Last Thursday Melanie Phillips unexpectadly announced that she was no longer going to be writing for the Spectator and would be moving her conversation starting pieces to her own personal website.
In a strange coincidence there is an expensive looking retraction on the front page of the Spectator’s website today, referencing a story by Phillips. If Guido could make a helpful suggestion, perhaps Mel could go write for HuffPo…
Balls Calls for Deeper Cuts | Speccie
Lessons from the Thirties | CPS
PMQs Idiots | Harry Cole
Jon Cruddas is Not the Messier | Dan Hodges
We Should Honour Victims | Bob Blackman
Bad Al Campbell Spinning for Portland | PR Week
HuffPo’s House Jihadi | Washington Free Beacon
Osborne Gets His Soundbite | Nick Robinson
Moonbat versus Chomsky | Charles Crawford
Beecroft is “S**t” | LibDem MP
News of the World Trailed Watson’s Mistaken Mistress | Indy
Shabana Mahmood MP Saves Brum Market | ITV News
Plan a Velvet Divorce for the €uro | Gideon Rachman
Truth About Romney’s Bain “Vampire Capitalism” | Wall Street Journal
Clegg’s Revenge | Nick Wood
Cleaning Out Stables | Biased BBC
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Iran’s military chief-of-staff, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi…
“The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel”.
Mr Bryant and Mr Watson managing to make the whole hacking affair look like a farce – the more they moan the less I care about the whole subject! So partisan it beggars belief at all costs. They cannot rise above it ! If I was to call the PM a ‘liar’ I would want to be VERY sure.
Does anyone read the spectator?
Yes. I am the editor, I should know
Just becuase the allegation was withdrawn doesn’t make it false. And, it was made in January so plenty of time to ‘punish’ her.
Maybe she has left them, for being so spineless as to apologise ?!?
Mel gives good opinion and i’d be surprised to see her Huffing it. Speccie has limited funds and perhaps discretion is the better part etc etc. Ah, fuck it, move on – next! Online journalism eh? Who’d do it?
Here’s one ex reader – since the exclusion of Mark Steyn. Nothing yet forgiven!
John G
Steyn was always interesting but always wrong. He claimed for years that bin Laden was dead, you may recall, and when we invaded Iraq he predicted the immediate downfall of Assad in Syria. He is an impassioned writer but hopelessly fact-blind.
Does anyone read the Huffington Post ??
It’s the next big thing, apparently.
Yeah, right.
I never had much time for Arianna Stassinopoulos when I was up at Cambridge but one has to admit that the blowsy old madam has a darn good product with the Huffington Post. It’s pitched at exactly the right level for the chattering classes. Out here at Waad Magna we leave chattering to the jays but, for fully urbanised humans, chattering is an important way of coping with stressful overcrowding and I can understand why the Huffer Puffer appeals to them.
It has an 80,000+ circulation – twice as many as the New Statesman.
But only half as interesting.
Haway our Kev. Yer na yer only read Viz.
Strewth, Polly best watch out… the BBC will have her Green Room hammock turfed out on the steps of Broadcasting House in the name of ‘better representation’* before you can say Haw… Haw.
Meanwhile, back at Nick Robbo’s ‘So what about the workers?’ blog….
Seems like a pretty bad mistake, alleging that someone’s been expelled from Israel without checking properly.
Never mind, at least her articles will still be available on-line.
1st sentence – correct.
2nd sentence – who cares.
Well, we all make mistakes.
Especially in the vicinity of Israel.
If… some more than others.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/06/story_removal.html
Maybe Mel can get a gig on the One Show, where they can be very forgiving, depending…
Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song
Well it’s the only thing I could do half right
And it’s turning out all wrong, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song
Look what they’ve done to my brain, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my brain
Well they picked it like a chicken bone
And I think I’m half insane, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song
rubbish, just like the self serving shite you right
Is it my shift today then?
Billy Preston is definitely the best 5th Beatle. I reckon he’d even be a better 4th than Ringo.
Maybe a new job for Melanie Phillips could be as Middle East Peace Envoy? She always seems very impartial to me.
The Spectator without Melanie Philips will be an enormous imporovement. I hope she takes her unsavoury fans with her as well.
