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"NOTORIOUS CONSERVATIVE" OUT OF BRITAIN
Mark Steyn is no longer published in the UK. Leftoid Guardian columnist Lionel Shriver will miss him, as will thousands:
His column has now been dropped by both the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. I don’t know the inside story, so I can’t be certain that the jettisoning of this notoriously conservative Canadian constitutes political self-censorship.
Thus my indignation is solely on account of my own entertainment. Fair enough, few Guardian readers would share his hard-right views. I don’t always agree with him either, but I love Mark Steyn. Even though I write them, I cannot bear most columns, which when light-hearted usually err on the trivial, and when serious usually err on the po-faced. But however you may deplore his opinions, Steyn is funny. How often do you read comment pages and laugh aloud? He writes about big issues with tremendous energy, and he has a sensibility now more pertinent to British politics than ever: a refined sense of the absurd.
Steyn remains available to print readers in Canada, New York, Jerusalem, Chicago, and Australia, among other zones. The Telegraph and Spectator have lost their best columnist.
UPDATE. Local comic columnist Kenneth Davidson—no Mark Steyn, but who is?—takes advantage of a Kim Beazley speech on climate change to deliver a series of sly gags about the Labor leader’s weight problem:
This speech shows that, unlike the Government, he is prepared to spell out the enormity of the problem of climate change, accept the fact that it is largely man-made ...
Oh, mercy!
The Telegraph and Spectator have lost their best columnist.
Indeed they have. This is most likely due to the demise of Conrad Black and Hollinger Inc. Mark has written for newspapers owned by Holliger (National Post, Daily Telegraph, Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times). Wherever he writes a column, I will regularly go to the online version of that publication and read his column. Tuesdays have been earmarked as my day to read the Daily Telegraph. Well no more.
Same was true for the National Post. As long as it published Mark’s column, I would read it, not stopping with my favorite column but also read other columns, editorials, and news articles also. But no more.
Mark, I wish you would reconsider your decision not to write a column for the Wall Street Journal. Or for the New York Times. Their publications need your insight desperately.
I suppose I will have to pay for a subscription for the National Review. I have to satisfy my addiction to Mark Steyn’s conservative humor.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 09 at 09:59 AM • permalinkLike the Oilers letting Gretzky go south. Is Peregrine Wolstenholme still holme?
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 09 at 10:06 AM • permalinkThree things to say about this.
First - I was feeling pretty pleased to hear of the reported retirement of the West Australian’s little pundit Andre Malan. But losing Mark Steyn is a disaster that wipes out one’s pleasure at little Andre’s reported departure.
Second - what is the real story behind this?
Third - What sex is Lional Shriver? The picture is puzzling indeed in this regard.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2006 03 09 at 10:44 AM • permalinkyeah, bummer the Steyner is out of the Spec and Tel dead tree media, but he will live online, and his readership will reach the mega-millions in years to come.
There’s some brilliant Muslim stand-up comics, but are there any funny MoDevoted columnists in the world?
No, Pilger and Fisk - humour be upon them - don’t count.
Miranda Devine is a very funny columnist, and Piers Hackerman is hysterical. The Bolter tries, but he’s Miranda.
That reminds me, a few days and no MoToon stories? What’s going on, TB?
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 09 at 11:02 AM • permalinkSteyn writes in the frankest terms about Islam and Eutopia/Eurabia—the twin head-in-the-sand issues facing Telegraph and Spectator readers.
Could it be that the publishers were concerned about the potential for Muslim (over)reaction to his stridency?
Give the way the press muzzles itself nowadays . . .
damn, first post here and already a typo…
that should read : “The Bolter tries but he’s no Miranda.”
I’m new at this, so be gentle.
The way the the circulation figures have plunged for the London Telegraph, perhaps they couldn’t afford Steyn?
Dead tree media are cutting back all over the Western world, at least, as more advertising revenue shifts online.
However, newspaper circs are soaring across India, Pakistan, South East Asia.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 09 at 11:22 AM • permalinkMy guess, cosmo, is that the Telegraph and Spectator readership is with Steyn, but the Conservative party and its traditional organs would rather focus on appearing nice and non-confronational in the hope that the electorate will just get bored with Labour and want a different set of faces running the same left-of-centre policies.
