Paul Johnson is frightfully rude about Rupert Murdoch in his latest book, Brief Lives:
When I first knew him he was almost human. He came down to Iver to lunch and I took him for a walk in the woods, where he got himself covered in mud.
Afterwards, he read the Sunday Times, which he owned, and got so angry he scrumpled it all up in a ball and thrust it in the fire, nearly setting the chimney ablaze.
Thereafter he got more and more horrible until I ceased to see him... Murdoch was the outstanding example, in my acquaintance, of a man corrupted by power.
Johnson doesn't say when this happened, so it's impossible to know who was editing the Sunday Times at that point. My hunch: Frank Giles (1981-83) before Andrew Neil took over for the following 12 years.
See also a review of the book by Brian MacArthur in the Daily Telegraph.
