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Who's in and who's out
Gideon Spanier, Evening Standard20.10.08
Our annual magazine The 1000: London's Most Influential People, published earlier this month, was a compelling record of the key power-brokers and agenda-setters in 2008. But influence continues to shift quickly in the capital. Every week Gideon Spanier looks at who's in and who's out.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
LITERARY LIFE
TOBY MUNDY, 40
ATLANTIC BOOKS, FOUNDER AND MD
Enjoying a Booker Prize triumph after publishing Aravind Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger, and has ambitious hopes it can sell 500,000 copies. Mundy, who founded Atlantic in 2000, has an eclectic list of authors including Ian Buruma, Christopher Hitchens and Susan Faludi seriously intelligent publishing.
DIVORCE QUEEN
LAW
LADY WARD, 57
DIVORCE LAWYER
One of the most tenacious matrimonial lawyers in London, Helen Ward has been instructed by film director Guy Ritchie in his split from Madonna. Lady Ward, married to appeal judge Sir Alan, cemented her reputation last year when she won a record divorce award of £48million for her client Beverley Charman.
MAKING MOVES
FINANCE
STEPHEN HESTER, 47
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
Property boss Hester, tipped for the RBS job in our Influentials magazine, has quit British Land to take on the mammoth task of turning around the troubled bank. The ex-Credit Suisse banker does not suffer fools and has already made a fortune he is not doing the RBS job for the money. His wife, also a banker, is a master of foxhounds in Warwickshire.
MAN ABOUT TOWN
SOCIAL LONDON
NICKY HASLAM, 69
Indefatigable partygoer who showed just how to host a party with a magnificent credit crunch-defying bash at Parkstead House, his former ancestral family home in Roehampton - at a rumoured cost of £200,000. Haslam was celebrating the 20th anniversary of his interior decoration business which is highly rated by his top-drawer clientele.
UNDER SCRUTINY
TV & RADIO
JANA BENNETT, 51
BBC DIRECTOR OF VISION
Oversees all of BBC TV and is the mastermind of plans to make the Corporation less "London-centric", moving the production of top programmes such as Question Time and (bizarrely) the Chelsea Flower Show to the far-flung regions. While the move may please Labour MPs in marginal constituencies, many BBC staff who live in the capital are dismayed.
UP AND COMING
MUSIC
ESTELLE, 28
SINGER
Hammersmith-born singer picked up two Mobos, Britain's top awards for black music, and is a rising star in America. Estelle is outspoken, criticising the UK music industry's "blindness" to black talent, but is also savvy and has the same management as The Feeling.
Reader views (2)
Music does have a colour and racism is ripe in the music industry. The fact that you do not look at colour when "you" listen to music is good but does not alter the fact that Estelle is correct.
1) When people talk of rock music they automically think of a long haired white guitarist. But the origins of rock is in black music (rythm and blues). If i am lncorrect then go to google and type "where did rock music originate from" and you will see rythm and blues. A point the rolling stones and David Bowey acknoweldge and stand by.
2) Souls 2 soul was one of the biggest black music outfits in the 90's and whilst it won awards in American failed to be acknowledge in Britain.
3) If music has no colour then why did MTV refuse to play black music videos in the 80's. It took artists like David Bowey to complain.
Check you facts before you try criticising Estelle.
- Gavin Johnson, London
How can Estelle criticize the music industry's blindness to black talent when the MOBO's perpetuate the falsehood that music has a colour? Give it a rest. Not once have I ever listened to a record on the radio and thought about the colour of the artist. Either its a good song or its not.
- Patrick, Singapore