I let my subscription to the Spectator lapse recently
His recent column on muslim demographics was pretty hard-hitting. I suspect it raised issues allot of people didn’t want to face. I’m not saying that it had anything to do with him no longer being published in the UK, but then I didn’t in my wildest dreams anticipate the utter spinelessness and cowardice of the press over the motown cartoons.
I’m not be facetious, that really did astonish and alarm me.
#.8 I just think its generation change at the Torygraph and with bringing people in from Associated Newspapers they have started this game of copying The Mail.
Story is that Murdoch wants Tabloid Times to go for Mail readers and Torygraph wants to go for Mail readers - hence buy in Heffer and top management from Assoc Newspapers.
It will end in tears. The Times is dead and should merge with The Sun - a real tabloid. Guardian should merge with The Independent and die gracefully.
The Telegraph should get proper focus and stop the touchy-feely colour masthead and turning half page adverts, so people could get real news.
Instead they are destroying both Telegraph and Spectator franchises and I suspect The Barclay Bros. may end up regretting this purchase - younger Telegraph readers will go Blog and older ones will switch to Yorkshire Post or similar.
The Marketing people are going to destroy the business they acquired from Hollinger.
I am a big Steyn (and Blair) fan from the UK. There had been hints of problems for some time and first went the Telegraph column then, inevitably, the Speccy ones.
There are big shake-ups still going on at the Telegraph Group - Sarah Sands, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph, was sacked a couple of days ago but the Steyn winding-down thing has been going on for a while.
Basically, there is truth in all of what the above commenters say: he’s probably a bit too closely associated with the Black era; he’s not pc; the Tory establishment don’t like his talking points all that much (nor him: a former Spectator editor of his once asked him “And who are you?” or suchlike at a Spectator party); he’s not in with the Associated Newspapers (Daily Mail) crowd, etc, etc, so the face doesn’t fit.
Of course, they couldn’t be more wrong. What’s more, Steyn thinks he will be back soon enough. I guess, ironically, he’ll turn up at the Daily Mail and I just pray he doesn’t write for the Express. I wonder how many people know that he cut his teeth (and found his wife, I think) on the Independent - the now-infamous lefty rag!!
Posted by aristeides on 2006 03 09 at 01:00 PM • permalinkMark Steyn quit the Daily Telegraph of his own accord. He wasn’t in the Sunday Telegraph in the whole nine month reign of its outgoing editor who was sacked this week. Hopefully the new editor will bring him back.
Mark Steyn was the only reason I spent £2.95 a week on the Spectator so his sacking saves me money.
Oh I’ve just checked out his website where he says
MARK REPLIES: As I said last week, the Telegraph Group owes us money which it’s being remarkably uncooperative in ponying up. But one day I’ll be back in print in the United Kingdom again. After I left The National Post, the general view among rival papers was that they didn’t need a right-wing madman like me in Canada. But a year or two went by and they all came creeping back with their woefully inadequate offers. I wouldn’t be surprised to get the odd tinkle from Fleet Street before too long.
"I have studied the eyes of the fanatics who regularly picket abortion clinics in the US and I do not see love of tiny unborn babies. I see hatred.” - Lionel Shriver
Next up, her phrenological study of gun control opponents.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 03 09 at 04:33 PM • permalink18. Maybe they see dead babies, Lionel, and hate what they see?
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 09 at 05:08 PM • permalinkSo that’s two losses for the Brits in two days. Yesterday the Australian “howthebloodyhellareya” tourist commercial was banned on British TV and now Mark Steyn is no longer available in their print media.
I’m not suggesting the two are related or equally important. I just feel sorry for the Brits that they are missing out on all these things that make me feel happy and free.
For clear thinking, Mark Steyn’s salute to Danna Vale (Tim’s “Australia” link, above) should be read by every Aussie, especially the new ones.Thoughtful piece from Davidson, apart from the fat jokes.
Yet more proof that global warming could be worse than Y2K
Sail on Ship of Fools!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 09 at 06:03 PM • permalinkI can’t agree he was the best columnist in The Speccie. Personally, I didn’t like Steyn’s columns anyway, though I can see how others might make a case for him. But there’s a whole stable of talented writers for The Spectator. Boris Johnson - now he’s a writer to write home about. So long as he continues to contribute the occasional column to the magazine while continuing his career in Tory politics, I’ll be happy.
