Frank Johnson's successors as editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson and Matthew d'Ancona, paid tribute to him today as the inventor of the modern parliamentary sketch and a master journalist.
Johnson, who edited the political magazine from 1995 to 1999 and was much admired for his sketches and columns in the Daily Telegraph, has died from cancer at the age of 63.
"There are very few journalists who can claim to have invented a whole genre, which is what he did with the modern parliamentary sketch, and he also produced by far the best," said Boris Johnson, who succeeded him at the Spectator.
"He was the master of that particular genre. He had this absolute joy in what he called his conceits. He would take a piece of conventional wisdom and turn it on its head. He'd take something in the news and flip it or jumble it with something else.
"Now everyone does it, introducing some extended metaphor or fantasy based on some other world, yoking together two unlikely things and then playing with it. But he was the first to do it and by far the most brilliant practitioner of it. People are very much in his literary debt.
"He had a brilliant mind. And he was such a generous and kind man, who was a great patron of other journalists."
Mr d'Ancona, the present editor of the Spectator, also paid tribute to Frank Johnson's ability, character and erudition.
"He had the greatest gift in a political commentator of being able to use wit as a means to get at the truth. He would use conceits in a way that no one else could equal.
"He was the classic autodidact, and like true autodidacts, put people with expensive educations and university degrees to shame by the way he kept reading and extending his cultural roots - he was always recommending books I hadn't read.
"He was regarded with enormous affection by his colleagues. He was the best - not only could he do what he did, what Frank did only he could do. It is absolutely, literally the case that he's irreplaceable."
Mr d'Ancona said Johnson had been a fine editor, who had brought on young writers such as Alice Miles and Sion Simon at a time when the political climate was shifting from Conservative to New Labour.
"He was one of the journalist giants, and very generous towards young people coming through the journalistic ranks. There were no airs or graces."
Will Lewis, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, described Johnson as "one of the funniest, sharpest and most brilliant writers ever to appear in the Daily Telegraph".
"A whole era of our politics was never better captured than through his words," he said. "He was a world-class phrasemaker. His huge and loyal following among our readers reflected his genius. We all grieve at his death. He is irreplaceable."
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