Melanie Phillips joins Spectator.co.uk

Max Kaye

Welcome!

Joshua

Very wise words from Mr. D'Ancona. The Spectator is fast becoming one of the last bastions of decency and sanity in the UK.

Oscar Miller

Max Kaye and Joshua - hear hear!

Tiberius

A very welcome edition to your team, Matt. Melanie's knowledge of Islamism is unrivalled, and her ability to unravel lazy arguments about Israeli "aggression" unsurpassed.

Mitch

Will her posts simply be copies of those on her existing blog www.melaniephillips.com?

David Lindsay

Phillips is superb on drugs and various other social policy issues, of course. But Tiberius, can we now look forward to articles about neoconservatism's links in 1980s Afghanistan, 1990s Bosnia, and today's Kosovo, Chechnya, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the no end of good that it has done in that same cause in Iraq, and is threatening to do in Syria? For that matter, will the scourge of Jew-hatred be telling us all about the neocons' Nazi connections in Bosnia (the same people as the Islamists), Kosovo (ditto), Denmark, Flanders, and indeed Israel, which the continuation of the Law of Return is flooding with Russian Nazis? I'm not holding my breath.

James Forsyth

Mitch, Melanie will now be blogging exclusively on this site. Although, her articles and Diary archive will still be available at melaniephillips.com

Chris

Well, well, five comments before the first loon. Good hire, but although I shall be reading Ms Phillips as before, I shall not be reading her commentators. No point doing so if I agree with them, and I can get all the anti-Semitic, anti-American raving I need at Comment is Free.

Flavious

Great addition !!!

David

It'd be good if you could try and get a left wing journalist for an alternative view. A problem with blogs is that they very often only reinforce readers' prejudices. An attempt to get a reasoned 'dissenting voice' would in my opinion lift this already fine blog into an untouchable first place. Perhaps not Polly Toynbee though.......

Joshua

I agree totally with Chris. The policy pursued by Oliver Kamm and Professor Norman Geras with regard to blog comments has much to commend it.

Tiberius

David; there is plenty of Left commentary on British TV news. There is no need to clog up these blogs with any more of it! However we do have David Lindsay...

David

"David; there is plenty of Left commentary on British TV news" So? This is an excellent blog. What would make it truly unmissable, in my opinion. As I said, I think what can hold blogs back is becoming echo chambers, and inviting an 'outside viewpoint' would really make this something special; the magazine itself does that, so why not the blog?

TGF UKIP

For a really liberal, left of centre, anti American, anti Israeli voice who loves promoting his own views there's always Ken Clarke. Or, come to think of it, there's quite a few other High Tories who would fit that description.

Lee Jakeman

What an excellent choice. Melanie combines two rare commodities - intelligence and common decency.

jfrancishill

and the glue binding them together:? Prose equal to the poetry of great English Poets.

eliXelx

We had rather, in the ways of Good, follow our enemies, than in the ways of Evil walk with our friends." After reading Ms. Phillips' blog for the past two years I know that she knows what Good and Evil are; and we usually agree!

Martin Miller

You should give David Lindsay a go, actually. Just look at his blog. "Pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war". He is an "economically social-democratic, morally and socially conservative British and Commonwealth patriot". Branded by others "the statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative voice of the provinces" and "the prophet, apostle and high priest of paleo-Labour" (defined as "Old Labour means to High Tory ends"). Only on the first page, he is currently saying the most interesting things about the need for a new party, about what sort of country Britain has become when it has an Electoral Commission, about Switzerland, about Poland, about how good Melanie Phillips is on domestic but not on foreign policy, about why Parliament should just reject the EU Treaty without any need for a referendum, about why the political centre should oppose both the EU and PR, about Belgium, about the Union, about the BBC, about rugby and different countries' relationships with the English upper class, about the LibDem leadership election, about the public sector's relationship with the private sector (and thus with the Conservative Party), and about the need for a party properly representative of the old Liberal areas (unlike the "Eurofederalist, anti-family, pro-crime and pro-drugs" LibDems). Where else but here could give a platform to a man who related being pro-life and pro-family to being pro-worker and anti-war? Who related being an economic social democrat to being a moral and social conseravtive, to being a British and Commonwealth patriot? Who related "provincial" "statism and syndicalism" to "provincial" "nationalism and theoconservatism", and "Old Labour means" to "High Tory ends", even if those are not his own words? Bring him on!

David Lindsay

Gosh! I really am touched. And I really am available for work, come to that. Out here in the "provinces", where General Elections are won and lost, you'll find that mine are mainstream opinions: "statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative", if you will. But was Martin Miller too frightened to mention my criticisms of Hillary Clinton and of the perceived power of Rupert Murdoch? Or just too frightened to mention my criticisms of Oliver Kamm and Iain Dale, so much mightier as we all know that they are? I actually cheered when Melanie Phillips told some pro-drugs philosopher on The Moral Maze that we should disregard his opinions because his brain had been addled by the substances that he was advocating. She spoke for the nation. Just as she does when (as she has done repeatedly) she denounces the evisceration of civil society under the Tories. But I don't know why she was or remains pro-war: there was nothing Islamist about Saddam Hussein, and Bush or Blair could only have believed that he was a threat to Israel if they had believed that he really did have WMDs. Of course, they never believed any such thing. And they were right not to.

Robert Leggat

A very warm welcome to Melanie. I always enjoy her incisive yet courteous pieces.