Here’s a first for Coffee House: a farewell by one of its contributors. And that contributor is me. It’s been four-and-a-half years since I first joined The Spectator to tend to this blog, but now I’m moving on. Or, rather, I’ll still be in the office until the end of next week — but I’ll be working on some non-blogging stuff then, so I thought I’d say goodbye to CoffeeHousers now.
It’s been a blast: the best first job in journalism that I could have hoped for. So I hope you don’t mind if I say a few thank-yous, Oscars style: to my first boss, Matt d’Ancona, and my second, Fraser Nelson; to James Forsyth, David Blackburn, Jonathan Jones and Liz Anderson; to all the website contributors; and to everyone else working in service of the best weekly magazine in the country.
Then, without wishing to get too cheesy about it, there’s also you CoffeeHousers. Thank you for reading, discussing and — yes — criticising my posts and articles. Feedback is pretty much the most valuable commodity in the journalistic world, and places like Coffee House mean that it now exists in abundance. I appreciate it.
You’ll be left in more capable hands once I’ve left. There’s our new website with its new contributors, of course. And my successor, Isabel Hardman, will soon move over from PoliticsHome. I’ll save the proper introductions for when she joins — but suffice to say that she’s good, really good, at this journalism lark.
As for me, I’m taking a holiday — and then you’ll see me around, not least because I’ll be doing more, on an ad hoc basis, for the print edition of The Spectator, as well as work elsewhere. In fact, you can read my interview with Tim Montgomerie in the latest issue of Tatler if you like. There’ll be more to come. And, in the meantime, if you feel like getting in touch, I’ll be on peterhoskin84 @ gmail.com (make sure to delete the spaces).
Anyway, goodbye for now.
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