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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

At the rear end of the Spectator

Some time ago I posted here that the weekly British publication, The Spectator, edited by Tory MP and jolly good chap Boris Johnson, had lost some of its quality and class.

I can just about take reading Simon Jenkins on why we should stop worrying about terror, even if his comments are published on the day of the Madrid horror. I can even take reading Ross Clark on why we should learn to love speed cameras and pay inheritance tax, or learn from Sir Max Hastings as to why we British are so much finer military strategists than those awfully common Americans with their silly Apache helicopters. And of course the Spectator has the brilliant Mark Steyn, who looks increasingly uncomfortable amid the snobs, America-bashers, Murdochphobes and BBC castoffs like Rod Liddle.

But that magazine’s ‘High Life’ columnist, Taki , is neither witty, interesting or informative. His writings frequently plummet depths I thought it impossible to tolerate in that magazine. He has got into difficulties before over his outspoken attacks on the often Jewish policymakers and intellectuals he associates with the neo-conservative movement. That of course is not necessarily proof that Taki is an anti-semite, and it is a charge one should only make with great care.

But when you read about Taki’s thoughts in this week’s magazine (link requires registration) on the “wallet-lifting” Richard Perle, what on earth is one to suppose Taki is getting at? (“Those People, you know, very crafty with money”).

One might ask why one should care. Well, I care about the fate of what has been at times the finest magazine in the English language, a place that has inspired me with writers of such grace as the late Colin Welch and the brilliant satire of the late, and much missed, Auberon Waugh. We also need, in a healthy media world, a weekly alternative to the awful New Statesman. But the Greek boy has always been the bad smell at the back. Time for him to go. Go on Boris, make my day.

38 comments to At the rear end of the Spectator

  • Frank P

    Jonathan

    You forgot to mention the transfer of the egregious Gilligan as political editor, another BBC reject, to join his old mate Liddle Rod. The time has come for a realistic review of my magazine subscriptions, as I pointed out in a recent letter to Boris (which of course he ignored.)

  • The Speccy does sometimes irritate, but it is still by far the most entertaining Conservative publication in the world.

    Taki’s column in particular should be viewed as entertainment.

    It was a small consolation after the Madrid bombings that Simon Jenkins, so great and so good, made a complete arse of himself telling us in print only a day or two before, that we had nothing to fear from terrorism. Timing is everything.

    Samizdata sometimes verges on being a Libertarian Daily Mail, I doubt many people agree with every article or with every contributor – that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.

  • As one of the Spectators American subscribers, I 100% agree with you. This magazine has gone downhill. Rod Liddle is a boring snob and somehow they have neutered the incomparable Paul Johnson. Everything he writes elsewhere is fantastic but his column in the Spectator is very thin gruel.

    Occasionally they have a great cartoon, but for the most part they’ve lost their spark. Often magazines go through a bad patch sometimes they recover but sometimes they don’t. I doubt they could survive a Howard administration.

  • Charles Copeland

    Jonathan Pearce writes:

    “[Takis Theodoracopoulos] has got into difficulties before over his outspoken attacks on the often Jewish policymakers and intellectuals he associates with the neo-conservative movement. That of course is not necessarily proof that Taki is an anti-Semite, and it is a charge one should only make with great care.”

    As far as I can judge from Taki’s articles in ‘The Spectator’ and ‘The American Conservative’ (of which he is co-editor together with fellow paleo-conservative Pat Buchanan) Taki – like paleoconservatives in general – objects to US foreign policy being overly focused on Israel’s welfare rather than America’s. Perhaps paleoconservatives underestimate the Islamic threat in that they tend to believe that, if the Americans abandoned their pro-Israeli position, the Islamists would somehow vanish from the scene. And yes, there may occasionally be the nudge-nudge insinuation that it’s chiefly the Jews who are to blame for the world’s misfortunes. However, the real problem with the paleoconservatives is not that they are ‘anti-Semitic’ but that they are not sufficiently ‘Islamophobic’ or ‘Arabophobic’. At any rate, anti-Semitism has to do with hatred of Jews as such, not with opposition to what is perceived to be excessive Jewish influence on US policy-making.

