Word: beaverbrook
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...power that his life has become." Many a perplexed reader wondered what the devil had got into the Express. This unflattering portrait was none other than that of the Express' own boss and Britain's foxiest old (75) press lord, William Maxwell ("Max") Aitken, the first Baron Beaverbrook...
Myth. The biography is Beaverbrook, A Study in Power and Frustration. The author: Tom Driberg, ex-M.P., left-wing Laborite and onetime Beaverbrook columnist. Explained the Express: "The book is hostile and often inaccurate, but the policy of this newspaper is to suppress nothing...
...explanation seemed to fit the widespread belief that Lord Beaverbrook's standing orders to his editors are to reprint anything uttered about him, good or bad. That is a myth which has gained credence in recent years from the Beaver's increasing appetite for reading about himself. What few Express readers knew was that Driberg's biography had turned "hostile" after Beaverbrook had lavished cooperation, money and high hopes on it. Nevertheless, the serialization once again showed how the Beaver, handed a lemon, can turn it into lemonade...
...shift generated more dismay than enthusiasm. Labor jeered; even the sturdiest Tory supporters could manage only faint praise, and more often blurted doubts. The Conservative Daily Telegraph could see no evidence of "either wisdom or necessity." Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express deplored the removal of Butler from the Treasury at a critical time and his replacement by Macmillan-"an untried quantity as economic arbiter." Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail concluded gloomily: "We can only hope that the new team imparts to the government a drive and decision now lacking...
...bath Essex farmhouse, where he lives with his second wife and their daughter, Arabella, 6. (His son Winston II, 15, is at Eton.) "I like to attack rich and powerful people. I like to do things the hard way." In the Spectator, in a signed weekly column for Lord Beaverbrook's Evening Standard and by freelancing, Randolph plays his role of gadfly. His cause, and the lusty Churchillian way he fights it, has gained him new respect in Fleet Street. Said an editor: "He's done a lot of good. He's saying things that should...