Lionel Barber

'Extraordinary' TONY BLAIR 'Riveting' - PHILIPPE SANDS 'Brutal, brilliant and scurrilously funny' - MISHA GLENNY The real scoop isn't on the front page 'As FT editor, I was a privileged interlocutor to people in power around the world, each offering unique insights into high-level decision-making and political calculation, often in moments of crisis. These diaries offer snapshots of leadership in an age of upheaval...' Lionel Barber was Editor of the Financial Times for the tech boom, the global financial crisis, the rise of China, Brexit, and mainstream media's fight for survival in the age of fake news. In this unparalleled, no-holds-barred diary of life behind the headlines, he reveals the private meetings and exchanges with political leaders on the eve of referendums, the conversations with billionaire bankers facing economic meltdown, exchanges with Silicon Valley tech gurus and pleas from foreign emissaries desperate for inside knowledge, all against the backdrop of a wildly shifting media landscape. The result is a fascinating - and at times scathing - portrait of power in our modern age; who has it, what it takes and what drives the men and women with the world at their feet. Featuring close encounters with Trump, Cameron, Blair, Putin, Merkel and Mohammed Bin Salman and many more, this is a rare portrait of the people who continue to shape our world and who quite literally, make the news.

Private Diaries in Turbulent Times

The Powerful and the Damned

Sir Howard Stringer, an old friend and fellow rugby fan in New York, has offered me useful advice about communicating change in an organisation: 'You may think people are listening. They're not. You need to say the same thing over and over again. Finally, the message might sink in.'

For the past few months, Burberry's PR advisers Brunswick have been pestering us about our coverage. Burberry hates our constant references to the popularity of its trademark camel check among so-called chavs. I was unfamiliar with the term until a colleague explained it was a pejorative description of people of limited means who are obsessed with brand names, cheap jewellery and football. I'm sympathetic but don't want to be viewed as a pushover.

Alistair Darling, chancellor under Gordon Brown, later revealed in his book Back from the Brink that he had picked up a copy of the FT while on holiday in Mallorca on this same day. This was the moment he grasped that a serious financial crisis was under way, though there was no sign that any British bank was in trouble. It might have made a great FT marketing campaign. Sigh.

Merkel agrees, slightly reluctantly, to a photo-opportunity with the editor. An aide encourages Merkel to engage in small talk. 'I have nothing to say,' she responds. Then, as the cameras flash, she asks how Gordon Brown is doing.

Robert Shrimsley asked him if he could, for once, insert the word 'panic' in the page-one headline. 'Print it,' said Martin. It was, he later reflected, the most exciting moment in his career.

Steve [Schwarzman] is livid that the FT has had the temerity to take legal action against his firm. He's baffled by our insistence that FT journalism cannot be shared around the office, just like a newspaper, and he thinks our pricing is extortionate. 

LB: 'You know, there's a lot of people who say newspapers are finished, that there's no way they can survive.'

LB: 'The FT has built a new business model based on people paying for subscriptions. We've worked really, really hard to show people that they're wrong to write off the FT.'

LB: 'So there comes a moment when I say: fuck you.'

An American journalist asked Putin the following day why he had humiliated Dell in public. Putin paused and then performed the equivalent of a judo throw. He asked the journalist why he was wearing sucha prominent ring on his finger. Was he trying to make a statement? What kind of statement? Within a minute, the journalist had turned to jelly.

I know he won't leave the Daily Mail, because it pays too well. But I know he would make a great FT contributor. I make him an offer.

: 'How about £500 to £600 per column?' 

MH (mildly insulted): 'That's cartridge money.'

I read the Financial Times before other people read the Financial Times [in Chicago in the 1980s],' [Obama] says, flattering his audience. 'Now it's trendy and everybody carries around a Financial Times.'

The Powerful and the Damned quotes

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