    Precisely because of his controversial views, Taki is a breath of fresh air – an occasional breeze of political incorrectness in what is otherwise a somewhat genteel, nice-guy publication. Who else but Taki would have had the audacity to declare General Pinochet to have been ‘the saviour of Chile’, or to refuse to kow-tow to the myth that ‘there’s no such thing as race’? Without paleocons like Taki, the world would be a duller place. The Spectator needs more, not fewer, contributors like this.

  • Frank P

    Spacer

    Liddle a snob? More like a guttersnipe – a snotty, scruffy littlr street urchin who fancies himself as a witty intellectual. His performance on question time a couple of weeks ago did for him, IMHO.

    As for PJ, he’s the only reason I continue to buy it (for the time being). He can pack more erudition, information, wit and historical perspective into 1500 words than any of his contemporaries and he’s just mellowed in his gentle years. And it would take more than Blondie Boris to ‘stifle’ the imperious Paul.

    But it’s the overall bite that has gone from the Speccy under Boris and it’s politics is, like the Tory party at present, all over the shop; trying to be all things to all men. I agree with Verity who mused on another thread that Boris is a closet lefty, particularly when he dabbles as a stooge for TV game shows. He’s becoming grist to the leftist mill.

  • Verity

    God’s in Henley and all’s right with the world of genial Boris Johnson. The man is disconnected. He’s (apparently – though I wouldn’t bet on it) sweet-natured and a jolly good wheezer. MP, editor of one of the most ancient and respected publications in the Anglosphere, talk show guest, party-goer and diffident charmer. How much more emetic can one man get?

    The Speccie has lost its style under his editorship, because he thought it was something he could do with one hand tied behind his back while he charmed for Britain. The Speccie’s edge has dulled. There’s nothing sparky about it any more. Just Boris’s relatives making their crust (sister Rachel Johnson, for example, unaccountably gets gigs on The Speccie), not just snivelling lefty Ron Liddle, but his dimwit girlfriend, who got an illiterate piece published on a ponzie scheme she was promoting to “empower women” (and considering that Liddle obviously helped her form her vowels, imagine what it was like when she first wrote it all by herself – and suddenly, it’s in The Spectator, which people buy in the expectation of a certain standard of literacy and wit) and an endless parade of grey drab. The assault on Migration Watch UK’s Andrew Green by someone going by the name of Deborah Ross (I suspect the vicious race warrior Jasmine Ali-Baba under a nomme de guerre) it was – well, bizarre.

    Under Boris, quite a heavyweight ego to be under, to be sure, the Speccie is heaving for breath. Johnson has no vision and no love for the mag and, strange to say, I sense a hostility to its readers. Johnson’s a lefty who found himself being a Conservative MP, but doesn’t really mean it. Any high profile Tory (and that also goes for William Hague), who likes “Tony Blair personally”, is no friend of a stable Britain.

    Taki’s OK. He brings a different point of view and the astringent whiff of snobbery which, like sal volatale, can be an eye opener. And he’s serious about politics (see his involvement with American Conservative), as opposed to Boris, for whom it’s all a bit of a giggle while he works on advancing himself. Keep Taki. Dump Boris.

    According to ol’ Boris himself, his grandfather signed the arrest warrant for successful Turkish moderniser Attaturk. I don’t know quite what to make of this, but it reeks of sleazy. Let’s keep Taki, with his off-centre, engaging but genuine, points of view, and dump Boris.

  • AndrewM

    Taki is one of the most interesting columnists around precisely because he doesn’t give a damn what the politically correct types think. Richard Perle is, to put it mildly, a dubious character and shouldn’t be protected from criticism or even insults simply because he is Jewish. Johnathan Pearce’s suggestion that Taki be removed from ‘The Spectator’ due to his political incorrectness indicates the degree to which the Left’s ideas and tactics permeate our society.

    BTW if Taki is so anti-Semitic how come he keeps defending his friend Conrad Black?

  • Mashiki

    Simple, Black is rolling around in billions of dollars; has been knighted and is getting his ass kicked in both the US and Canada by the court system.

  • Charles Copeland

    Verity – you’ve said it all. Congratulations – a brilliant contribution. Boris is yet another instantiation of the ‘trahisons des clercs’. May his fan club fade into oblivion.

    Charles

  • Antoine Clarke

    Taki is fun. He is outrageous and I’m sure, should never be taken too seriously. I think the High Life column is a celebration of wealth and the other-worldy views of the people that have it.

    Perhaps I’m wrong, but I always suspect that Taki would be horrified if a democratic government actually attempted to carry out half the things he suggests.

