Top ten: columnists

[Guest]

I've been meaning to this for ages, but here's the 10 columnist/ political writers you should definetly look into. I haven't got time to tell you why there brilliant but I tell you were they (primarly) work. Now there all British so you probably can't get the papers/magazines they work for but all the publications have websites so just check them out, also most have written books. Anyway hope you like them and I'd be interested in hearing your top columnists.

 

Oh yeah I've forgot where two of them work which is sod's law incarnte.

 

Andrew Alexender (Daily Mail)

Melaine Phillips (Daily Mail)

Janet Dailly (Daily Telegraph)

Steven Stewart (Mail on Sunday)

Stephen Glover (Daily Mail/ Spectator)

Simon Jenkins (The Times)

Bruce Anderson (Spectator/ Independent)

Peter Hitchens (Mail on Sunday)

Peter Orbone (Spectator)

Hugo Young (Guardian)

 

Well there they are despite my shocking memory lapse. Honestly you should really try to digs these out even if you disagree with them as all of them have good writing styles.

 

William

[Guest]

Charles Krauthammer and Michael Kelly are a couple of my favourites.

[Guest Anorak]

Please tell me you don't read the Daily Mail.

[Guest]

Heh. Somehow I wasn't really surprised by the fact that William reads the Mail.

 

"The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; the Times is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is."

[Guest fk teale]

Yes, Marney!

 

So, uh, are you pretty much dead set on this whole lesbian thing?  Because I think I'm falling in love over here.

[Guest]

Bonus points for the 'Yes Minister/Prime Minister' reference there, anyhoo,  as a Guardian reader, my favourite columnists  at the moment are Jonathan Freedland and Simon Hoggart.  When he was writing for them, Jeremy Hardy was very good as well, and honourable mentions to Matthew Parris in the Times and Paul Foot in the Guardian and Private Eye - In fact the guys who do the columns in Private Eye, like Piloti are rather good as well, and on the American side of things, I quite like David Broder in the Washington Post.

 

And if anyone  so much as mentions Richard Littlejohn, they should be taken outside and have bad things happen to them.

 

Ian (who really only reads the Guardian for the corrections and clarifications column)

[Guest]

Oh, y'all are so sweet. <g> I always did like guys who could make me laugh... we'll just have to find an overly liberal socialist to tag along as a perennial straight man.

[Guest Anorak]

So Marney is an American who takes the time to read English newspapers and RivalSchools (reference to the band at all?) is a British person who takes the time to read American newspapers? The posters on this board are so sophisticated!

 

Littlejohn is brilliant for a laugh in The Sun. Anyone catch the serialisation of his novel a while back? Hilariously bad stuff that was really quite addictive in all honesty. Someone called it the worst book ever written (obviously a big fan themselves)

[Guest]

yes the name is evrything to do with Rival Schools, the second best band ever.  Alas, the only american newspaper i'm able to read is USA Today, which is, alas, to serious journalism what Lemmy would be to a beauty pagent, so I have to surf out the various websites - Mainly, at the moment for essay research.

 

Re; LittleJonhn - Apparently the book is absolute rot - Though Barbara 'looks the same dead as alive' Cartland still dominates the worst book of all time stakes.

 

As for the man himself, he wasn't too bad on Radio 5Live on 606, but that's a job that David Mellor (euugh) could do, so not so sure there i feel.  As for the comedy, I once went to see a recording of 'have i got news for you' that he was on, and he said so little during the show, that they had to shoot extra footage and edit it into the show later of him talking.

 

We have a copy of the Sun lying round our radio studio occasionally, and I think describing it as something you 'read' is a bit strong for the most part - however the problems page is hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

 

Ian

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

Arghh, Peter Hitchens? The mans demented! He blames the break down of society on double glazing!

[Guest]

<Arghh, Peter Hitchens? The mans demented! He blames the break down of society on double glazing!>

 

Look there is no denying it, in the 50s there was no double glazing and there was absoultly no crime and everyone loved the Queen, THERE HAS TO BE A CONICDENCE!!!

 

Heh, heh. No he's good, he's writing style is good (although he overuses the Wemair/Nazi Germany metaphors) and on a few issues he's bang on target things like Europe, collapse of society (excluding homosexuality), Northern Ireland, Race Relations and (of course) Tony Blair.

 

<Please tell me you don't read the Daily Mail>

 

<Heh. Somehow I wasn't really surprised by the fact that William reads the Mail.>

 

Oh come Marney you can't leave it like that, why exactly aren't you surprised to hear I read to Mail?

 

On the Mail itself I think it gets a bad reputation. Although the editorials are sometimes hysterical most of its writing is very good and it has some brilliant writers not only the ones on the list but the likes of Simon Heffer, Ann Lesile and also left wing commentators like Lauren Booth and Suzzane Moore. The sports pages are also good with lots of good writers.

 

<In fact the guys who do the columns in Private Eye>

 

Ah Private Eye. Funny magazine that is seriously underrated when it comes to "serious" journalism. It's a shame there so short of money as with a big cash boost and a proper magazine format it could be huge.

 

<We have a copy of the Sun lying round our radio studio occasionally, and I think describing it as something you 'read' is a bit strong for the most part - however the problems page is hilarious for all the wrong reasons.>

 

Urgh, the Sun, Urgh. Personally I don't count it a newspaper, its all tits, bigotry and football (but nesscarcily in that order). On the same subject Rupert Murdorch is the devil himself, which makes the fact that he owns the Times and employs Adam Boulton all the more hard to bear.

 

William

[Guest Anorak]

I've got a big personal beef with the Daily Mail sports writers after the 1999 League Cup final, the match report and commentry was the most pathetically biased drivel i've ever read. It totally exposed the London bias present in so much sports writing, i've seen more balanced and objective match reports in a fanzine than in the Mail & The Sun of that game. Jeff Powell's a sad little man who would have got lynched if he'd showed his face in Leicester after the crap he wrote. Over recent years i've read much better football articles in fanzines or magazines than in any of the national newspapers, broadsheets included.