It is impossible to acknowledge everyone who has helped or inspired me to write these columns. But there are a few people I would like to mention.
My colleagues at The Times to start off with, beginning with the editors. Sir Peter Stothard who first hired me, then Robert Thomson and James Harding and now John Witherow. They have both encouraged and tolerated me and I’m really grateful.
On the comment desk Anne Spackman, Tim Montgomerie and Mike Smith have been wonderful editors, and my columns have benefited immensely from the work that Robbie Millen, Tim Rice, Paul Dunn, Richard Preston and Cliff Martin have done to improve them. Thanks also to Helen Glancy and Rebecca Callanan. And to Nicola Jeal and the features team for their amazing assignments.
I also learned so much from arguments and debates with David Aaronovitch, Oliver Kamm, Phil Collins, Hugo Rifkind, Mary Ann Sieghart, Giles Whittell, Joe Joseph, Camilla Cavendish, Michael Gove, Raphael Hogarth, Henry Zeffman, Murad Ahmed, Robert Crampton, Matt Chorley, Simon Nixon, Alice Fishburn, Alice Miles, Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson. And been guided by Keith Blackmore, Ben Preston, George Brock and Emma Tucker.
Andrew Cooper, George Osborne, Greg Clark, Matthew Gould, Robert Cialdini, Steve Martin, Karren Brady, Stephen Pollard, Bernard Hughes, Henry Stott, Jonathan Haskel and Robert Shrimsley have been important sources of inspiration.
I often write with an imagined audience in my head. I think how my sister Tamara, her husband Michael Isaacs, my brother Anthony and his wife Judy Fishman might receive a particular idea or line. And I’m lucky to write for The Times because I love its readers.
This book wouldn’t be here without Craig Tregurtha, my brilliant agent Toby Mundy and its editor Arabella Pike, as well as the William Collins team, Jo Thompson, Katherine Patrick, Katy Archer and Alex Gingell. Thanks also to Sir Michael Parkinson, Laurence Myers and the family of Sir George Martin for permission to quote their emails.
And nothing would be worthwhile at all if it weren’t for Sam, Aron and Isaac. And Nicky, who has had to bear the burden of me standing in the kitchen on a Sunday morning every week for fifteen years and saying: ‘This week, this week I really don’t know what to write.’ She tells me it’ll come to me. And, on that as on everything, she is always right.