. My sister-in-law, married to my fourth brother, editor of ITN when it was great, has been made a Dame for her presidency of the Royal College of Physicians. My wife Kathy, a professor who for a decade has campaigned to build the Shakespeare North Playhouse in Liverpool’s Knowsley, one of Britain’s most deprived areas, learns that key funding has just been secured.