Tim Blair

Thanks for linking to the Denis Boyles article.

Priceless is his quote of William Shawcross excoriating the British Spectator’s Rod Liddle & Andrew Gilligan (who is now the Spectator’s defense and diplomatic correspondent.

Vargas Llosa is right. How sad it is that two senior writers of The Spectator prefer to resort to meretricious, sneering commentary. The “trahison des clercs” is truly upon us.

William Shawcross nods to Vargas Llosa AND says that Liddle & Gilligan represent the “trahison des clercs”!! Man, hearing that from William Shawcross, that’s really good, it hits the spot.

Conrad Black's current problems may well be playing a part in this.

The fate of both the Telegraph and Spectator hangs in the balance and Boris Johnson may well be hedging his bets.

The new investor might be far more left than the current proprietors.

If we look at the problems experienced by both Liddle and Gilligan, then putting their like forward as signs of a new balanced outlook could prove troublesome.

In both cases their problems stemmed from a lack of research into subject matter. It seems as though nothing has changed.

Wild sweeping statements based on little or no research has shades of Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass.

I think Boris would be better served by returning to his tried and trusted formula, aimed at his established market and with the spes that his new owner has the sense to maintain the same.

I too have watched the mutation of the once great Speccy with much sadness. I think though the problems with it can be reduced to one factor--a fanatical hatred of Tony Blair, Teflon Tony, who looks like keeping the Conservatives out of office for quite a while, despite the best efforts of his so-called friends in the Labour Party.

It has been truly sad to watch this once-great conservative magazine descend into the same shrill and trendy anti-American, anti-war, anti-Bush rhetoric to be found everywhere else in the media. Doesn't the Speccie know that that "New Statesman" and "Guardian" have already cornered that market a long time? I agree with the previous comment and the "Spectator"'s obsession with Tony Blair - it's a classic case of cut off your nose to spite your face. You can also check out some of my earlier comments.

Here's my comment from Dodgeblogium...

Conservative journalism in a poor state. The Telegraph’s often wish washy, confused editorial line contrasts with the Guardian/BBC's unwavering adherence to Socialist anti-American/Israeli ideals.

Even that perennial fiasco The Independent has seen circulation clime, with its particular brand of madcap loony-Leftism.

The Spectator has gone into sad and steady decline under Shirley Temple look-alike B. Johnson’s editorships. Sure he’s everyone’s favourite toff eccentric, however the magazine is predictable, un-challenging and largely reliant on hacks currently writing columns for the dailies. Rather than inspiring Conservatives to take up the call to arms and wrest Britain from the slippery clutches of Socialism, it has fallen to the familiar and banal whingeing of over-exposed Fleet Street regulars.

The Mail and The Sun proudly express Conservative views on immigration, taxes, race and policing held by the majority of Brits. While the Telegraph and Spectator dither and waffle, these tabloids display their assets like a proud streaker on the first day of the football season.

I like Boris, a fine writer, MP, talk show host and mop-head, let the Specie pass into the hands of a brave editor.

The Telegraph needs a kick up the journalistic backside. Its circulation has fallen with a plonk below 1 million with timid, dumbed-down writing, while pro-American rags, the Daily Mail and Sun sell 2 and 3 million, respectively.

Brits are Conservative by nature, despair collectively at our imminent descent into Euro federalism and seek an alternative incessant defeatist BBC Liberalism. These two organs of the C party need get off the sofa and get into fighting shape for the election ahead.

In other words, they need a good hand-bagging.

I don't think the Spectator has become Left-wing so much as weary and decadent.

Its only writers with any spunk tend to be foreigners like Mark Steyn and Taki (who unfortunately seems to be going mad).

The ONLY theme of its cartoons, beyond the point of wearinmess, is the exhaustion and impotence of the English middle-class and the loss of middle-class values.

I feel strongly from it nowaday (and I have been subscribing for years, a recurrant absence of fundamental moral seriousness). Much of the writing is still brilliant, but no-one seems to care what it says or - perhaps this is liberalism but I call it decadance - if one piece in the same issue contradicts another.

Politically and socially it is still culturally conservative, but a cultural conservatism sunk in hopelessness, helplessness and total moral defeat, in an enclosed, relf-referring world. What the Speccie desperately needs is a big, big breath of fresh air.

For me the National Review, the New Criterion and the Spectator are identical: you read Mark Steyn and Theodore Dalrymple then never get round to the rest of it.

Theodore Dalrymple would have you believe Great Britain itself is going down the gurgler.

He could be right.

I agree with Sophie, The Speccie's knee-jerk anti-Blair-ism is tiresome.

