Standpoint (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Standpoint is a monthly British cultural and political magazine. Its premier issue was published at the end of May 2008 – the first launch of a major current affairs publication in the UK in more than a decade.
The magazine describes its core mission as being "to celebrate western civilisation", its arts and its values – in particular democracy, debate and freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
– at a time when they are under threat.
The magazine is broadly centre-right in orientation, but aims to include a 'broad church' and to capitalize on the realignment of political attitudes in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
.
Features
Notable features of the magazine include dialogue interviews, in which two experts, often with opposing views, discuss an issue of contemporary importance. An edited transcript of the conversation is then published in the magazine. Recent examples include playwright Simon GraySimon Gray
Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
discussing the role of theatre in society with critic Charles Spencer
Charles Spencer (journalist)
Charles Spencer is a British journalist. He has been the drama critic of The Daily Telegraph since 1991. In 2006, Compton Miller of The Independent wrote in a profile: "This convivial ex-alcoholic is best remembered for his description of Nicole Kidman's nude scene in The Blue Room as 'pure...
, the former Chancellor Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
discussing global warming with Tory policy chief Oliver Letwin
Oliver Letwin
Oliver Letwin MP FRSA is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he is currently the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, and a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of West Dorset...
, Lionel Shriver discussing NHS challenges with Karol Sikora, the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove
Michael Gove
Michael Andrew Gove, MP is a British politician, who currently serves as the Secretary of State for Education and as the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the Surrey Heath constituency. He is also a published author and former journalist.Born in Edinburgh, Gove was raised in Aberdeen...
debating school reform with Chris Woodhead
Chris Woodhead
Sir Christopher Anthony Woodhead was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England from 1994 until 2000 and is one of the most controversial figures in debates on the direction of English education policy...
, and Nicholas Mosley
Nicholas Mosley
Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale, 7th Baronet of Ancoats MC is a British novelist. He is the eldest son of Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet and Lady Cynthia Mosley, a daughter of Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...
and Sir Raymond Carr
Raymond Carr
Sir Albert Raymond Maillard Carr FBA FRHS FRSL , known as Raymond Carr, is an English historian specializing in the history of Spain, Latin America, and Sweden who was Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1968 to 1987....
discussing the rise of fascism in Britain. The magazine also devotes significant space to new poetry and the visual arts. The first edition included new drawings by David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
and a recent issue includes new poems by Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill is an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation...
.
Standpoint is self-consciously transatlantic in both style and content, and has been compared to America's National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, which greeted the launch of Standpoint by publishing an article ending with the words "Rejoice, and subscribe!". Considering itself a rare pro-American voice in the UK, it aims to introduce American writers and American intellectual style to British readers.
Well-known contributors to the magazine have included Clive James
Clive James
Clive James, AM is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism...
, Jonathan Bate
Jonathan Bate
Jonathan Bate CBE FBA FRSL is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar of Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism...
, Michael Burleigh
Michael Burleigh
Michael Burleigh is a British author and historian.In 1977 he was awarded a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History from University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes...
, Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.-Early life and education:...
, Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill is an English writer and journalist. Beginning as a writer for the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She is a self-declared "militant feminist". She has several times been involved in legal action...
, Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
, George Walden
George Walden
George Gordon Harvey Walden is a British journalist and a former Conservative Party Member of Parliament who served as the Minister for Higher Education from 1985-87....
and Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University...
, Allan Massie
Allan Massie
Allan Massie is a well-known Scottish journalist, sports writer and novelist.-Early life:Born in 1938 in Singapore, where his father was a rubber planter for Sime Darby, Massie spent his childhood in Aberdeenshire...
, Piers Paul Read
Piers Paul Read
Piers Paul Read, FRSL is a British novelist and non-fiction writer.-Background:Read was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire...
, Craig Raine
Craig Raine
Craig Raine is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.-Life:...
, Joseph Epstein, and Tibor Fischer
Tibor Fischer
Tibor Fischer is a British novelist and short story writer. In 1993 he was selected by the influential literary magazine Granta as one of the 20 best young British writers....
.
