Richard Ingrams' Week: Whatever happened to that biography of Tina Brown?

Evelyn Waugh once wrote a satirical guide for young men and women who wanted to pursue a literary career. The way to succeed as a biographer, he said, was to choose somebody very famous who had had six books written about them quite recently.

His advice (which is still perfectly sound) has most recently been followed by Ms Tina Brown who has chosen to write a book about Princess Diana. There already exists a huge mountain of such books including a very good one by Sarah Bradford published last year. What more is there to be said?

It doesn't matter. Helped on by widespread publicity from her friends in the media, Tina Brown can be confident that her book will be a big best-seller.

Of course, one or two critics have sounded a carping note, including one who wrote that he would have preferred to read a book about the life of Tina Brown, which is in many ways quite similar to that of the princess. Both were vivacious, very ambitious young blondes who married older men and became big-time celebrities. There, perhaps the similarities end but, as it happens, there is already an entertaining book about Tina Brown, Tina and Harry Come to America by Judy Bachrach, published in 2001.

This book has never been published in this country - a rather curious situation given Tina's considerable notoriety, not to mention that of her husband Sir Harold Evans, one of the best known journalists of his day.

One possible explanation is that publishers were frightened that the book, which is not uncritical, might lead to libel actions. Such caution would be understandable given the well-known tendency of Harold Evans in particular to resort to law in order to defend his reputation as a great editor and champion of press freedom.

Still no answers after six years

Following this week's arrest of the TV performer Michael Barrymore, more than one report has referred to the police's "six-year inquiry" into the death of Stuart Lubbock, a young bacon factory supervisor drowned in the TV star's swimming pool after an all-night party on 31 March 2001.

Are we to assume that since that date the police have been engaged in a non-stop investigation to establish exactly how Stuart Lubbock died? Alas, that doesn't quite accord with the facts. As is so often the case in these troubled times, the attitude of the police from the beginning has been lackadaisical, to put it at its mildest.

When police officers arrived at the Barrymore home in the early hours of the morning, they made no attempt to question formally those who were still there. They did not even search the premises, let alone seal off the swimming pool area.

A search was eventually made but some five months after Lubbock's death, by which time any incriminating evidence would have long since been disposed of. A few weeks after the search, two men, John Kenney and Justin Merritt, were arrested on suspicion of murder but later released without charge and that was that. (So all the talk of a six-year inquiry is exaggerated.) And the chance that we will finally find out what happened to Stuart Lubbock now looks extremely remote.

* Insensitive and conceited as he is, Tony Blair must surely have felt a little uncomfortable standing next to Margaret Thatcher at Thursday's service to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. It must have crossed his mind that there is never going to be a similar occasion in his own career when generals and admirals, royalty and statesmen will gather to give thanks to God for a great British victory over a foreign foe.

Whether Thatcher was having similar thoughts I doubt. But one can be fairly certain that it would never have occurred to her to make the kind of attack on the media that Blair made this week, singling out this newspaper for special attention.

One reason why Thatcher was a more successful politician than Blair was because she paid very little attention to the media, simply ploughing on with whatever she wanted to do. What newspapers said about her was of little or no interest. Perhaps she thought, quite rightly, that journalism in any case has only a minimal influence on the course of events.

In contrast Blair has achieved little because all along he and his aides have been obsessed by press coverage to the exclusion of almost everything else. You could list many examples of this. Perhaps the most memorable is the reaction of his chief adviser Jonathan Powell when the famous Iraq dossier was about to be published prior to thousands of British troops being sent to invade Iraq.

"What will be the headline in the Evening Standard on the day of publication?" Powell asked. It's hard to imagine anyone in the Thatcher camp asking that question when her task force was ordered into action.

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