Kenneth Harris was one of the key journalistic and organisational
figures in The Observer’s postwar history and played a decisive role in
securing the paper’s independence.

During the 1960s and 1970s, it
became apparent that a stand-alone Sunday newspaper title was no longer
economically viable, especially with the powerful print unions and that
only a commercial owner with pockets deeper than those of the Astor
family, the then owners, could ensure the paper’s future.

It
seemed inevitable that the paper would be absorbed into another group,
the likeliest future being a merger with The Sunday Times – later to be
owned by Rupert Murdoch. Had this happened, liberal journalism would
have suffered an irretrievable setback.