Bloggers on the StandpointOnline website include Michael Burleigh
Michael Burleigh
Michael Burleigh is a British author and historian.In 1977 he was awarded a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History from University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes...
, Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is a British journalist, author and political commentator. He is currently a columnist for The Observer, a blogger for The Spectator and TV critic for Standpoint magazine. He formerly wrote for the London Evening Standard and the New Statesman...
, Peter Whittle, Jessica Duchen and Joshua Rozenberg
Joshua Rozenberg
Joshua Rozenberg is a British legal commentator and journalist.After taking a law degree at Wadham College, University of Oxford, he qualified as a solicitor in 1976, at Dixon Ward solicitors in Richmond, Surrey....
.
The magazine has sought to revive the art of the essay in Britain, calling itself a response to "a market swamped by the journalistic equivalent of fast food". Standpoint is based in London and edited by Daniel Johnson
Daniel Johnson (journalist)
Daniel Benedict Johnson is a British journalist who is the founding editor of Standpoint.- Biography :After graduating with a First in Modern History from Magdalen College, Oxford, Johnson was awarded a Shakespeare Scholarship to Berlin...
.
The magazine co-founders include Daniel Johnson
Daniel Johnson (journalist)
Daniel Benedict Johnson is a British journalist who is the founding editor of Standpoint.- Biography :After graduating with a First in Modern History from Magdalen College, Oxford, Johnson was awarded a Shakespeare Scholarship to Berlin...
, Miriam Gross
Miriam Gross
Miriam Gross has had a long and distinguished career as a literary editor. She was the Deputy Literary editor of The Observer from 1969–81, the Women’s editor of The Observer from 1981–84, the Arts editor of The Daily Telegraph from 1986–91, and the Literary editor of The Sunday Telegraph from...
, Jonathan Foreman
Jonathan Foreman (journalist)
Jonathan Foreman is an Anglo-American journalist and film critic.He is the son of Academy-Award winning screenwriter and film producer Carl Foreman , who moved to England in order to work after being blacklisted by Hollywood movie studio bosses during the hysteria of the McCarthy era...
and Michael Mosbacher.
Controversy
Standpoint ignited nationwide controversy with its launch edition, in which Michael Nazir-AliMichael Nazir-Ali
Michael James Nazir-Ali was the 106th Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England: he retired in September 2009, taking up a position as director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue...
, the Bishop of Rochester
Bishop of Rochester
The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
, called for the Church to regain a prominent position in public life and blamed the "newfangled and insecurely founded doctrine of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
" for entrenching the segregation of communities. Nazir-Ali claimed that the decline of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and the rise of liberal values in the UK during the 1960s had created a moral vacuum which radical Islam threatened to fill. "We have argued that it is necessary to understand where we have come from, to guide us to where we are going, and to bring us back when we wander too far from the path of national destiny", the bishop wrote. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper devoted its leader to criticizing the bishop, although it described his writing as "neatly underlining [Standpoint]’s expressed intent ‘to defend and celebrate Western civilisation’". Nazir-Ali was condemned by the Ramadhan foundation and the President of the National Secular Society
National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no-one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of religion. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866...
, who accused him of "doing the BNP’s work", but was praised by the right wing newspaper The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
Origins
Standpoint was founded in May 2008 and immediately labeled a "Right-wing answer to journals such as ProspectProspect (magazine)
Prospect is a monthly British general interest magazine, specialising in politics and current affairs. Frequent topics include British, European, and US politics, social issues, art, literature, cinema, science, the media, history, philosophy, and psychology...
". The advisory board includes, amongst others, the celebrated playwright, Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
; the tenor, Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.-Early life and education:...
; the Labour MP and former minister, Frank Field; the artist, David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
; Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
, the former Chancellor; the novelist, V. S. Naipaul
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad "V. S." Naipaul, TC is a Nobel prize-winning Indo-Trinidadian-British writer who is known for his novels focusing on the legacy of the British Empire's colonialism...
; and the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove
Michael Gove
Michael Andrew Gove, MP is a British politician, who currently serves as the Secretary of State for Education and as the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the Surrey Heath constituency. He is also a published author and former journalist.Born in Edinburgh, Gove was raised in Aberdeen...