I like Steyn, he’s an excellent columnist and he wrote a very nice dedication to me when I bought “The Face of the Tiger” while I was overseas. But I have also noticed that he has a tendency to recycle some of his material in columns written in different markets, so that you would see lines that he had written in the Chicago Sun-Times on Monday repeated in the Spectator on Thursday (note: these may not be the days his columns appeared in those papers and I randomly picked those days to illustrate my point). I wonder if that had anything to do with the British papers not picking hime up.
The biggest loss will be Mark Steyn’s film reviews in the Speccie. He is the best film reviewer in the World today because he doesn’t toady to the deadshits of Hollywood. In fact he always shows how crap American films have become since the “film makers” (dread phrase) became leftist dildos. Unfortunately the woman who has replaced Steyn is someone who holds respect for the film community and gushed about that prize arsehole Clooney.
I don’t always agree with Mark Steyn either, but I love him! Not because he makes me laugh...which he does, but because he makes me think. He is challenging, intelligent and, above all, he’s got balls!
So Steyn is a “hard-right conservative” is he???
It seems to me that anyone who challenges the dogma of political correctness, no matter how self-evident those challenges may be, they are disparagingly labelled that way.
Stay on target Mate!I unreservedly admire the writing skills of Mark Steyn. He raises big issues and comments on them with complete logicality and with humour. He is clearly confrontational and has a value set which is the starting point of his logical arguments. If you do not have the same value set he still presents enough facts for you to see where he is coming from.
He will never convince a leftie but he will make the vast majority of people who are pragmatists consider a new perspective. Among many of his arguments he made one recently when he pointed to the fertility rate of Spain and pointed out that within 25 years there would be half the indigenous Spanish around that there are today.
I am not Spanish and have no special affinity for them but it for some reason it hit me right between the eyes. I spent a lot of the rest of the day checking facts using the internet and was forced to finally agree with him. A new perspective on birth control and its cultural impact for me.
I also have spent a lot of time with strategic managers in newspapers and the wax and wane of a columnist with a paper is nothing new. As Mark has pointed out, he will be back.
#22 TimT. Wrong about Boris, I’m afraid. Steyn nailed the latte Conservatives like him and he didn’t like it. I don’t understand why Boris thinks his party has a hope without doing a John Howard fast [grow a backbone].
He was a sorry wimp on the Motoons too.
Quite simply, snobbish Boris is a Small Britain Man, Steyn is World Man.
Steyn more than matched the great prose writers on the Speccie. One more reason not to read it.I’ve loved reading the odd article of his that I’ve been pointed to from here, but honestly, that site of his is a chore to work out.
He needs to have a review of the layout and come up with something that clearly lists his latest writings in date order. He’s got that Yellow box up top with “stuff” in it, then below SteynOn<something> (where’s the LSD column?), none of it has any dates.
Where to I find the latest column such as that I’d find in the paper editions? Yeah I probably can, but it really shouldn’t be an effort.
Boris Johnson couldn’t fill Steyn’s
jock strapgaloshes. Steyn is not simply one of the best, he is the best columnist.Period.
I base that on five + years of reading columns in the WSJ, the NYT, the SMH, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Independent, Irish Times, Times of London, Japan Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, Toronto Sun, the National Post, Spectator, and many many more.
Not even close.
(Interestingly, the only other person I can think of who has a natural talent for humorous writing and witty comments is—Tim Blair)
Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 09 at 09:11 PM • permalinkMark Steyn is no longer published in the UK.
Because hey, if no one’s complaining, then there’s no problem... ‘what iceberg, helmsman?’
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 09 at 09:14 PM • permalinkI haven’t paid much attention to the British print media since the Paul Raymond people took over Mayfair and turned it into another gynecology rag…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 09 at 09:16 PM • permalinkBarrie, Wron - can’t agree with you two. Even if I knew more about Boris’s political position within the Tory party, and didn’t like it, it’s pretty clear he is by far the better writer. He’s got much more versatility and talent, and his columns are a joy to read. A few months ago I picked up a copy of his 2001 election diary Friends, Voters, Countrymen, and it was one of my standout reading experiences for the year.
I suspect that Steyn is a victim of his own prohecy.
England now has over two million Muslims and their number is growing fast. In addition, they exert an influence way in excess of their number (about 4% of the population). This is due to three factors; they tend to concentrate in specific towns (e.g. Bradford, Blackburn, Luton, Leicester etc), they are young, and they are very vocal, being the first to complain at any perceived slight.
