Ben's Blog

A curious thing has happened. Suddenly and, so far as I can tell, without any provocation from me I have begun to receive the Spectator at home.

I never asked for it, I haven't paid for it and I am curious as to how this all came about.

Just when did I become part of the Spectator's target audience? Is it something I did or said, some sin I ... read more

It was just a bit of fun. The Tories set up a rather peculiar system to select their London mayoral candidate which allowed all registered voters in the capital to have a say from a shortlist of four.

Then it occurred to me that we should invite all the Conservative hopefuls - Andrew Boff, Victoria Borwick, Warwick Lightfoot and, yes, Boris Johnson - to set out their stalls on  read more

Since we relaunched we've had a growing number of comments on the website - often not as many as I'd like but as our readership grows so do the numbers of participants in debates. Normally the exchanges have been pretty civilised but this week our Faith Column was written by a Satanist and things got, well, rather hot.

Have a read of Umberto Ray's four entries here. I'm afraid ... read more

Through the shark-infested waters of the summer silly season, newstatesman.com has endeavoured to hold a steady course this week, although it hasn’t always been easy.

First we broke exclusive news of a big row between the Tories and the Lib Dems after the latter accused the former of being disingenuous on gay rights by exposing the shadow cabinet’s damning voting record on major legislation including equalising the age of ... read more

I'm taking next week off to move from the inner city that is Kentish Town to the leafy climes of Haringey so I'm grateful to Simon Hooper who will be stepping into the harness here at Terminal House.

Simon is just back from reporting on the Turkish elections. He kindly wrote us a piece providing a fascinating glimpse of the country that straddles Europe and Asia.

"Turkey is an ... read more

How do you introduce a US citizen to Britain? Tea at Bettys? Exmoor? A trip on the canal at Llangollen? The Edinburgh festival? Well probably yes to all of those and much more.

But over here at Terminal House - home of newstatesman.com - we like to be inspired in our choices so we sent intern William Hilderbrandt off to meet the Official Monster Raving Loony by-election candidate in Ealing ... read more

There's an alarming increase in the number of journalists who are falling prey to corrupt regimes, war and oppression, and so like many other people in the trade I wasn't overly optimistic about the fate of Alan Johnston.

That pessimism wasn't diminished as we compiled a list the other week of Russian journalists killed in mysterious circumstances.

So it would be hard to overstate my delight at Alan's ... read more

First, a happy and belated announcement. Ben has become a proud father; wife Chris gave birth to their first daughter - and the first newstatesman.com baby - last week. Congratulations to all. Which means, of course, in these enlightened times that Ben is currently undergoing the total sensory bombardment benignly known as “paternity leave.”

Still, what better preparation for irregular hours, inexplicable tantrums and incomprehensible babbling than a career as ... read more

You may remember a week or two back I mentioned that Harry Palmer was a New Statesman reader and concluded Len Deighton introduced the idea to convey - in that slightly clunky way of his - that the fictional spy was a sophisticate.

I'm not entirely sure that's true now. In Chapter 5 of The Ipcress File, Palmer goes to London Airport and ahead of boarding a plane buys ... read more

Well ok maybe not but they can be quite entertaining when they're not in power. This week I heard David 'Two Brains' Willetts on the radio carrying on about how he didn't like grammar schools.

"We just have to recognise that there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it," he said.

Now the nation may have marvelled at this penetrating analysis but, frankly, ... read more

Will you miss him? We'd like to hear your verdict on Blair. We've asked for the thoughts of people from the worlds of health, diplomacy, politics and much more to assess the past decade. Why not have a read and then add your comment?

We've also compiled a hilarious quiz entirely for your benefit so you can discover what sort of Blairite you are. Try it out by clicking ... read more

We've brought in a couple of rather fetching innovations in the past couple of days. First we fulfilled a long-held ambition to see Blair waving goodbye by popping an animation on our homepage.

Then we finally introduced a carousel which means we can plug six or more articles at a time when people first arrive on the site.

Meanwhile people continue to blog from France ahead of the ... read more