Ben's Blog
New Statesman website editor Ben Davies's weekly ramblings plus feedback on hot online topics
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
- 4 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
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- 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
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- 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 [...]
newstatesman.com commended at award ceremony
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- Posted by Ben Davies
- 16 November 2007
How newstatesman.com was runner up at a prestigious awards ceremony plus a far from quiet American in Italy...
A few weeks ago I may have modestly mentioned being nominated for the British Society of Magazine Editor's web editor of the year award.
Well this week my wife, self, magazine deputy editor Sue Matthias and our web developer Dan Coppock trooped along to the Park Lane Hilton to see the gongs doled out.
As it happens we were pipped at the post by the editor of Empire's website [...]
Advice for Gordon...
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- Posted by Simon Hooper
- 02 November 2007
What should the Prime Minister do now? Send us your ideas
With Gordon Brown and his advisors apparently still sulking in their bunker in the aftermath of the election that wasn’t and Labour’s subsequent slide from favour in the polls, newstatesman.com thought it was about time somebody gave some thought to what the Prime Minister ought to do next.
So we got together with the Fabian Society to ask progressive thinkers – including Anthony Giddens, Shami Chakrabati and Kate [...]
Kirst when it comes to TV talent
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- Posted by Ben Davies
- 26 October 2007
A nomination, a load of new content and the perils of indulging in nepotism
Such a long time has elapsed since I wrote my last blog that I scarcely know where to begin. So let's start with some blatant self-congratulations.
A few days back we were told newstatesman.com is up for an award at the British Society of Magazine Editors annual bash in November.
We're up against the websites of the Radio Times, GQ, Now and various others. All very gratifying and [...]
Boris Johnson. We're delighted...
- 5 comments
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 27 September 2007
newstatesman.com's campaign to help the Conservative Party with its London mayoral primary sees Boris Johnson victorious ... for now
Cast your minds back a few weeks and you will recall that we at newstatesman.com were urging our London-based readers to get involved in the Tory London mayoral primary.
For the price of a £1.50 phonecall and, regardless of your own voting intentions, you could register to have a say in who would go head-to-head with Ken Livingstone in the name of Conservatism...
There were four contenders: Victoria Borwick, [...]
Take that Marks and Spencers...
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- Posted by Ben Davies
- 21 September 2007
A one-man consumer boycott, Tony Benn, Zac Goldsmith, the BBC cat and other issues...
We've got rather a lovely little spat underway here at newstatesman.com. It all stems from Sian Berry's reaction to the Conservative Party's Quality of Life review put together by Tory A-lister Zac Goldsmith and ex-cabinet minister John Gummer.
A few days after we posted Sian's blog Zac responded accusing her of not even reading the report.
Well NS blogger and Green Party London mayoral candidate wasn't taking that [...]