    The appointment of Gilligan is another matter as “foreign affairs correspondant” for the Spectator.

    That ********** ******* has no place in any media organisation, and I am surely not the only one who holds him personally responsible for the suicide of Dr David Kelly.

    As for the Spectator, it needs an editor, not a political commissar.

  • Shawn

    Despite having some agreement with them on immigration and cultural issues I’m no fan of the Paleocons. Their attacks on the Jewish members of the Bush administration reek of anti-Jewish conspiracy theory thinking.

    Still, Taki is at least entertaining and anti-PC, and I suspect the trick with reading his articles is not to take him seriously in the first place.

    But Gilligan on the other hand is a rabid anti-American scumbag and a serial liar. I find it difficult to believe that the Spectator has actually hired this person to write on any subject, let alone foriegn affairs.

  • Frank P

    I’ve never heard Liddle speak but I’ve read his stuff enough to know that he’s a snob AND fancies himself a witty intellectual.

    Paul Johnson’s stuff in the Spetator is or course erudite and beautifully written. Compared to what he publishes in say National Review or Commentary its pretty thin.

    I had a long conversation with Taki’s friend Pat Buchanan last year. He’s charming and has a great sense of humor buts thats no reason to take him seriously.

  • I used to enjoy reading the Speccie but now I can’t; they have totally stuffed up their website and it seems to hate me…

    I’m a bit dubious about the magazine, although to be fair it remains the best-written magazine out there. I wouldn’t pay for it though.

  • Kirk Parker

    > Taki’s column in particular should be viewed as entertainment.

    Wouldn’t one sine qua non be that it be entertaining, then?

    > Precisely because of his controversial views, Taki is a breath of fresh air

    Not from where I sit. You can pierce the reigning PC by speaking something unspeakable but true, or by uttering something booring and reprehensible. Taki too often opts for the latter–a conservative analogue to the folks who think being “artistic” requires being outragous. Who needs that?

  • Kirk Parker

    Oops, what’s the use of preview if you read what you meant instead of what you wrote? I meant to say “boorish and reprehensible”, though I made it pretty clear I find the overall effect boring, too.

  • Frank P

    Andrew M

    ‘BTW if Taki is so anti-Semitic how come he keeps defending his friend Conrad Black?’

    A few years back Taki and Conrad publicly debated, via Taki’s column and the letters page of the Speccie, Taki’s alleged antisemitic tone in some of his articles. Made interesting reading and my regard for each of them increased. It was a very civilised exchange and probably unique in publishing history: the owner of a paper writing admonishing letters in his own magazine to criticise one of his own columnists. They normally shitcan them! So Lord Black can’t be …well … as black as he is painted.

    Mark Steyn seems to be a bit alienated in Doughty Street these days and Boris did his editorial best to negate Mark’s stuff on Iraq by pointedly making sure that anti Bush stuff was thrown in to counteract it. Mind you, it was farting against thunder. How can anyone negate the Champ.

  • Frank P

    Spacer

    I’ve never heard Liddle speak but I’ve read his stuff enough to know that he’s a snob AND fancies himself a witty intellectual.

    Yeah, well. He may come off the page that way, but his physical presence (or rather lack of it) belies the snobbery schtick; his mien is that of a cur, wheedling and tatty. Looks like a left over from Seventies agitprop.

  • Frank P

    I bow to your superior sources of information.

    70s agitprop , does that mean he is out of the old International Times and Oz Magazine penumbra? Stalinism, Acid and mediocre rock and roll never did go together.

  • Guy Herbert

    Contrariwise, I like Liddle and can’t bear Taki. I’ve been wondering what the point of the latter is for 20 years and am no nearer a conclusion. I read him less and less.

    The best thing he’s done that I’ve seen is his prison memoir, which was a long time ago, and even that is only marginally more plausible and less funny than the corresponding section of Gordon Liddy’s Will. (Liddy is my pick of barking, fantasist conservatives.)

  • Findlay Dunachie

    Some years ago I found the Spectator covers so revolting that I stopped buying it, saddened that such ugliness was so trendy (from Francis Bacon?). What I see of it from time to time only confirms me in my decision.

  • Frank P

    Spacer

    You goddit, he’s a doppleganger for Richard Neville, but less polite.

