andy bell

There is a lot of discussion going on around the Guardian’s review of Margaret Renn’s biography of the journalist Paul Foot, who died 20 years ago this month.

Let me declare an interest here: in the early 1980s, when I was working in my spare time for Searchlight, I worked with Paul on many occasions, on stories related to the extreme right and indeed many others. So I think I have some locus in saying that Stuart Jeffries’s review of Margaret Renn’s book is a nasty, small-minded, spiteful piece of work, by a journalist whose endeavours over a long span do not come remotely close to matching Paul Foot’s extraordinary achievements. I won’t list them here; others have already done so and will continue to do so.

But I feel I can usefully contribute at least one original observation to the discussion taking place. Jeffries takes one particularly cheap, snarky shot: “(Renn) doesn’t really account for how he managed to work for one of the dodgiest of those businessmen, namely the Daily Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell, for so long”.

Actually, the answer is pretty obvious, and should be to Jeffries, though it didn’t prevent a much younger me asking exactly that question  of Paul when we were working together. His reply was simple and honest: “He pays me well, he covers my expenses, and he keeps out of my way. I can do what I want”.  And that, for an investigative journalist is, frankly, heaven.

I worked for Tony Elliott, Time Out’s proprietor then loathed by the left, for three years, and enjoyed the same generous, permissive regime. I tell you, when you are involved in that kind of journalism, those are publishers to die for.

Paul was posh, yes, we all know that, but there was nothing entitled or aloof about him. In his Daily Mirror articles, young journalists or researchers who assisted were always given generous credits early in the piece and not just included as some italicised addendum at the end.

Rummaging through scrapbooks for something else the other day I came across the perfect example where he acknowledged my role in a story in the third paragraph.

He introduced me to the commissionaire on the back door of the Mirror building so I could just walk up to his office without having to check in at the front desk. And he invited me to my first (and only) Private Eye lunch.

He was a fine journalist, one of the best, but also a very fine, lovely human being.

And Stuart Jeffries should be hanging his head in shame.

If you want to read hi review, it’s here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/25/paul-foot-a-life-in-politics-by-margaret-renn-review-revolutionary-intellect-or-posh-trot

This article was first published on Facebook and Twitter on 27 July 2024