H.L. Mencken famously observed that the proper relation of journalist to politician should be that of dog to lamppost. This enticing observation arose from Mencken’s general cynicism – a trait that is always in danger of making the cynic as shallow as the motives he presumes limit other people.
Claud Cockburn, whom Graham Greene called one of the two greatest journalists of the twentieth century (the other being GK Chesterton), did not succumb to that temptation, even if he was remarkably unillusioned about our rulers and those seeking power.