  • “Booring” – I think you might have inadvertently coined a very useful word.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Thanks for the comments. I won’t respond to all of them but here are some broad points:

    “Taki is at least entertaining”. Hmmm. I am not quite as inclined as some of you to give the man a free pass, unless you think that being outrageous is always funny.

    Charles Copeland says that pointing out the influence of Jewish policymakers on US foreign policy is not necessarily sign of anti-Jew prejudice. Of course. But bear in mind that a key element of Jew-bashing has been the insinuation of a dual loyalty on the part of Jews. Taki is a classic offender.

    Quite a few of you don’t think Boris is up to the job, given his other responsibilities/views. You are probably correct.

    I forgot to mention Gilligan. Yes, I think there ought to be a golden rule at the Speccie – never hire rejects from the BBC.

    Rgds.

  • Verity

    Jonathan, you sly thing. You are intentionally conflating “entertaining” and “funny”. Some of us posted that Taki is quite often an entertainly, meaning engaging, read. I don’t believe any of us claimed he is funny.

    To be fair to you, I don’t think he’s a particular fan of Jews, but I don’t think he wishes them any harm and, indeed, likes and admires some individual Jewish people. I feel the same way about the French.

    I didn’t think Boris was up to the job even before he had other responsibilities in addition to the burden of charming for Britain. He wasn’t up to the job before he was an MP. The man’s not an editor. I suspect he never had any affection for The Speccie, nor for its readership. It was a vehicle for him to develop his profile and further his personal advancement. My suspicion that Johnson is very lazy is confirmed weekly when I take a look at the most recent ragbag. No thought. No guiding hand. Just stuff it all in and hope you’ve got a magazine.

    I’d be interested in seeing the circulation figures since he took over.

  • Verity

    Are we minting new words at a rate of knots on this thread, or what? First Kirk Parker’s ‘booring’ which is quite good. And then my ridiculous ‘entertainly’. Must be spring fevering.

  • Johnathan

    Verity, I think you are being sly! I mean, most folk, in using the word entertaining, do so about an experience that is enjoyable in some way. Not quite sure that Taki’s comments on the Middle East and domestic US politics fall into that category.

  • Taki is a bigot. Or at least pretends to be; his articles have such a contrived tone that at first I thoght he was joking. Now I assume that he was jilted at sometime by a Jewish woman — or man, for that matter — one never knows with fellows like Taki — and is trying to get back at her/him by globalizing his own hurt.

    That’s sad; what worse is his pathetic pomoposity. Even if he is friends with all those plummy people, does he really think anyone cares? It’s embarassing; he just tries so hard to impress us — it’s weird. I don’t like even Taki and yet I am embarassed (for him) to see a man make such a fool of himself.

    And what is far worse than that is that people actually take him seriously. The first time I ran across his column — a year ago? — I thought it was some sort of odd, inexplicable British satire of a fool.

  • Verity

    OK, Jonathan! I ought to have said, “engaging read”, in that his columns engage the attention, whether one agrees or not. In that sense, although I don’t always read him, when I do, I seem to always stick with the piece to the end. Which is more than I can say of Boris’s pieces in The Telegraph.

    I don’t know why I suddenly got backed into a corner defending Taki, given he’s hardly the first piece I read each week. But David Sucher, I think you’ve missed the point of Taki. He has strong opinions and doesn’t fear to express them. In politically correct America, this counts, for some reason, as bad manners.

    I don’t think he’s a bigot. As I wrote above, I don’t think he holds out any great love for Jewish people as in the faceless masses, but at the same time, I certainly do not think he wishes them harm. And I’ve read him defending Jews before now.

    His column is light and a throwback to the old Cholly Knickbocker pieces in The New Yorker, but they’re tongue in cheek. Taki has a sense of humour. He doesn’t take himself overly seriously, and he doesn’t expect the reader to do so, either.

  • John F

    One angle I think may be worth considering. Verity suggests BoJo is overly friendly re. Blair. I suggest the opposite, to the point of obsession.

    Reading his recent pieces in the Telegraph and The Spectator on Iraq, and considering the use of Liddle, Gilligan among others etc. seems to indicate that an almost aesthetic anti-Blairism is at the heart of it.

    Never mind the big picture: Kelly, Hutton, WMD, terror, Iraq, those awful Bushies, Israel, GM crops, whatever, it’s all potential mud to sling at Blair. I also have a sneaking suspicion that had a Conservative government done the exact same things, it would have been fine.
    And in pursuit of Blair, why not pursue an inclusive anti-war, anti-Bush alignment of the ‘chattering classes’ from left and right?

