London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Alan Bennett dedicates Kipling poem A Dead Statesman to Boris Johnson

Alan Bennett dedicates Kipling poem A Dead Statesman to Boris Johnson

The playwright’s annual diary excerpt criticises the prime minister and Donald Trump and recalls an encounter with Philip Roth
Alan Bennett’s yearly diary excerpt sees the playwright dedicating Rudyard Kipling’s poem A Dead Statesman, in which the narrator proclaims that “all my lies are proved untrue / And I must face the men I slew”, to Boris Johnson.

Bennett’s annual chronicling of his life, published on Wednesday by the London Review of Books, moves from his problems getting a haircut in February – his partner Rupert Thomas takes on the task in lockdown and “manages to make me look like a blond Hitler” – to politics.

In March, he criticises how “with his customary foresight and good judgment, one of the first acts of the current prime minister was to hasten to the side of President Trump”, and how the former speaker John Bercow was the one to rule out Trump addressing parliament in 2017. “His reward was to be refused the customary peerage on retirement by the prime minister, who happily doled out peerages to umpteen millionaires, all of them donors to the Tory party. And so we go on,” writes Bennett.

By 30 May, Bennett is reduced to simply writing out the whole of Kipling’s poignant A Dead Statesman, noting that it is “a poem for Boris”.

“I could not dig: I dared not rob: / Therefore I lied to please the mob. / Now all my lies are proved untrue / And I must face the men I slew. / What tale shall serve me here among / Mine angry and defrauded young?” writes Kipling in the extract from Epitaphs of the War.

Reading Rory Stewart’s account of his time in Iraq, Occupational Hazards, causes Bennett to note in September that “it is hard to imagine this man, however briefly, as MP for Penrith and a contender with Boris Johnson, but on this evidence alone he would have been a sounder dealer with our intractabilities and a more honest one”.

Bennett also takes time to chronicle his reading habits – in particular Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth biography, which was later dropped by its publisher over allegations of sexual assault, denied by Bailey. “It’s a fucking big book, which I actually fell over yesterday on my birthday,” Bennett notes in May, also writing about his own unexpected mention in the biography, when he meets Roth at a dinner in the 1960s.

Bennett’s own “recollections of the evening are more embarrassing”, he says. “Talking to Jonathan [Miller] beforehand, I had made a poor joke about Portnoy’s Complaint being The Gripes of Roth,” he remembers. “I’m sure I wasn’t the first to pick up on this, but it was new to Jonathan, so when Roth arrived he insisted on telling it to its subject. Maybe he even insisted on me repeating it myself. I’ve no memory of Roth’s response – unamused, I would have thought – but remember my own embarrassment, as fresh now with Roth dead as it was 50 years ago.”

The diary is published in the London Review of Books’ 1,001st issue. Mary-Kay Wilmers, who had edited the magazine for almost 30 years, founding it in 1979 along with Karl Miller and Susannah Clapp, stepped down from her role in January. “In the early days I would get cross because Karl Miller tried to take out my jokes, often through not understanding them,” remarked Bennett of the LRB’s history. “He seldom gave a verdict on the piece, so you were never sure you’d come up to scratch.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
×