Britain’s top writers and historians packed into The Travellers Club on Pall Mall last night for the prestigious Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction. Authors Robert Harris and Jung Chang, historian Sir Antony Beevor and Nicky Haslam were there, enjoying the free-flowing Pol Roger champagne.
Julian Jackson won the £5,000 prize for his book, France on Trial. His editor Stuart Proffitt made a speech and mentioned that a banister was installed at The Travellers Club for Talleyrand, the crafty French statesman who was involved in more political regimes “than anyone since Michael Gove”. Perhaps Gove subscribes to Tallyrand’s theory that “treason is simply a matter of timing”.
