Londoner’s Diary
It wouldn’t be a true Liz Truss book without some behind-the-scenes chaos. And in true Truss style, Ten Years to Save the West, which has been flying off the shelves despite appalling reviews, has already experienced its first U-turn only a few days after publication. It started out with a quote. One diligent reader noticed that Truss, in the middle of one of her chapter-long rodomontades about the deep state’s plans to thwart her government, had quoted a supposed line from the late Jewish financier Mayer Amschel Rothschild: “Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation, and I care not who makes it laws!”
There was a big problem: Rothschild never said it. The line was fabricated long ago by antisemitic conspiracy theorists and has been bandied about on the darker corners of the internet ever since. When we asked Truss yesterday, a spokesperson explained: “Liz came across the quote and thought it a useful way of illustrating a point about the Bank of England. Numerous online sources have stated that it was attributed to Rothschild, so she simply attributed it thus. Clearly nothing more was meant of it.”
But blaming Google didn’t hold for long. By evening, the Board of Deputies of British Jews had got wind of the false quote and asked Truss’s publisher, Biteback, for an explanation. They responded apologetically, blamed the fact-checkers, and promised to remove the offending line in all future editions. The Board thanked them “for their swift response”. Unfortunately the error might delay the urgently needed second pressing of the book, which has already sold out on Amazon. Don’t believe everything you read online.
Speccie takes outrage in its stride
Since the sad death of Jeremy Clarke last year, The Spectator has been searching for someone to fill his boots as Low Life columnist. The replacement No Life column is off to a rough start. This week Lloyd Evans, scratching around for a topic, settled on sex work. He described in excruciating detail “a social rendezvous at a private business location” behind Cambridge railway station. His libido had been piqued, he said, by watching a historian lecture at the nearby university. Outrage has ensued, but The Speccie is used to this sort of flak. After the historian raised her irritation with the article, the mag made a courteous edit: it changed the name of the Cambridge college, which Evans had got wrong.
Valentino to host International Booker Prize awards party
Valentino is combining high fashion with high-brow culture as the new sponsor of the International Booker Prize ceremony. The prestigious literary award goes annually to the finest work of foreign fiction translated into English. “The Booker Prizes are as synonymous with writing as the Oscars are with film, and the Grammys are with music,” says a Valentino spokesperson. We are looking forward to the Valentino-sponsored party in May, but pity the dowdy literary types who might feel compelled to swap their corduroy for something a bit more à la mode.
Back To Black actor on the Winehouse family knees-up
Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black has had, erm, mixed reviews. The Evening Standard reluctantly awarded it a single star. But at least the family enjoyed it. Eddie Marsan, who played Amy’s father Mitch Winehouse in the film, tell us the family screening was an absolute hoot. “Afterwards we danced the night away to her music,” he said, “We had a right old knees-up. It was a family’s celebration of their daughter.” Despite what the critics have said, the film is currently top of the box office. And why was Marsan so perfect for the role of Amy’s father? “I’ve never been fashionable,” he told an audience at Chiswick Cinema, “I’ve never been the kind of actor that men want to be, and women want to sleep with.” Stay humble!
