The Hugo Young papers

by Hugo Young

Hugo Young was one of Britain's leading journalists for over thirty years, first on the Sunday Times, where he was political editor and deputy editor, and then as the Guardian's senior political commentator. On his death in 2003 he was called 'the Pope of the liberal left', but for the last decade or more of his life there was really no more admired and respected journalist in any position on the political spectrum. One of the secrets of Young's success as a journalist was that he was exceptionally well informed. Politicians from every major party, senior civil servants, judges and public figures of all kinds talked to him off the record, discussions which then informed the judgements he made when he wrote. Most of his interlocutors were unaware that straight after their telephone conversation, meal or meeting with Young had finished, he meticulously wrote down exactly what had been said, together with his own immediate impressions of whoever he was talking to. By 2003, Young's records