.
- The first issue included art by David HockneyDavid HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
, poetry by Robert ConquestRobert ConquestGeorge Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
, criticism by Andrew MarrAndrew MarrAndrew William Stevenson Marr is a Scottish journalist and political commentator. He edited The Independent for two years until May 1998, and was political editor of BBC News from 2000 until 2005....
, articles by Ian BostridgeIan BostridgeIan Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.-Early life and education:...
, Bishop Michael Nazir-AliMichael Nazir-AliMichael James Nazir-Ali was the 106th Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England: he retired in September 2009, taking up a position as director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue...
, Jung ChangJung ChangJung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China....
, Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Tim CongdonTim CongdonTim G. Congdon CBE ) is an economist, educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School and St. John's and Nuffield colleges at the University of Oxford, with a long record of commenting on public policy issues, including writing sympathetically about the monetarist approach to macroeconomic policy...
, Michael BurleighMichael BurleighMichael Burleigh is a British author and historian.In 1977 he was awarded a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History from University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes...
, Douglas MurrayDouglas Murray (author)Douglas Murray is a British writer and commentator who was the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion from 2007 until 2011 and is currently an associate director of the Henry Jackson Society. Murray appears regularly in the British broadcast media, commentating on issues from a conservative...
, Edward LucasEdward Lucas (journalist)Edward Lucas is a British journalist.Lucas is International Editor of The Economist, the London-based global newsweekly and also oversees the paper’s political coverage of Central and Eastern Europe. He has been covering eastern Europe since 1986, and was the Moscow bureau chief from 1998-2002,...
, Jay NordlingerJay NordlingerJay Nordlinger is an American journalist. He is a senior editor of National Review, the conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. He also writes a column for the magazine’s website, "National...
, Bruce BawerBruce BawerBruce Bawer is an American literary critic, writer and poet. His work focuses mainly on criticism and issues related to Islam.-Personal life:Bawer received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D...
, and Jonathan BateJonathan BateJonathan Bate CBE FBA FRSL is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar of Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism...
. - The second included an article by Melanie PhillipsMelanie PhillipsMelanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She began her career on the left of the political spectrum, writing for such publications as The Guardian and New Statesman. In the 1990s she moved to the right, and she now writes for the Daily Mail newspaper, covering political and social...
about the Muhammad al-DurrahMuhammad al-DurrahThe Muhammad al-Durrah incident took place in the Gaza Strip on September 30, 2000, on the second day of the Second Intifada, amid widespread rioting throughout the Palestinian territories...
affair http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/143/full, claiming the boy was not dead and that it was a "deadly fabrication".
Regular Columnists
- "The Mole", a different anonymous whistleblower each month, exposing scandals in government or industry.
- "Marketplace", economic analysis by Tim CongdonTim CongdonTim G. Congdon CBE ) is an economist, educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School and St. John's and Nuffield colleges at the University of Oxford, with a long record of commenting on public policy issues, including writing sympathetically about the monetarist approach to macroeconomic policy...
- "Points East and West", international politics commentary by Emanuele Ottolenghi
- "The Outsider", political notes by Douglas MurrayDouglas Murray (author)Douglas Murray is a British writer and commentator who was the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion from 2007 until 2011 and is currently an associate director of the Henry Jackson Society. Murray appears regularly in the British broadcast media, commentating on issues from a conservative...
. - "On the Contrary", musings on life's trials and tribulations by Lionel ShriverLionel Shriver-Early life and education:Lionel Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957 in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a deeply religious family . At age 15, she changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given, and as a tomboy felt that a...
- "Living History", international politics commentary by Michael BurleighMichael BurleighMichael Burleigh is a British author and historian.In 1977 he was awarded a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History from University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes...
- "European Eye", notes from the Continent by Mara Delius
- "Jurisprudence", legal commentary from Joshua RozenbergJoshua RozenbergJoshua Rozenberg is a British legal commentator and journalist.After taking a law degree at Wadham College, University of Oxford, he qualified as a solicitor in 1976, at Dixon Ward solicitors in Richmond, Surrey....