Ben's Blog
New Statesman website editor Ben Davies's weekly ramblings plus feedback on hot online topics
No room for bigots
- 66 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 11 November 2008
Why there are some subjects that are so polarising I'm coming to the conclusion it's almost impossible to allow comments
It's tempting, as the editor of a website, to commission subjects that will get as many comments as possible. The theory goes that a lively comments section drives hits and given websites like ours are businesses that's quite a consideration.
But there's a serious downside to this. The web's provided all manner of characters with a brand new opportunity to access a mass audience and quite frankly an awful lot [...]
London's loss, Caracas' gain
- 3 comments
- Posted by Simon Hooper
- 29 August 2008
Ditched by Londoners, it's nice to know that someone stands to benefit from Ken's years of experience in City Hall
With his successor doing his bit for Anglo-Chinese relations with his flag-waving "ping pong's coming home" performance in Beijing last weekend, it's nice to see Ken Livingstone back in work this week as a consultant to his old friend Hugo Chavez. London, it seems, is just not big enough for these larger than life political characters.
Apparently Livingstone's brief is to get Caracas moving. Having visited the Venezuelan [...]
Trinny and Susannah fats your lot
- 4 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 13 August 2008
Thought the freak show was a thing of the past? Well check out the programmes that make the overweight undress for your entertainment. Or rather don't bother...
You know how the Americans used to pay money to look at the deformed in circus freak shows? If that appeals to you, try the modern day version.
The utterly loathsome programme Trinny and Susannah undress the nation is another spin on the Gok Wan show how to look good naked. (Notice I'm not linking to either of them).
I'm not sure which came first but basically both have [...]
Tories sail into stormy waters
- 0 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 06 August 2008
What's going on on newstatesman.com plus devastating news of a Tory split. Or is it just a big Cameron PR cook-up?
This week on newstatesman.com the Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov writes exclusively on Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who related the terrible truth about Soviet totalitarianism in his Gulag Archipelago.
Kurkov observes: "Alexander Isaevich outlived his era and never truly accepted the new ‘post-soviet’ epoch.
"Having sincerely dedicated his life to a desperate struggle against communism, in 1991 Solzhenitsyn suddenly found himself without a battle to fight."
We hear from the great AL [...]
Dark days for Brown
- 14 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 31 July 2008
Is the situation worse for Gordon Brown than it was for John Major in the dying days of the last Tory administration?
It's all looking rather bleak for Gordon Brown. In fact, if you agree with veteran Conservative politician John Gummer, the situation's actually worse for the prime minister than it was for John Major as his government faltered to extinction.
Writing this week on newstatesman.com, Gummer says: "I fought my first election more than forty years ago and I can’t remember anything comparable. Even as a cabinet minister living through the [...]
Hitler's head
- 0 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 15 July 2008
Goodbye Sian Berry, the 150th anniversary of Emmeline Pankhurst plus Tom Quinn, our Mormon correspondent, heads back to the States. And some strange memories of Madam Tussauds...
First my thanks to Sian Berry who has been a regular contributor on newstatesman.com since we relaunched on 30 November 2006.
Having spent a great deal of the past 18 months in the public eye as Green co-principal speaker and then as their candidate in the London mayoral elections, she is off to work in a key role in her party's press office. We wish her well. You can read [...]
Ray Lewis' resignation
- 3 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 05 July 2008
The extraordinary resignation of Boris Johnson's deputy mayor Ray Lewis saw me called in to BBC London on Friday night to take part in a discussion on the Tessa Dunlop show that involved London Assembly members and callers from around the capital.
It was two hours of lively debate as we all tried to take stock of the fact that Johnson, elected just two months ago on 1 [...]
Free speech and censorship
- 10 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 24 June 2008
The danger of being cheery, how we should deal with unruly commentors, and some of the exciting things ahead on newstatesman.com
Let me take a few minutes to put the boot into the Cheery Digest. A confirmed miserablist, I'm clearly not the target audience for this sort of thing.
Nor have I any idea who is behind this blog so why not read this and draw your own conclusions...
NEWS: Why we love the Queen ...
There's no two ways about it, our dear old Queen has a twinkle [...]
Sister Dorries and the labour camp
- 1 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 13 June 2008
Finally is it possible to work out the real agenda of David Cameron's Conservatives?
I commend to you the blog of Tory MP and friend of the Fundies (that's Christian Fundamentalists in case you didn't know) Nadine Dorries.
Have a good read and then contrast and compare the way her party leader, Lexus Dave Cameron, tries to pass himself off. You now know the form: no more laughing at the poor. No more scapegoating the single mothers. The caring wrinkling of the brow [...]
My apologies to Stanley Johnson
- 0 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 14 May 2008
Fears I may have offended Pater Johnson, reports from inside China and Burma plus what's going on in our blogs...
I fear I may have offended the amiable Stanley Johnson - father of London's new mayor. Stanley - a one-time Tory MEP and their enthusiastic if unsuccessful candidate for Teignbridge at the last general election - has expressed a desire to succeed his Bozza as MP for the über-safe Tory seat of Henley.
The news prompted me to fire off a rather cheeky email to Pa Johnson who [...]
Lembit - more interesting than PR
- 0 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 22 April 2008
The Lib Dem MP is to marry his Cheeky Girl - as announced in Hello
One politician who simply defies the description 'grey' is Lembit Öpik. The ebullient MP for Montgomeryshire first caught the collective media eye when he plummeted to earth.
He broke his back in the 1998 paragliding accident but, fortunately, recovered.
Other than that, Öpik is mainly known for two things - one, paradoxically, is his fascination with asteroids hitting the earth. The other is his unfeasibly eye-catching love life.
Earlier this [...]
Fantasy mayor
- 5 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 14 April 2008
The launch of newstatesman.com's Fantasy Mayor game. Find out which candidate most closely matches your views
The count down is well underway to the London mayoral election on 1 May. This is the closest contest yet and there's a very real danger of a Tory win.
As always with elections, turnout is key and in the hope of boosting interest in the 2008 contest we've been looking at some of the issues we feel are important - transport, crime, housing and so on.
But what do [...]
The campaign goes on
- 2 comments
- Posted by Simon Hooper
- 19 March 2008
£1 million in government funding is a small but significant victory for Rape Crisis
The news that the government has allocated £1 million in funding to keep Rape Crisis centres open in England and Wales is a very welcome success for newstatesman.com's Rape Crisis Campaign.
For many years, Rape Crisis has defied chronic under-funding to provide important support to victims of sexual violence. As Dr. Nicole Westmarland, Chair of Rape Crisis for England and Wales, tells newstatesman.com, Tuesday's announcement by women's minister Harriet [...]
If I were Tory leader and other matters
- 2 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 01 December 2007
Goldsmith, the Greens, Miss World, Water Wars plus if one was given the opportunity to rule...
What do you think of Miss World? Is it a bit of a joke? A relic from the sexist past? Or something that enforces a negative stereotype of women? With contestants due to don their bikinis in China this weekend we asked Bea Campbell and Ruth Lea to debate Miss World. Have a read and then why not add your thoughts?
This week we've also had an article on [...]
Bad language
- 2 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 25 November 2007
The strange thing about language, the anniversary of the death of Litvinenko, elections in Australia and Nick Clegg's aunt and the rest
One of our star turns on newstatesman.com is Victoria Brignell who writes on living life as a 'wheelchair rider' in her regular monthly slot Crip's Column.
This week she turned her wry gaze on the often vexed issue of language. Just how should we talk about disability. It's a useful - if inconclusive - insight into what labels are acceptable. As you would expect, I hope, there isn't unanimity [...]