The reason that none of the UK media published the cartoons was a fear of reprisals from the Muslim community and a corresponding decline in sales. It is this same fear of igniting controversy that has made the Spectator (which initially published the cartoons and then withdrew them the same day) and The Telegraph pull the plug on Steyn (a renowned anti-Islamist).
If a recent cartoon poll is anything to go by, i suspect his time at The Australian is limited too.
Posted by pommygranate on 2006 03 10 at 12:39 AM • permalinkSteyn is a very, very good drama critic as well. Read his stuff in the New Criterion. If he were so inclined I think he could easily step into the top rank of film critics and not miss a beat. The studios would hate him because he’d call the 90% of the stuff out there that’s dreck dreck, but he’d be great.
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2006 03 10 at 01:55 AM • permalinkI enjoy Steyn’s film and drama criticism, but I still think stylistically he’s quite limited; he doesn’t do much more than give a readable and sometimes witty run-down of the facts.
Didn’t he once write a book about Broadway musicals? He always brings an interesting perspective to the films/plays/musicals he reviews.
Who’s the new editor of The Spectator, anyway?
Boris Johnson was one of those tools that Steyn justifiably criticizes. He (Boris) was initially all gung ho for war in Iraq but as soon as the going got tough he fell in a teary heap and started wringing his hands over every minor setback and lashing out at everybody who shared his initial enthusiasm. I still distinctly remember reading one of his articles in the Telegraph where he calls George Bush a cross-eyed Texan cowboy. This from the editor of Britain’s leading conservative paper. By the way, I think that role has now been passed on to the quarterly ‘Salisbury Review’. A great read.
Richie,
That quote has been circulating the left-wing blogosphere for a while. I came across it a while back, and I was very surprised that Boris would say something like that. This is the quote as it has appeared on variious left-wing sites:The President is a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy
It turns out it was a misquote. It originally appeared as an editorial in The Spectator. Here’s how it appeared in that editorial.
By the time this magazine hits the streets it will be jostling for space with about a million marchers. It is important to be fair to those who have turned out to parade their hatred of the American President. Some of them may be inspired by principled objections to, say, the treatment of prisoners in Camp Delta, or US steel tariffs. These are indeed powerful points to be made against Mr. Bush’s government. What has brought so many folk on to the streets, however, is a much broader case: that the President is a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy, and who by his violent and ill-thought-out actions in Afghanistan and Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place.
Clearly, whoever wrote this editorial does not agree with the quote. (If it doesn’t seem so clear to you, then read on. You need a password to get to the original article online, by the way.)
I’d be surprised to find out that it was common practice for The Telegraph to recycle Spectator editorials as columns. Can you provide a link for this Telegraph column?
TimT,
I haven’t a fucking clue who or what you are. You’re entitled to your opinion. I will say that I used to read the online version of Spectator religiously. Boris Johnson is yes, a good writer. But not in Mark Steyn’s league, in my opinion.
Steyn is one of perhaps three columnists that I have printed off copies of columns and mailed them to colleagues, other columnists, relatives, etc. He writes insightfully on issues of greatest importance and does it in a persuasive and humorous way. In a poll of conservative readers of the most favorite columnists and writers, he almost always comes in first. Johnson? Usually not in the top twenty.
But as I said, you’re entitled to your viewpoint chap.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 10 at 04:12 AM • permalinkBoris Johnson is way too smug and self-satisfied. Mark Steyn is probably the only writer on The Spectator who wasn’t sleeping with the publisher.
It is a fringe rag that needed people like Steyn to create punch and impact and have a forthright opinion without descending into verbiage.
Most journalism is boring and follows the primary school precept of “What i did in the holidays....” as they lay out the articles exactly the same way...."Mr X, 36, of.......was sitting down to lunch when this big story exploded his horizons....”
Seemingly English readers are so brain-dead that everything has to relate to the personal.
What English journalists need is Precis Work and a sharper edge; just like English TV drama which pads out events with introspective navel-gazing. Sharp dialogue is not a modern trait, more poor lighting and banal dialogue.
Steyn brings a sharper edge to fluffy minds
Wron,
The fact that Steyn comes in at the top of these polls might have something to do with the fact that he lives in New Hampshire, and writes for a number of American publications - the voting base in America there is much larger, after all.
I understand Boris is well known in the UK but not well known elsewhere; probably due to the fact that he is usually published in British publications but not in American ones (in contrast to Steyn).
