Swimming (weakly) against the tide

Wilby edited the New Statesman for almost exactly seven years from 1998 to 2005 and writes: "I was the longest-serving occupant of that chair since Kingsley Martin, to whose record 29 years I never aspired. Martin took the view that 'an editor's paper should be his mistress' and, like him, I 'ate, drank and slept' with the New Statesman." He concludes: "My goal was to make the New Statesman a witty, readable, confident and ground-breaking paper of the Left. I believe I partially succeeded in those aims. I did not succeed as much as I had hoped - or, more precisely, did not succeed in convincing enough readers of my achievement - because I was swimming against the tide, and I was not, as it proved, a strong enough swimmer."