A Revolution?

From Private Eye, number 1223, 12-25th. Dec., 2008 :

Richard Booth, the self-proclaimed King of Hay-on-Wye, is on the verge of being dethroned.

At a packed meeting last week, a proposal by a group of fellow booksellers to replace the "kingdom" with a "commonwealth" or council of ministers received unanimous support. When "Bokassa" Booth returns from his holiday in Africa, he will be "Arraigned for trial and almost certainly decapitated" by his peers in the Powys book town.

His most heinous crime is that he's perceived to have lost his touch for publicity. Whereas he once drew a lot of welcome attention to Hay with his antics, such as declaring the town an independent republic with its own currency called the "Bootho", he now spends most of his time and effort denigrating the Welsh assembly as a force for evil.

The revolutionaries, including Paul Harris of Oxford House Books, feel they could refocus the publicity on books, arts and the town itself, which needs all the help it can get to survive the recession. They also want to redress, at least partially, the creeping commercialisation of the Hay festival. One bemoans the way the annual literary event is now "dominated by centralised publishing, Sky TV and Barclays Wealth".

The move has been helped by Booth's sale of his main bookshop in 2005, which removed most of his power base. All those who led the proposal and voted for it acknowledge that they owe their livelihoods to Booth, but equally all agree that the time has come for him to abdicate.

"He's lost the plot," said one. "It's exactly like Thatcher."

(Books and Bookmen)