    Much as I would like to see the back of this government, the lack of principle and intellectual application in the among much of the Conservative Party sometimes disgusts me even more. It has been a bane to this country since 1945, if not longer.
    (Liberals say “all should be equal at the start of the race”; Socialists say “all be equal at the end of the race”; Tories say “sod the race, just give us the prizes, we’ve always had them and always should”.)

    It reminds me of other Tories who slam New Labour as somehow a cheat, expressing nostalgia for the good old days of ‘principled Labour’ – Foot, Benn etc. – who of course had the decency not to win elections. Whose litany is ‘New Labour! Spin doctor! Tony’s cronies!’

    The IdioTorians perhaps? Slogan: ‘We should rule! Because we are us.’

  • Oh Verity…how you betray your name.

  • Verity

    David Sucher – I do not like your remark. Explain it.

    The truth is, as I see it, Taki isn’t a fan of Jews in the aggregate, especially NY Jews. I do not believe this is a crime. He has Jewish friends. He has defended them in print. Even if he had no Jewish friends, Taki is free to like whomever he chooses.

    In addition, Sucher, he is not trying to impress you with his column. His father was a multi-squillionaire Greek ship owner swimming in the same general pool as Aristotle Onassis. He grew up rich, rich, rich. He grew up a playboy, which he still is. He is also a fairly amusing writer of trivial short pieces. I don’t know who you are that you think Taki should be interested in impressing you, but you are deluded.

    And do not tell me, with dark knowing, that I am betraying my name. Have the courage to explain yourself or apologise.

  • Verity

    David Sucher – As I said in the post above, have the courage to accuse me and tell me how I betray my name or apologise. Sending me an email repeating that I am betraying my name does not meet my terms.

    Taki may or may not be a buffoon – I don’t know; I’ve never met him – but he writes light pieces that are sometimes quite entertaining. He is 100 times more entertaining and 100 times less self-regarding than the deadly Petronella Wyatt, for example.

    You ask whether I cannot see a bigot when I see one (your phrase). Yes. I think I can. I think I’m looking at one right now.

  • Frank P

    Verity

    No doubt you have already, but if you haven’t, click on Mr Sucher’s URL and surf around the links thereupon. You’ll get the picture.

    Incidentally, Taki seems to be a true bill to me – but I read him as a very amusing raconteur from the milieu of ‘high life’ which is indeed what the column title indicates; he certainly is a better gossip columnist than most of those who profess that trade and he speaks from first hand experience, not tittle tattle from upper class snitches doing it for spite or money. His name dropping is delicious and you just know he’s not bullshitting. Certainly he’s been spot-on about some of the historical incidents of which I had personal knowledge (as a paid and official nosey parker). Particularly as my best snouts were high tariff toms and casino owners. He’s very loyal to his friends and will never, thank Heaven, grasp the concept of political correctness.

    Boris no longer deserves columnists of his consistency, even if at times one does not agree with a particular beef or hobby horse that Taki pursues, nobody can ever say that he doesn’t pack his 800 words or so with quirky humour and interest.

    It will be interesting to see what transpires when the ownership of the mag is finally resolved. BJ has no doubt got his next niche already earmarked. I don’t dislike BJ. Just think he’s a bit of a prat and not up to the job. Which is a shame, because the Spectator really needs to be preserved for it’s faithful subscribers like y.t.

    Seems Mr Sucher cut and ran, or maybe you know better? Must ask Echelon for a copy of your e-mail with him 🙂

  • Geez, Verity…you are so sensitive. Lighten up.

  • Verity

    No, Sucher. You are the touchy one and you are the aggressor.

  • Frank P

    Though this thread is now apparently dormant, I must, just in case someone decides to return to it, draw attention to Taki’s article in Speccie (April 3rd) He must have been reading this thread because he seems to have fed the ire of all his critics with this piece, which is an assault on American women, particularly of the Jewish variety. But unfortunately, it is still very funny. Oh Dear!

    His recycled Bloomingdales joke (which I bet was coined by a Jewish comedian) is however a little dated. Last time I visited the store, quite recently, the staff seemed to have been drawn almost entirely from the African American or Jamaican female populace as did the clientele. Perhaps it was just one of those days.

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