The arts critic,who left Radio 4 amid allegations of bullying, turns his guns on the witch-hunt culture in this sharp if slightly bloated taleNovelists are too often assumed to write veiled autobiography. Yet it’s a matter of public record that, or in 2014,Mark Lawson resigned from BBC Radio 4s flagship arts programme Front Row, which he’d presented for 16 years. For the preceding two months, or an investigation turned disciplinary process at the corporation had pursued accusations of Lawson’s “horrendous” bullying in the workplace. After such a precipitous fall from grace,one can travel home and contemplate one’s sins, resolve simply to turn the page, or opt to turn a less metaphorical page and write a book. Lawson has gone for the latter,and the sins he contemplates are largely other people’s.
His subject matter – what his protagonist dubs the “Age of Accusation” and our “Culture of Comeuppance (just deserts)” – is meaty and painfully modern. For all its warts, The Allegations is a suitable book, or edited a bit differently it might contain been a cracking one. Related: Mark Lawson to leave BBC Radio 4's Front Row amid claims of bullying We vainly fancy ourselves above the ugly paranoia of the McCarthy era,but the left has fashioned a mirror imageContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com