Sadiq Khan has taken the opportunity to deviate from Labour’s position on the US election in a fawning interview for The New Statesman. While Lammy and Starmer have been “studiously neutral” on November’s election Khan has no qualms about his support: “I’ve been so impressed with Tim Walz. It just shows the judgement that Kamala Harris has in relation to her choice for vice-president. Compare and contrast that with the choice made by the other guy, in JD Vance.” No matter – Trump knows what the Labour frontbench thinks of him…
Lammy’s defence is that “you’re going to struggle to find any politician who has not had things to say about Donald Trump in his first term” and that Trump has the “thickest of skins.” Khan is happy to destroy that line as well:
“The last time we had a Trump presidency, as a matter of public record, there was a massive increase in hate crime towards me… I worry about what a second Trump presidency would mean for me and my family, but I’m not going to allow these people to cower me.”
The “matter of public record” is analysis produced by Khan’s own office, now used to claim that Trump was in some way responsible for the targeting of a mayor in another country. The FCDO will be gritting its teeth at this latest breathless bluster…
Khan also claims politicians need to be “braver on immigration” as its problems stem from unfunded public services, and that the UK should have a “conversation” about re-joining the EU in the “medium to long term“. Khan is always ahead of the curve on Labour’s intentions…
The New Statesman’s Will Lloyd has written a profile this week on Rory Stewart which contains an entertaining revelation. It turns out when Stewart isn’t busy agreeing with everything Alastair Campbell says on their centrist dad podcast, he’s also something of a Wikipedia scholar. Lloyd did some digging and discovered an account named “Chezza88” had made a series of edits to Rory’s own profile in recent years, including a useful new section on The Rest is Politics….
When confronted, Stewart claimed:
“That account has sometimes been used by me – I wrote my father’s entry – and inserted recent stuff about Rest Is Politics – it was however also heavily used by parliamentary office, leadership and London Campaign teams (and also at one point by mother!).”
Impressive to have those teams still edit his page when he lost the Tory whip a year before, and no longer had an MP’s staff…
According to Lloyd, later on over the phone, Rory apparently seemed “rattled” by the revelation, adding “I hope there’s nothing really weird or horrible there.” Don’t worry Rory, Chezza88 has been on the case…
Peter Wilby, former editor of the Independent on Sunday and later the New Statesman, has been sentenced for making indecent images of children. He admitted three charges, and was given a 10-month sentence suspended for two years at Chelmsford Crown Court. Police found 167 indecent images, 137 of which were Category A.
Wilby was editor of the Independent on Sunday from 1996 to 1996. He then became New Statesman editor 1998, until 2005. His most recent byline in the New Statesman was on 2nd November 2022… despite being arrested in October.
Adam Sprague, operations manager at the National Crime Agency, said:
“The material accessed by Wilby and recovered from his computer showed real children being cruelly and sexually abused. He was viewing this content while working as the editor of prominent national news outlets, a role in which he was entrusted to form the news agenda for the British public. A trust which he has greatly betrayed.”
Wilby admitted to viewing abuse material since the 1990s. He publicly professed to being a feminist. Vile.
UPDATE: The New Statesman has issued a statement.
Last night saw the inauguration of a new Westminster awards ceremony, a centre-left competitor to the infamous Spectator Awards, The New Statesman’s ‘Positive Impact Awards’. The awards were hosted by Jason Cowley, Anoosh Chakelian and Andrew Marr, with gongs handed out for those who left their mark on politics, business and wider society in 2022. It looks like an alternative Labour Party conference for those who don’t like leaving the M25…
Top of the agenda for SW1 was the Positive Impact in Politics Award (House of Commons), with Labour’s Carolyn Harris taking home first prize; beating off Rachel Reeves, Stella Creasy, Alicia Kearns, Diana Johnson and Michael Gove.
Appropriately for an awards ceremony about “impact”, Guido notes that the event sponsors were none other than… BAE Sytems.
The New Statesman’s political editor, Stephen Bush, has announced he’s leaving the magazine to join the FT as a weekly staff columnist and associate editor. He’ll take up his new post in early 2022, having worked at the New Statesman for over six years. Commenting on the move, Bush says:
“I’m thrilled to be joining the FT, a newspaper I’ve read and admired since my student days. It’s the best newspaper in the country bar none. From its peerless Africa coverage, Lex, Sarah O’Connor’s columns or the work of its fantastic Westminster team, I always start my day with the FT and am incredibly excited to be joining.”
Only yesterday his soon-to-be ex-editor said of Andrew Marr’s hiring that he’s finally bringing “in some big hitters and more experience”. Presumably Stephen had secured his next gig before Jason Cowley’s comments…
An article in this week’s New Statesman (“In the Post-Corbyn World, What Next for Alternative Left Media?“) spurred Guido to do some research into their traffic and how they are performing generally. The short answer is not very well in terms of raw audience size. In comparison to right-of-centre political news and opinion sites they are well behind. Like-for-like The Spectator has double the New Statesman’s readership. To give you an idea how much worse they are faring after the Corbyn-era glory days, consider this, Toby Young’s Daily Sceptic alone had last month more online readers than the New Statesman, Novara Media and Morning Star combined!
Even the upstart newly launched GB News website has more traffic than most left-wing websites and those same websites say GB News is failing. The question that needs answering is why are right-of-centre news and views outlets out-performing – in terms of audience reach – left-of-centre news and views websites? Some of them will argue that we’re looking in the wrong place – the audience is not just on their website. The Canary and Skwawkbox generate engagement on Facebook which outstrips their own native website audience by a multiple. Novara Media’s videos and podcasts are apparently seen by far more viewers and listeners than will read their articles. Owen Jones has his own lucrative YouTube channel. Of course GB News has a television channel so can’t be compared like-for-like, it also has an active online video audience, as do the Spectator and Unherd. They match the left for reach, similarly they tend to preach to the converted. The only place where the left-wing media seems dominant is on social media, Twitter in particular.
Is the left’s supposed dominance of Twitter entirely true? The left are are certainly more active on Twitter, in terms of followers however @GuidoFawkes has more than any of the left-wing politics sites. Academic research suggests that left-wing Twitter is more active and that activity is mainly preaching to the converted and engaging with other left-wingers. The left is more active on Twitter undoubtedly and it gives the micro-blogging site a hostile atmosphere for right-of-centre users, however election after election shows that, in the words of David Cameron, “Britain is not Twitter”. As the SNP’s Cyber-Nats demonstrate all too loudly, ferocious activity is not evidence of numbers.
Is it money? The New Statesman is backed by Mike Danson, a billionaire willing to bankroll the millions in annual losses of the magazine without flinching. Novara Media got funding from a foundation backed by millionaire philanthropists, Tribune Magazine has the backing of an American publisher. The healthy tradition on the left of funding publications from readers’ donations means Novara Media and Owen Jones have six-figure revenues and paid staff, on the right only Toby Young’s Daily Sceptic is funded likewise. The Spectator and Guido Fawkes are profit-making commercially competitive media enterprises that stand on their own two feet, they are also read in droves by left-of-centre readers who don’t share their editorial line for the news, gossip and entertainment, whereas few right-of-centre readers would enjoy reading the dreary ideological output of most left-wing publications. Funding isn’t the problem.
Perhaps the answer is simply that the likes of the Guardian, Daily Mirror, Buzzfeed News, Huffington Post and the BBC provide most left-of-centre news consumers with satisfactory confirmation of their prejudices such that they just don’t have to venture out to the alt-left for content that appeals. Is it just that in the wider media context it is harder for the alt-left to appeal beyond an ideological core readership?