The Spectator does have one writer who is as good as Steyn, Theodore Dalrymple.
But I have also noticed that he has a tendency to recycle some of his material in columns written in different markets, so that you would see lines that he had written in the Chicago Sun-Times on Monday repeated in the Spectator on Thursday
Yes I think I remember reading a few years ago that Hollinger were trying to pay him for only one article when his National Post and Spectator articles were similar, so he started inserting the jokes about obscure Canadian politicians into his Spectator article and those about obscure British figures into the National Post. They soon started paying him properly.
Steyn is to journalism as Chandler was to crime fiction. So you like him or don’t like him, fine. It doesn’t change his writing.
But Steyn brought a blowtorch to issues post 9-11 where others offered handshakes and cups of tea and limp stupidity and misunderstanding.
Steyn is just a writer like the rest of most of us but he happens to know the truth of what is happening in the world and happens to be able to write about it. Well.
His movie reviews? Just more proof he can write whatever he wants and to hell with the critics.
Yes, I have heard rumours he was no longer going to write for the Speccie or the DT at the end of last year. Its a great shame and will make the DT just a little less attractive to read.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2006 03 10 at 08:04 AM • permalinkI feel strongly that Mark Steyn is nothing less than genius, a step up on the evolutionary ladder of punditry. My first exposure to his writing was a column in the Wall Street Journal about ten years ago. His writing was clever, his reasoning sound, his citations and examples compelling. But what made me appreciate his writing more than the Victor Davis Hansens, the Charles Krauthammers, the Paul Krugmans, is his ingenious use of humor. Parody, puns, satire, lyrics, he uses it all to draw attention to the more salient points.
Indeed, it was my appreciation of Mark Steyn’s writing that created a need to find more writings by others of similar abilities and talents. I found several who come close. James Lileks and Tim Blair are among them. (A columnist for the Irish Times who wrote a parody on the Durbin Conference on Racism especially comes to mind). But no one equals Mark Steyn. Certainly not Boris Johnson.
It is no wonder to me that the Wall Street Journal six years or so ago trumpeted the addition of Mark as a regular columnist, only to regretfully announce a few weeks later that he reconsidered his decision and withdrew. It was apparently due to his commitments to other newspapers and publications. Well now that those commitments are decreasing in number and quality, I hope he takes this rare opportunity to add his voice to my daily WSJ. It certainly needs his talents.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 10 at 10:15 AM • permalinkIt is also great to hear him on Hugh Hewitt’s radio programme every thursday at 6pm eastern time (US)
Posted by Quidnunc Savant on 2006 03 10 at 10:08 PM • permalinkThanks Richie.
I did a google search. It turns out Boris has used the term a number of times - evidently he finds it a useful way of characterising left-wing views about George Bush, since that is always the context in which it appears.
<a href="www.boris-johnson.com/archives/ 2004/11/bush_owes_blair_and_must_deliv_1.php">The article you mention, linked here, on his website,</a> was actually satirical. I didn’t read it all, but I read the first few paragraphs, and what BJ seems to be doing is summarising the standard left-wing argument so he can knock it down. He goes on to state that he supports George Bush, and why.
In this one - published in the Telegraph in 2005 - he uses the term again, and again it’s a way of characterising a standard left-wing viewpoint, although this time he doesn’t make it clear, and it looks to me like he’s using the term to make fun of the Labour party at the same time as appealing to those British voters who don’t like George Bush.
I agree that he is actually being two-faced in that second article: he’s trying to appeal to Tory voters and Labour voters at the same time. The most that could be said for him is - a) his wording was sloppy, and - b) his intention was to satirise the Labour party, and if you want his views on Iraq, read some of his other articles.
This doesn’t quite convince me; it’s unlikely that a man who writes as well as Johnson and who has been an editor of a major international magazine for several years would make that sort of mistake.But, y’know, he’s still a damn good writer. Those articles show that.
response from the editor of the UK Spectator regarding the status of Mr. Steyn (rcvd this AM):
“Dear Mr ,
Many thanks for your email. We hope to have Mark Steyn back our pages very soon.
Best wishes,
Matthew d’Ancona
EditorTel: 0207 440 9269
“
Posted by Ron Pettengill on 2006 03 13 at 06:58 AM • permalink
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Well, England’s loss, certainly.
At least Britania’s noble citizens can still read him online.