The Spectator

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This article is about the British weekly magazine. For Addison and Steele's influential literary magazine, see The Spectator (1711), and other links at The Spectator (disambiguation). See also The American Spectator magazine.

Image:The Spect.jpg The Spectator is a British weekly, and claims to be the oldest continuously-published magazine in the English language.

It is currently owned by the Barclay brothers, who also own The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject area is politics, about which it generally takes a robust and even provocative conservative line. The magazine also has extensive arts pages on books, music, opera, and film and TV reviews.

Editorship of The Spectator has often been a route to high office in the British Conservative Party; past editors include Iain Macleod, Ian Gilmour and Nigel Lawson, all of whom became cabinet ministers. Editorship can also be a springboard for a greater role in public affairs, as with Boris Johnson (1999 to 2005) who is still a bon-vivant public figure in Britain, despite having moved on to a post as Shadow Minister for Higher Education.

1 Policy positions
2 Cultural positions
3 Contributors
4 Recent times
5 Trivia
6 Editors
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Policy positions

From its founding in 1828 the Spectator has always taken a pro-British line in foreign affairs; such was the case in 1904 when it raised concerns about the anti-British and Pan-Asian attitudes prevalent amongst Indian students in Japan.

Like its sister publication The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator is generally Atlanticist and Eurosceptic in outlook, favouring close ties with the United States rather than with the European Union, and it is usually supportive of Israel. However, it has expressed strong doubts about the Iraq war, and some of its contributors, such as Matthew Parris and Stuart Reid, express a more Americosceptic, old-school conservative line. Other contributors such as the American Irwin Stelzer argue from a neoconservative and usually pro-Bush position. Like much of the British press it is critical of the unilateral extradition treaty that has condemned the Natwest three to extradition without a prima facie case, and the magazine recently devoted a leading article to lambast the US Senate<ref>The Spectator, 8th July 2006</ref>

[edit] Cultural positions

The Spectator is one of the few British publications to still either ignore or dismiss most popular culture, in the way that (for example) The Daily Telegraph under W.F. Deedes or The Times under William Haley did. Indeed it coined the phrase "young fogey" in 1984 (in an article by Alan Watkins). "Culture" for The Spectator tends towards gallery openings, literature, and new opera productions. It does have a "television and cinema" section, but this is often given over to personal soliloquies by writers such as the novelist James Delingpole, who spends as much time lamenting how poor and unsuccessful he is as he does reviewing television programming.

The Spectator tends to follow its educated-and-conservative audience's fashions and social concerns: sourcing organic food at markets, the pros and cons of private education, hunting, etc. Certain British cultural establishments are also often favourably alluded to, such as the University of Oxford (alma mater of many Spectator contributors), Ascot and White's.

[edit] Contributors

Although there is a permanent staff of writers, The Spectator has always had room for a wide array of contributors. These have included Auberon Waugh, Jeffrey Bernard (the "Low Life" column) and Taki (the "High Life" column). Following Bernard's death, the "Low Life" column is now written by Jeremy Clarke. Joan Collins contributes regularly as Guest Diarist, as does Barry Humphries. The book reviews are often 'outsourced' to outside experts in a given subject, so consequently it is rare to see the same reviewer appearing in consecutive issues. The restaurant section is also an irregular piece.

[edit] Recent times

The magazine has prospered in recent times. Under former editor Boris Johnson and his appealing Wodehousian aura clumsy public relations did no harm. He resigned in December 2005, on taking up an appointment as Shadow Minister for Higher Education.

The circulation was not at all hindered by the notoriety the magazine achieved after revelations about Johnson's affair with one of his columnists Petronella Wyatt, the extramarital adventures of its publisher Kimberly Quinn and affair of the associate editor Rod Liddle. The nickname The Sextator has gained some currency.

[edit] Trivia

The satirical Private Eye magazine usually refers to the Spectator as The Spectacularlyboring or The Hasbeano. Former editor Boris Johnson was known as "Boris the Menace", with other Spectator writers portrayed in the parodic comic strip "The Beano".