Rachel Johnson
Columnist, editor and author Rachel Johnson gave as good as she got in her 60 Minutes at China Exchange.
She is a firm Remainer and spoke of the honour of staying part of the European Union to work with Germany in creating stability in Europe.
She would not accept Sir David’s assertion that she is “posh” and instead placed herself in the upper middle class before expanding that “the upper class is no longer the ruling class. The ruling class is made of those super rich oligarchs”.
Rachel spoke of the difference in working patterns for writers and editors and gave advice that any budding authors consider how their book titles will translate into other languages after the challenge of making her titles, “Notting Hell” and “Shire Hell” to work in other markets.
When asked if there was a publication she would love to edit, she chose Vanity Fair. Not the Spectator (“I’m not political enough) and not Vogue (“fashion is boring”).
Other topics included what it was like to edit The Lady; the influence of editors; the importance of maintaining a product’s USP; being at ease in male dominated environments; appearing on The Pledge, Sky News’ new debate format programme; and a tale of mistaking millions for billions at the FT.