Get her off BBC QT as well
Yeah, let’s get another leftie on, we can’t get enough of ‘em.
The BBC had to apologise for her ill-mannered oikish behaviour on The Moral Maze a few weeks ago. She kept telling everyone who didn’t agree with her that they were too stupid to understand anything.
That is because she used to be a Lefty. Old habits die hard I suppose!
Obviously has not yet got round to dumping the lesbian haircut and clothing?
Who is Melanie Phillips?
A boorish rentaquote.
Another woman that Rod Liddle wouldn’t get jiggy with…
shouldn’t that be “the only”?
I will post an insulting, off topic and pointless comment as soon as I can think of one
(fluff) (cuttle) (tappity-tap) SQUIIIIIIRRRRRKK-K… (wait)
Totty watch tag?
Even wiser words from the past.
“I despise what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it”
Melanie Philips wouldn’t agree with you. She will not tolerate views other than her own.
Typical woman then
Only two women in recent history been shown to exercise consistantly good judgement – Maggie T (usually) & my wife (never wrong)
So I’m allowed to say Nigel is offensive?
(While I’m at it… he can call a country “not proper” when its made of 2 parts that don’t like each other much. What is the right number … 5 ?)
What has he said this time anyway?
I’m sure Voltaire’s actual words were “Say that again and I’ll ‘ave yer” – I remember seeing the film with Ray Winstone
After all the death and meyhem in Afghanistan
we throw in the towel and walk away
we are in talks with the Taliban
telling them they must not take back the country after we run away
i will give it less than six months before they are back in control
What a waste of time ,lives and money !
Relax – it took us 6 years to find it out what the Russians found out in 20 !
Dear Taliban, the keys to the country are under the doormat. We’ve left some milk in the fridge. Please don’t burn down the girls’ schools we built. If you do, please don’t do it in front of the cameras, at least not before 2015.
Best regards,
DC.
PS: actually, the door is probably unlocked.
And please accept all the new weapons vehicles and uniforms that you will find lying around
after all the new army and policemen have fled for the UK with their families to claim asylum for fear of being killed by you
If you manage to capture Mohammed Karzai please ask him what he did with the 21 billion pounds that we gave him to improve your shithole,before you remove his head
thank you !
8 out of 10 members of the Afghan forces can’t write their own name or recognise a number between one and ten !
so how did they know 8 out of 10 couldn’t do it then ?
10 out of 10 socailist goverments always run out of other peoples money .
Or see page 3 of this weeks Eye. Cartoon on Taliban Negotations. “If you don’t give in, we’ll quit”. Seems succinct to me.
Six Months?
Six weeks.
Once the Americans had finally caught up with Bin Laden and discovered that he had been holed up in Pakistan for years, I guessed that they would get out of Afghanistan as quickly as decently possible.
They were there after Al-queda in general and him in particular.They were never going to sacrifice their men and money over a vicious internal civil war in a bankrupt country with few natural resources other than narcotics.
Vietnam all over again. Moral: don’t get involved in twattish wars everyone but the politicians know are unwinnable.
people who know me say I’m a pretty straight kind of guy
Labour are at it again (BBC Parliament), shouting. Why are they so loud mouthed.
Angela Eagle has shown a use for old cooking oil, it’s plastered all over her hair.
Margaret Beckett, what an old horse, spouting shit.
Labour hypocrisy at work again.
WE
SHAWTSHOWTSHAHTYELLOWDLYLAWDLYWITH ALOT OF NOYS 2 SHOW WE R MORE CLEVERER THAN U.Note how the comments section that that announcement is censoring all negative comments. Nothing but fawning praise there.
I hear there may be a late night BBC3 adult highbrow show in the offing:
‘At Home with the Rosenbergs’.
Dear god no. Don’t put ideas into their heads.
The Daily Mail will love it if they’ve got pretty daughters. Esp if one of them has a massive yet perfect arse.
i might be able to help you there
Any adult show will do, whatever they call it.
Spectator doing a bit of housekeeping and door locking…mind you they are so inconspicuous these days who really cares who they hire or lose on the way to continued obscurity
every TV news program,paper and news media still kicking the shit out of this goverment 24/7 didnt realize Cameron sent the troops in to Afganistan.
