Bad Press Awards

Mic Wright

Recognising the Worst of the Worst of British Journalism

The Cadmium Coin Purse
for Utterly Ridiculous Outrage

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of one of the most ludicrous literary feuds ever to hit the world of British books. In August 2006, it emerged that the journalist AN Wilson had been tricked into including a fake love letter attributed to John Betjeman in his biography of the poet. The ruse was concocted by rival Betjeman biographer Bevis Hillier, who had included an acrostic that spelled out ‘AN Wilson is a shit’ as revenge for a bad review.

I was reminded of that silly tale because Wilson is the recipient of this month’s Bad Press Award for a silly column he recently penned for the Daily Mail.

We live in serious times, but the world of newspaper columnists is a deeply unserious one, and Wilson’s recent fulmination about the future of British banknotes is a perfect example.

Beneath the headline “This isn’t Strictly Come Dancing! A public vote on what they would like to see on banknotes will be a grim orgy of virtue signalling”, Wilson began: “When you have been abroad and change your currency back into sterling, is it not reassuring to see that great painter JMW Turner looking out at you from the £20 note? Doesn’t the humble fiver – with Churchill on one side and the late Queen or, increasingly, the King overleaf – tell you that you’re home?”