Tag Archives: spectator

Tanya Park

From broadsheet to outrage factory: the decline of the Spectator and the Telegraph

By Tanya Park | Wed 25th February 2026 - 10:30 am

Liberals should care about the collapse of serious conservative journalism. Not because the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph were ever friends to progressive politics (they weren’t), but because a functioning liberal democracy depends on a press that engages honestly with reality across the political spectrum. What has replaced these publications’ particular brand of reactionary journalism is something considerably worse: reactionary journalism stripped of any pretence to intellectual seriousness. And that is bad for everyone.

Let us be clear about what these publications actually were. The Spectator spent much of the twentieth century providing intellectual cover for policies that entrenched inequality and treated the interests of the powerful as synonymous with the national interest. The Telegraph was the unabashed voice of privilege: the paper of the officer class, the Home Counties, the quietly certain that things were arranged more or less as they ought to be. To mourn their decline is not to pretend they were ever on the right side of history. It is simply to note that the seeds of today’s dysfunction were present in the editorial culture all along: a culture that prioritised tribal comfort over truth, and consistently failed to hold power to account when that power wore a blue rosette.

The lurch, and what drove it

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 10 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Danny Alexander: The Charles Kennedy I knew

By NewsHound | Wed 3rd June 2015 - 11:40 am

Danny Alexander has been writing about his memories of Charles Kennedy for the Spectator. His first experience of him was when he was a party press office and Charles was already an MP:

The first time I spoke to him was as a young press officer for the Scottish Lib Dems, nervously recommending that we cancel a press conference because the material was not quite ready. I expected the hairdryer treatment, but he was pleased. ‘When you have nothing to say,’ he replied, ‘best say nothing at all.’ He followed his own advice — which meant that, as party leader, he did not imitate the frenetic pace of Paddy Ashdown. This earned him criticism, but his style was to pick battles carefully, and fight them well.

He supported Danny in his campaign to become an MP in 2005:

When I was selected to contest the Highland constituency next to his, then held by Labour, I expected to see little of him. I was wrong. He gave ample and generous support, letting me sit in at his constituency surgeries to better understand how Parliament works — or, more accurately, how it should work. He taught me that politicians should never lose sight of who they’re working for.

Danny talks about Charles’ Highland crofting mindset:

Continue reading »
Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
Caron Lindsay

Out on the campaign trail with Jo Swinson

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 26th April 2015 - 6:13 pm

The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman went up to East Dunbartonshire to go campaigning with Jo Swinson recently. Her piece is pretty balanced and fair and gives quite an insight into Jo on the campaign trail

Now, I know what a whirlwind Jo is and how much work she gets through and how many doors she knocks on. I went across to help many times during the 2005 campaign. She was so disciplined and even if she met her own high targets, she wasn’t happy unless she’d done even more.

Her campaigning experience comes across in Hardman’s profile as does her name recognition:

Swinson is also a proper local campaigner. Everyone we meet seems to have had a problem that she’s sorted out. ‘You fixed my drains!’ is something several householders exclaim as they open the door (they mean she got the council to do it, I assume, though Swinson does tell one man she used to be a girl guide, which makes me wonder if she has actually personally fixed some drains too). Even the voters who aren’t backing her say ‘I’ve got to say, you do a lot for this area. Well done.’

She also behaves like someone used to pounding pavements. When we’re knocking on doors in a sheltered housing complex, she makes sure that the fire doors don’t swing noisily shut after her, instead shutting them gently herself. This is the sort of thing people who don’t bother to knock on doors very often don’t do, because they don’t realise how much striding noisily through someone else’s property annoys them.

Hardman reckons Labour MPs are so non-plussed because they’ve never had to campaign, but it’s clearly Jo’s forte.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 1 Comment
Caron Lindsay

Clarke’s concessions on secret courts will not satisfy Liberal Democrat campaigners

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th December 2012 - 12:59 pm

Ken ClarkeIsabel Hardman has written a piece on the Spectator’s Coffee House blog which essentially says that Liberal Democrat MPs and campaigners are on a bit of a collision course over Part II of the Justice and Security Bill. Liberal Democrat conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of this measure being withdrawn because of its provisions on secret courts.

The article suggests that Liberal Democrat MPs are likely to support the measures now that Ken Clarke has accepted an

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Rif Winfield
    There is little sign that Labour's much-vaunted 1.5 million homes programme during the current Parliament is going to come to fruition, even with the planning r...
  • expats
    Tristan, % differences are largely meaningless.. Germany boasts a nominal GDP of approximately $5.4 trillion, making it Europe's largest economy. The UK's no...
  • Peter Martin
    "In the decade since that day.......We have missed out on roughly 6-8% of growth" Where does this figure come from? In any case, we didn't actuall...
  • Richard Flowers
    Dear Rebecca, It is you who gives me hope and lets me take Pride. Thanks to your tireless work, and other members of the Plus committee and community, you�...
  • George Thomas
    Have just come from the latest post discussing Welsh Lib Dems struggles to a post regarding better transport. Does this mean support for retrospective funding f...