As far as I know Martin Bright, Ken-hater and now former political editor of the New Statesman, is still a good chap: he certainly was when he worked at the Guardian. I'm a bit worried about one of his recent decisions, though. At his newly-launched Spectator blog he's revealed that he invited Mayor Johnson's policy director Anthony Browne to speak to students on the political journalism course he teaches at City University. The pair go back a bit: they were colleagues on The Observer during the editorship of Roger Alton when the latter was busy shifting the paper to the right, however you care to define it.
One of Martin's students Etan Smallman - hi tweeter - describes Browne here as "controversial". Etan, if I might be so bold, you need to be more careful with you use of language. The correct word for describing Browne is not "controversial" but "pillock". That is because under Boris Johnson's editorship of The Spectator he wrote a series of utterly stupid and revolting articles complaining that London isn't British any more because of all the immigrants, that the nation's health is threatened by the latter bringing germs and that the multicultural character of Hackney is inconsistent with humankind's natural condition.
These polemics are still getting rave reviews in the fascist corners of the blogosphere, as is Browne's dismal and ignorant pamphlet about so-called "political correctness". When he was quizzed by London Assembly members about what I will charitably term his Daily Mail period, he failed to muster a proper explanation and later failed to provide a proper apology for these willfully inflammatory excursions into the "controversy" market.
I trust Martin brought these inglorious sections of Browne's c.v. to his young charges' attention. And should he wish to correct any damaging effect on them caused by their exposure to one of Boris's more perturbing appointees, I am, of course, quite desperate to feel wanted and almost always at a loose end.
