“Change is news. News is our business.” (From Hereford Times)

“Change is news. News is our business.”

11:47am Wednesday 13th January 2010

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Quentin Letts and Sir Alan Sugar aren’t the best of friends. The dislike is public, with Letts previously referring to Sugar as “television’s runtiest little rooster” and suggesting that the man behind The Apprentice was “a less than intellectual political ingénue who had been ennobled owing to his TV fame”. For his part, Sugar has ensured that the law firm that represents him, Herbert Smith, have been in correspondence with Letts. Not that that seems to bother the Daily Mail’s sharp sketch writer, at least judging by his response to Sugar’s debut speech in The House Of Lords. “It was lamentable. He spoke mainly about himself rather than the issue he is supposed to be interested in, enterprise, and he should have learned it rather than reading it off a script. It was lightweight, self-indulgent tooth rot.” Sugar can count himself a member of an extensive group who have fallen foul to the tip of Letts’s witty pen. Quentin tells me the characters he most enjoy satirising in his sketches are “Prescott, Speaker Martin, Iain Duncan Smith, John Major, Speaker Bercow, Lord Falconer, Lord Irvine, Sir Peter Tapsell, Sir Menzies Campbell, Shaun Woodward, Cherie Blair.....for starters.” However, the savaging of these individuals in the political sketches are only one feature of Letts’s substantial workload, something which has lead to The Guardian describing him as one of ‘Britain’s most prolific journalists.’ He works for The Mail as a theatre critic, and has produced endless amounts of material as a freelance for publications such as The Independent and The Telegraph. This leads him into producing different forms of journalism. “If writing for the Spectator, one can get away with more nuances than when writing for, say, the News of the World.”

And how does Quentin manage to keep on top of such a heavy work load? “Getting up early in the morning always helps. And not drinking too much during the working week. I used to do that when I was a gossip columnist and hated it.”

Letts has written two very successful and enjoyable books in recent years, Bog standard Britain and 50 people who buggered up Britain. The latter included a vast variety of personalities, ranging from Tony Blair and Lady Thatcher to Alan Titchmarsh and Richard Dawkins. However, it appears that readers may have to wait a while until Quentin produces a third instalment. “My wife is very against the idea of me doing a book next year because she says it takes too much time, in other words it takes me away from the washing up! I think I may have done enough ranting for a while but quite fancy the idea of trying my hand at a novel. I did write an anti-Blairite novel in 1997/98 but publishers refused it. Maybe because it was too early to be anti-Blairite or maybe because it was hopeless!”

Back in Westminster, the area that still provides the focal point for the majority of Letts’s work, change appears to be afoot. The reign of New Labour appears to be grinding to a tedious halt, with a general election approaching later this year. I wondered whether Quentin was excited by the prospected of Cameron residing at Number Ten.

” The idea of change always interests, if not excites, journalists. Change is news. News is our business.”

Not that the Tories are home and dry.

“Labour do still have a chance of retaining power but I think it would be bad for them - and, worse, for us - if they did so. They are tired and need to re-group.”

Quentin does seem something of a natural journalist, a writer who genuinely loves his work. So was a career in the press always in the pipeline? “Yes. I was always interested in newspapers and magazines and worked on school publications, helping to start a fortnightly pupils' publication at my public school (Haileybury).” It was an experience at a careers fair that would put any doubts to bed. “I found that the journalism stand was the only one where the man behind the desk seemed to be honest. He said to me; "This is a terrible line of work, don't have anything to do with it," while sitting, clearly hung-over, behind a full ashtray. All the others were handing out glossy leaflets and telling implausible stories about how marvellous their jobs were. I didn't believe them.” The future of the press is somewhat up in the air. Newspaper sales are down, and the rise of internet reporting appears almost unstoppable. New ways of distributing news stories are gaining momentum all of the time. So what advice would Quentin offer to the next generation of aspiring journalists? “I would urge them to do something else! If they then persisted, I would recommend that they work in their holidays for the local paper or local radio station as a gofer. Also, they might want to learn shorthand. I never did, alas. I think I would probably also tell them to join as many local clubs and organisations as possible."

"Meeting people is the best training.”