The Times - it is a-changin'

I've never met Robert Thomson-the new editor of The Times, but I have yet to hear a bad word said about him. He seems to be pretty much liked by everybody. Seasoned Times journalists of the old school are particularly pleased with his appointment. They feared an Australian axeman, but instead they have found him reassuring and appreciative. "He lets me write whatever I like. It's wonderful,? one specialist writer told me ecstatically the other day. Even rival newspaper editors seem to consider him a very decent bloke.

But three months into the job, Thomson remains inscrutable. Perhaps his intimacy with China has something to do with it - he speaks Mandarin and, like his boss Rupert Murdoch, has a Chinese wife - but he keeps his own counsel. Even Roy Greenslade, the Guardian's media guru to whom he granted his first interview on Monday, found him very hard to read.

"He is, as I had learned in advance, a subtle man," Greenslade wrote. "When I sought to draw him out on his personal attitude towards Britain forgoing the pound in favour of the euro, his circumlocutions defeated me. He simply refused to commit." That is very odd, Thomson is not in the Government. He doesn't have to watch his words. And The Times under his predecessor, Peter Stothard, was fanatically antieuro. You would expect him, even if he has no genuine opinion on the matter, to take the trouble to concoct one.

Greenslade gave a hugely flattering resum? of Thomson's career so far, spent mainly abroad in the service of the Financial Times, but the euro reference wasn't the only thing in the interview to ring alarm bells. His vision of The Times, Thomson said, was "a factbased newspaper at the quality end of the market?. It would be "as objective as any journalism can be objective?. "Objectivity in a newspaper is in and of itself a journalistic philosophy that should be cherished.?

That was fine as far as it went, but what was notably missing from Thomson's vision of The Times was any hint of fun, or of mischief, or of the rough-and-tumble that makes the adrenaline flow. Could it be that, under Thomson, The Times is going to be rather dull? Could it be that the "Thunderer? will never thunder again? The omens are not good. The photograph of Thomson in The Guardian showed him trendily dressed in an Armani-style suit and with rings on the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand. Who did he vaguely remind me of? John Birt. And that wasn't the only thing about him that invited comparison with the former Director-General of the BBC.

When asked by Greenslade how The Times would change, Thomson pointed at a front-page panel in last Thursday's paper explaining the five economic conditions for Britain to join the euro. "You'll see a lot more of that in future,? he said. "Readers should know that you're doing your darndest to explain what's happening.? He is clearly a believer in John Birt's famous "mission to explain?.

I must declare an interest. I am a regular contributor to The Daily Telegraph which has been caught up in a price war with The Times ever since Murdoch fired the opening shot in 1993. There is no end to this conflict in sight, and it has cost both papers dear.

Though The Times has greatly increased its circulation as a result, it failed to achieve Murdoch's original objective of overtaking its rival. Its circulation has dropped back from a peak of over 800,000 to an average of 711,628 over the past six months, while

The Daily Telegraph's has held on at just over a million during the same period.

But sales of newspapers in general are in decline, and it appears that each will have to take circulation from the other in order to stay where it is. How does Thomson intend to achieve this for The Times? There are certainly people who like "fact-based", "objective", and "responsible" newspapers - the kind of people who are fans of the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. But I shouldn't think there are an awful lot of them.

Most British newspaper readers are accustomed to rather richer gruel, and they never like to be bored. Thomson has lived in Britain for only four out of his 40 years, and his model newspaper seems to be of the kind that appeals to the international businessman rather than to the man on the Clapham omnibus.

Charles Moore, the editor of the Telegraph, likes to accuse The Times of lacking a heart; to which Thomson, in defence of his political even-handedness, replies amusingly: "That's very unfair, because a heart has a right and a left ventricle." But Moore's more convincing claim is that the Telegraph is better than The Times at standing up for its readers against the Establishment.

The Telegraph may have been close to the Thatcher government, but The Times has a tendency to cosy up to every political establishment whatever its colour. One former Times executive calls this "poodle journalism?. Was it a good idea for The Times to top its front page on two consecutive days this week with stories extracted from its own interviews with Tony Blair? I wouldn't have thought so. It gives the wrong impression.

Thomson has promised to rethink The Times' tabloid, section, T2, which can only be a good thing (though what he meant by announcing he was going "to find a new design language" for it remains to be seen). T2 has not been a success. A shameless imitation of The Guardian's G2, it has nothing like the latter's flair and has become a sort of dumping ground for the soft features at which The Times's has never excelled. He will doubtless also improve the business section, in which Murdoch has always had a special interest, and do other admirable things. But his passion for charts and graphics and explainers, and a tendency towards verbosity will demand restraint, not indulgence.