Media

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, yesterday declared that it was right not to prosecute doctors who authorised abortions which, according to a Telegraph investigation, were requested because of the gender of the foetus. It seems that the women mentioned more than one reason for the abortions so it wasn’t possible to isolate the gender selection element from the other factors. ‘The only basis for a prosecution would be that although we could not prove these doctors authorised a gender-specific abortion, they did not carry out a sufficiently robust assessment of the risks,’ he said. And just what might a ‘robust’ assessment of risk amount to? As Mr Starmer made clear it’s

I had never really understood the acronym ROTFLMAO properly until I read about the wretched Mehdi Hasan and his hypocritical denunciation of the Daily Mail, after having applied with cringing desperation to the same paper for a job. (Dacre told him to get lost, which is to his credit). My colleague Nick Cohen has filed an excellent analysis of this business, to which you should be directed if you yourself haven’t also had the opportunity to ROTFLMAO. But at least Mehdi will be in no trouble with his religion. He is, of course, famous for quoting the Koran to the effect that unbelievers are regarded as “cattle”. And by the

It is twenty years since Samuel Huntington’s essay ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ was first published in Foreign Affairs. On Monday night I took part in a discussion on BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves about the article (and the resulting book) which turned oddly nasty. I have always been a qualified admirer of Huntington’s most famous work (‘qualified’ because like most people who have read the book I admire its range and grasp while disagreeing with certain of its conclusions). But broadly admire it or not, it appears to be a difficult work to discuss. This is largely because it suffers the double-bind of being misunderstood by people who have not read it. Nine

The chief executive of The Guardian has delivered a rather grim verdict about the newspaper’s future (or lack thereof). ‘At the moment, I believe we could not survive in the U.K,’ says Andrew Miller, blaming the ‘oversupply’ of newspapers and the omnipresence of the BBC. He has been speaking to the New Yorker magazine which has run one of its brilliant investigations (read it all here) and his verdict is reinforced by the editor, Alan Rusbridger, who (the piece says) ‘can envisage a paperless Guardian in five to ten years’. Rusbridger can also ‘imagine…printing on only certain days’. So the newspaper that came out with the slogan ‘we own the

Pippa haters look away now. Mr Steerpike has learned that she has been included on a list of the most influential journalists in London. According to the Evening Standard’s Power 1000 (which has a section devoted to Fleet Street): ‘It says much about the state of modern journalism that Prince William’s sister-in-law is so in demand as a columnist for Vanity Fair and Waitrose Kitchen amongst others.’ Yes, and Mr S can think of another esteemed organ where Pippa regularly features… There was uproar when Pippa replaced Christopher Hitchens as a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. This list is sure to sooth those sceptics.  

Why was Melanie Phillips ousted as the Monday columnist for the Daily Mail? The Guardian suggests that she was frustrated by the ban on writing about Israel, which is not a restriction placed exclusively on Mel. Meanwhile, the peaceniks over at the Indy claim that Mel’s incendiary appearance on Question Time in June made Paul Dacre hit the red button. The clip above will refresh your memory. The Indy has an axe to grind (having lost Dominic Lawson, who is tipped to replace Mel); but I hear that it’s on the money. A source at the Mail tells me: ‘She played up to every stereotype of the paper, and it got too over the top’. Apparently, after the infamous

After spilling the communion wine down his cassock in an attempt to wade into the ongoing Wonga-row, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been rather quiet of late. Justin Welby faced acute embarrassment when he tried to throw the pay-day loan lenders out of the temple, only for it to be revealed that the Church of England’s investment portfolio include a significant stakes in such grubby money-lenders. Lambeth Palace have clearly learnt their lesson and are now seeking a ‘high profile and influential’ professional, with the ‘skills of a proven and visionary leader’ to help spin for God: ‘As a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s senior team, the Director of

I’ve never met the woman that the Newsnight editor Ian Katz this week accidentally described as ‘boring, snoring Rachel Reeves’, so for all I know, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury might be an absolute riot. Although actually, writing that, it occurs to me that maybe I have and she was just too boring for me to remember. Perhaps we sat next to each other at some sort of function, and had a fun chat about, ooh, fiscal prudence in a post-OBR paradigm, which involved her talking and me going ‘Mmmm’, and left her thinking, ‘He seems nice, I wonder if we’ll be friends?’ as she walked dreamily to