"The Speccie's knee-jerk anti-Blair-ism is tiresome"

It certainly is a yawn, but like endless tirades about margo, or m moore, you can just ignore them. The majority of the magazine itself is a consistently good read, and I'm most relieved that Steyn will be leading the lemmings away - I was getting some odd looks from friends & family. Now I can proudly announce the RWDBs are denouncing it!

ilibcc, fair points - theo's hysteria is at once bizarre, yet mostly easy to understand!

The Oldie (much harder to source in Oz) is a terrific conservative read as well.

You might disagree with the content of the Spectator last week, but the articles by Gilligan, Liddle, et al, at least helped to stimulate debate.

Sue - you like Taki? I do too, but I wonder what you think of his recent efforts. Here's a paraphrase (not a direct quote) of the one that I've just read:

Women are of course, not as smart as men, and need to be told what to do. They have smaller brains...

Amusing perhaps, but I wonder how much of this stuff he believes, and how much he does just to annoy the PC brigade.

There are a lot of good writers in the Speccie generally, especially the excellent Low Life writer Jeremy Clarke (the National Review disagrees with me there) who can be very funny, and has an excellent eye. I also enjoy Deborah Ross, Frank Johnson (sometimes), Boris Johnson's contributions (other than editorial, of course) and the Questing Vole column.

TimT
You've repeated NR's error in misnaming Jeremy Clark's column as Low Life. (Of course, this is testament to the late Jeffrey Bernard's immortality.)

Clark's column is No Life and is brilliant, especially when he writes about being down the pub and meets his ex-girlfriend Sharon with her latest flame and violence threatens before they all end up back at his house in a drunken and drug-addled haze.

I also enjoy Deborah Ross, the perfect antidote to the pompous twaddle that passes for food writing elsewhere.

I couldn't read the Gilligan piece. Having suffered his obviously tendentious interpretation of events both before and during the war - when he was nicknamed the "Voice of Baghdad" in this household for his largely uncritical recirculation of Saddamite propaganda - I refuse to read another word by him.

Rod Liddle is a bit different. He is a polemicist. Usually entertaining. Almost always wrong. Not to be taken too seriously.

There's always room in a publication like the Spectator for anarchic writers like Liddle, but I think Boris Johnson is in danger of damaging his own excellent reputation by his attachment to the very foolish and partisan Gilligan who poses as an objective reporter.

Taki’s going mad? No he isn't. He started mad, and he’s slowly got worse.

Theodore Dalrymple also writes as Anthony Daniels and he has used other pen names: I’ve got one book of his called Filosofa’s Reupblic which he wrote as Thursday Msigwa. It’s a satire on Tanzania under Kenneth Kuanda, a subject on which I am so ignorant that I wasn’t able to judge if it was good satire or not. If you only read his columns in the Telegraph you might get the idea that this is merely a grumpy old scrote complaining about the crime rate. But look up some of his longer stuff on culture in City Journal and the New Criterion. The one entitled Gooseberries is particularly good, and the one about Marx and Turgenev. But they’re all good. He’s my favourite writer.

When I say "my favourite writer", I mean my favourite living writer. But give him a few more years and he will be my 128th favourite dead one.

So Bris has let a few anti-war types write in the Speccie? So what. Not one of them has presented a cogent argument, therby proving that the whole anti-war side is very short on postive ideas. The latest Spectator is very rigorous in its attacks on the appeasers of the left.

But the Speccie has always been a lot more than its news pages. It's real core is the book reviews, the Arts columns, the Diary, the Questing Vole, the Lfe Columns and Dear Mary.

Besides any magazine that has Mark Steyn can't be all bad. In a perfect world it would be good if Bris sacked Gilligan, Liddle and the wetter than wet Matthew Parris. But the world is not perfect, and they put the otehr great writerts in the Speccie in sharp releif.

So Bris has let a few anti-war types write in the Speccie? So what. Not one of them has presented a cogent argument, therby proving that the whole anti-war side is very short on postive ideas. The latest Spectator is very rigorous in its attacks on the appeasers of the left.

But the Speccie has always been a lot more than its news pages. It's real core is the book reviews, the Arts columns, the Diary, the Questing Vole, the Lfe Columns and Dear Mary.

Besides any magazine that has Mark Steyn can't be all bad. In a perfect world it would be good if Bris sacked Gilligan, Liddle and the wetter than wet Matthew Parris. But the world is not perfect, and they put the otehr great writerts in the Speccie in sharp relief.

i forgot the most beautifully named columnist in the whole world ...

... giannandrea poesio

who writes - beautifully - about opera, theatre, ballet

who cares what she writes about

giannandrea, marry me

Umm...ilibcc....Giannandrea Poesio is certainly a beautiful name but it belongs to a man (Giannandrea being Italian for John Andrew). But thanks for mentioning him; I'll be looking up his columns from now on.

thanks annalucia, will you marry me instead?

your name is even more beautiful than signor poesio's