Labour truley get away with everything they have done to this once great country.
Does the UK have a death wish listening to all the crap and lies from the media you would say yes.
Just wish they had taken the time to cross examine Labours policys in the last 12 years sorry it wasnt their fault.Wankers all of them.
Poisonous bitch.
Phillips gets it, so does this guy.
Has it ever occurred to Pat Condell how muslims came to be in Europe in the first place? They didn’t fall out of the sky one day, nor did they smash their way into Europe (this time round at least).
Apart from greedy employers wanting their serf labour, we have a muslim problem because liberal twats like him supported a policy of mass immigration without the slightest thought for the long term consequences. A policy which unbelievably he still whole heartedly supports to this day!
Now that the effects of mass immigration have finally started to seep into the nice cosy world of the middle classes, suddenly they take notice and pronounce something must be done.
Well, something should have been done 30, 40 years ago, when the lower orders were having their communities enriched ie obliterated. It’s too late now. Civil war will be the outcome.
Will liberals ever actually think about how we got into this mess? And their part in creating it?
Nothing libertarian about Melanie’s racist ranting. Her absence will greatly improve the Spectator.
Since when has a religion been a race?
Yeah, that old one. Very good
Who has more houses , Tony Blair or Micheal meacher?
Neither. Its Chris Huhne.
The old crone can be quite good value on some forums but in the Spectator she has been nothing but a laughingly naive, utterly partisan pro-Israeli apologist for ages now, I can’t recall the last time she wrote about anything else.
Every time another piece comes in Frazer Nelson must be like ‘FFS, why does she always write the same old pish?’.
Good riddance I say.
Recently she has been writing about Israel to the exclusion of just about everything and I think it has been self-defeating.
It’s a shame because she can write quite perceptively on matters generally but her readership must be reduced by now simply to Middle East bores of either persuasion.
And the most opinionated, self-righteous, and unnecessarily hysterical journalist award goes to….
Its a Tie!
Melanie Philips and Laurie Penny !
oi what about good old r.fisk of yer “independent”…….
would she be happier on the do you ish chronicle?
A bit of a one trick pony.
Another right wing J bites the dust. who cares
So Mad Mel has got the sack then? It may be that she is suffering from a progressive decline like Lady Thatcher.
Adieu Mel P. You won’t be missed.
In this world of there is much space for rational argument and moderation.
You stoked the fires of unrest and discontent. You know it. That’s how you made your money.
There’s no room for you in the modern world.
Now buzz off.
I know a good hotel in East Jerusalem you could go for a holiday.
Ever been to Ramallah? It’s only half an hour down the road. Worth a visit.
Good one Guido
“If Guido could make a helpful suggestion, perhaps David “Bottler” Cameron could go fuck himself or call a General Election…
She is barking – it couldn’t happen to a nicer person!
Surely you should put in a cheeky bid for Mad Mel. She’d be an excellent fit.
Heard her speak at a Tory conference fringe event – like being drenched in paint stripper. Painful, unpleasant and pointless. Hubby is okay.
She is a monomaniac, frothing-at-the mouth lunatic. She never belonged at the Spectator and htey are well rid of her.
They admitted to me that they allowed her to censor responses to her blog entries.
LOL – it was clear from Mel’s extremely terse final Spectator post that some disagreement had occurred. None of the usual guff, from both sides, about ‘how much I’ve/We’ve appreciated . . .” etc. I do like Mel, and think she draws attention to important issues mostly neglected by the MSM, but sometimes she can go a bit over the top – whether that is frothing & justified anger, or a completely false allegation, is anyone’s guess. One remembers Mark Steyn’s sudden exit from UK media, in particular The Spectator & Telegraph. He was another extremely forthright commentator (still is, outwith UK boundaries!). Couldn’t be anything to do with craven media fear, censorship, and UK’s appalling libel laws?
Personally I can’t read her bile. You know what’s she going to say anyway. She could shock us all by not being so completely biased and I might decide to read her articles or listen to her on broadcast media. She just comes accross as a witch and does exactly the opposite to winning people over to her viewpoint with her manner. And yeah the Camille paglia look doesn’t endear me to her either.