Who are your favourite and worst political columnists?
Some of mine
Favourites:
Dan Hodges - hated by many Labourites, mainly because he hits the nail firmly on the head
Peter Oborne - pretty engaging and passionate
Tony Young - passionate, but doesn't take himself too seriously - wrote some impressive stuff during the recent Twitter abuse episode
Worst
Polly - Just a complete hypocrite
Richard Littlejohn - typical pub bore constantly making borderline racist and homophobic comments
Seamus Milne - away with the communist fairies
Gary Younge - an anti white racist
Yasmin Alibhai Brown - another anti white racist
Amanda Platell - an unpleasant bitch
Matthew d'Ancona - writes whatever script Conservative HQ hands him
Kevin Maguire - as above but for Labour
Favourites:
Dan Hodges - hated by many Labourites, mainly because he hits the nail firmly on the head
Peter Oborne - pretty engaging and passionate
Tony Young - passionate, but doesn't take himself too seriously - wrote some impressive stuff during the recent Twitter abuse episode
Worst
Polly - Just a complete hypocrite
Richard Littlejohn - typical pub bore constantly making borderline racist and homophobic comments
Seamus Milne - away with the communist fairies
Gary Younge - an anti white racist
Yasmin Alibhai Brown - another anti white racist
Amanda Platell - an unpleasant bitch
Matthew d'Ancona - writes whatever script Conservative HQ hands him
Kevin Maguire - as above but for Labour
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Comments
Favourites:
Least Favourites:
I forgot Rawnsley - a really good writer. His book on Labour's downfall is terrific.
Also forgot Hitchens, what an odd fellow!
Can't think of any really bad ones. Plenty that are agenda driven or riddled with blatent hypocracy and plenty that read like press releases. But no badly written ones spring to mind
Favourite, none of them make me sit back and go wow really. I think Gary Young often gets pretty close to the truth though.
I should add that Platel and her colleagues have put me off buying the Daily Mail.. That is how disagreeable I find them in general!
James Delingpole is very good, too.
All her writing is the same. 'On the one hand this, on the other hand that'. 'Sources close to 'x' said this, it is understood that someone else thinks that'. Hardly any real quotes or references.
Each essay has as its core message a piece of advice or a hymn of praise to Miliband. Even worse is the fact that her writing is barely readable. An incredible bore.
There is a good example of her work in today's Telegraph.
Rawnsley is easily the best writer on the left of the political spectrum.
The first thing I read on a Monday morning is Boris Johnson's column in the Telegraph. I may not always agree with what he says, but it's always an entertaining read and I always learn a new word to add to my vocabulary. Matthew Parris is also excellent.
Worst: Polly Toynbee and Owen Jones.
Rawnsley seems to have done a bit of a runner since being accused of plagiarism though - hope he makes a comeback as he usually was pretty good.
I enjoyed Rawnsley's book too, it was a great read.
....Owen Jones.
I don't really have any favourites - least annoying would probably be a better description.
Favourites:
Frazer Nelson
Polly Toynbee (yes, I know...;) )
George Monbiot
Janet Daley
Peter Hitchens (another yes, I know )
Owen Jones (yes, there's another)
Alistair Heath
Least Favourites:
Melanie Phillips
Richard Littlejohn
Suzanne Moore
Regards,
Cypher
Michael White is also pretty good at that and Owen Jones tells it like it is on most things for real Labour supporters instead of all the Blairite stuff Labour supporters keep on getting "inflicted" on them as their "mouthpiece when they don't represent me as a real Labour type!
Also Mehdi Hasan can be pretty good too especially on broadcast media when he is stating his views but I find it hard to know where he is coming from on his tweets quite a lot. I find them a bit too ambiguous.
You should read his columns in The Mirror.
He regularly sticks the boot into Labour, when he feels it's needed.
Compare that with some Daily Mail columnists, who'd praise Torys even if they were buggering British badgers.
He makes Littlejohn appear highbrow.
That's a nice piece of alliteration!
Maguire talks a load of claptrap but I do like him. He's always good fun on the Sky News paper review with "Tory Boy" Andrew Pierce of the Mail. They deserve their own show.
They did have their own show on LBC 97.3 radio, I think.
I certainly know that Ken Livingstone and David Mellor have, or had, one. Kevin's certainly been on the station, as had Andrew.
What qualifies someone to be a "real Labour type"?
Haven't read the Mirror for years but from memory Routledge is a complete shill for Brown and was forever carping at Blair during his leadership.
I see someone else mentioned Fraser Nelson, who is certainly one of the better Tory writers.
The rest I dont care
Routledge is resolutely 'old' labour and a bit of a 'professional Northerner' to boot, but he can be quite entertaining.
He's clearly proud of being an old luddite.
Another one who "speaks her mind", even though she has nothing in her mind that we want to hear about.