SOME clues to the way businessman Luke Johnson works may be found in his father Paul.

Luke has hit the headlines through his battle to save Patisserie Valerie after a huge hole was found in its finances. It is the first time Luke has met serious financial trouble and critics were not slow to sneer when the man famed for giving advice to others could have done with some himself.

Yet he did not flinch when it came to putting his fortune on the line in a bid to save the chain from collapse.

Paul Johnson became famous in the post war years as editor of the New Statesman, smoothly taking it over from the talented Kingsley Martin. He ensured the left-wing periodical was for many years Britain’s leading political weekly.

But Johnson changed his political allegiance suddenly to become a leading backer of Margaret Thatcher despite howls of derision from his former colleagues. He became the thunderous voice of right wing politics, writing for The Spectator which has superseded the New Statesman as a popular political magazine. At the same time, he has gained a reputation as one of Britain’s leading historians.

Luke Johnson came to fame when he helped make Pizza Express a nationwide success. He followed this up by performing similar feats on other chains such as Giraffe and Strada.

Johnson took over smart restaurants such as The Ivy and The Caprice in London. But he was not just concentrating on food.

In Brighton, he bought the Palace Pier, the most visited tourist attraction in the south east. Johnson was soon running a bewildering variety of concerns ranging from dentistry to the arts. They included maritime businesses and advertising.

He emulated his father by writing a controversial weekly column on business for the Sunday Times. In this he dispensed advice to business colleagues such as choosing to run coffee rather than tea shops because the margins were greater.

Patisserie Valerie was a small chain when Johnson took it over, chiefly known to a select few in Soho. He expanded the business until it had more than 200 outlets and a staff of more than 2,000. In a notoriously tricky trade, Johnson seemed to do nothing wrong while rivals fell or stumbled. He had his Patisserie Valerie cake and ate it.

But last week the chain was found to be on the point of collapse after it appeared that a vast fraud had been carried out on its finances. This is a fast moving story and more will doubtless be revealed by the time you read this.

But the former finance officer Chris Marsh has been suspended and questioned while Johnson has made desperate attempts to save the firm. Questions will soon have to be answered about why no one spotted this disparity sooner.

But there can be no doubt that Johnson has done his best to save the company and he said the last week had been he worst of his business life. Like his father, Johnson is prepared to take risks. He did that when he bought the Palace Pier.

As the neighbouring West Pier has proved, piers often prove difficult businesses to run because they are physically so vulnerable. But Johnson had a romantic view of Britain’s most popular pier and pleased the public by getting rid of the much disliked name Brighton Pier.

However, he showed some steel by not changing the name exactly as people wanted and by taking a long time to do it.

Patisserie Valerie also had some romance to its story. Started in Soho almost a century ago by a Belgian woman who knew all about cakes, it only had nine branches when Johnson bought it. He cleverly kept the style of the original business alive while expanding it enormously. It was quite a feat but saving it will be much harder.

He has shown his interest in history as well as business through his wide ranging weekly column. Johnson has also referred to having a moral duty of trying save the chain for its staff and customers. It is hard to take a moral line in the ruthless world of business. But there is little doubt that Johnson means what he says and will not be afraid of being mocked.

Not everyone likes Johnson or believes he deserves his success as a businessman. The knives – and forks – are out for a man whose advice on balance sheets is here in black and white cuttings from the Sunday Times.

Luke Johnson has taken a radically different career path from that of his father. But he has shown the same stubbornness in dealing with this business disaster as the old man did all those years ago over politics and anyone who is fond of Patisserie Valerie will wish him well.