As a young journalist, I remember listening to the legendary Paul Johnson at El Vino, Fleet Street’s famed tavern. Paul dispensed merry wisdom, often alongside Peregrine Worsthorne and Alan Watkins – leading scribes of the day. I was awestruck by the brilliant conversation: it seemed like being in the company of his 18th-century namesake, Dr Samuel Johnson.

Paul, who died in January, aged 94, was the most successful ever editor of the New Statesman; he brought the radical weekly to its highest circulation of nearly 100,000 and inspired exceptional loyalty in his staff (even though Leonard Woolf, Virginia’s widower, had considered a Roman Catholic unsuitable for the appointment).