‘I’m told you’re the one to watch,’ Julian Assange says when I introduce myself in the Green Room. ‘Likewise,’ I reply. We’re backstage at Kensington Town Hall on a sunny Saturday afternoon to debate the ethics of whistleblowing. The seats sold out in minutes and the audience, almost all young, female or both, are clearly here for him. One of my colleagues tries conversation. Government comes up. ‘Companies are the new government,’ Assange says. He expands on his theme. The room is becoming blurry. I’m zoning out. It’s not just the sixth-form politics but the sheer anti-charisma of the man. I start to worry about the debate. What will I do if he numbs my brain on stage? Assange’s conversation is aural Rohypnol.
Not exactly jet-lagged, I arrive jet-overdosed. Thursday and Friday I’m in Berlin at a conference with a real hero, the former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky. On the Sunday I have to go to the US, coming back via Holland. I have been upgraded for the first time in my life. To premium economy. In Berlin I snatch an hour to marvel at the area around the Huguenot church. Destroyed in the war, it was rebuilt in the 1970s. Is there a single major building in Britain that was rebuilt postwar instead of being devastatingly replaced? Is it too late to start now?
The pre-debate vote shows the audience are 99 per cent in favour of leaking. As we come on stage, fans’ cameras pop in the direction of their ghostly messiah. When Assange speaks it is to recite banalities and conspiracy theories. Another conspiracy theorist, the former low-level MI5 leaker Annie Machon, is among other whistleblowers to take to the stage. It is now five against three in the debate.
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