Jemima Khan: Why is a rich, connected socialite guest editing the New Statesman?

Jemima Khan

The divine newspaper columnist Suzanne Moore has made her thoughts known on the topic of Jemima Khan guest editing the current issue of the New Statesman. As a former writer on the little-read publication, who departed amid some acrimony, she's entitled. Suzanne has no personal beef with the fragrant Jemima but does wonder on a social network site, slyly, whether the magazine may 'walk the walk on social mobility.'

By this I assume she means: when will the left-wing organ open up the editorial floodgates to talents who are not the spawn of very famous rich families and/or international socialites with a lot of crawly friends? Suzanne speculates aloud whether Peaches Geldof might succeed Jemima (next time editor and former Durannie Jason Cowley fancies undertaking some Big Society work).

I must say Jemima wins the Madame Arcati Award for Self-Promotion. Just about every piece she either wrote or commissioned was pushed on Twitter - I adore the musk of ambition and cannot criticise the poppet. Thanks to Jemima we now know that Nick Clegg blubs to music; though student face-readers will have already discerned the moany cry-baby countenance in repose. In May he will be crying an awful lot, alas.

Now that Jemima has reminded us that non-editors tend to do a better job than editors as editors, may I suggest that Suzanne Moore be invited to guest edit an edition of the New Statesman in the not too distant future. Her brief reign would be a reminder of what this magazine once stood for - and exemplify the meritocracy Mr Clegg now espouses (without a mandate, natch).

PS Helen Lewis, assistant editor of the New Statesman, tweets me: 'Well, I worked with her [Jemima] on it, and thought she was lovely (and brought in great articles). You can quote me on that!'

PPS Another tweet: mailto:'tlcSW7@Madame_Arcati re guest ed "it was an ironic move in a week when the gov't announced an end to upaid internships for the rich"'

PPPS Suzanne Moore tweets: 'My issue with Jemima is not at [all] personal. She did a good job .It is entirely political. I want jobs to go to unemployed talents.'

A phwoar for blood and insurrection (almost) in Stoke Newington!

Report from the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, starring Farah Damji, Darcus Howe, Diane Abbott, Suzanne Moore and Gavin James Bower

In rainy Stoke Newington last Saturday, black and white did not make a murky shade of grey. Farah Damji was there to talk about her book Try Me, which Frances Lynn (shortly to be interviewed on Madame Arcati) has described as "gripping, unputdownable and explosive", and the con of multiculturalism with a little help from her mate Darcus Howe.

We didn't really get enough of Farah on the book which earned her the title "London's Most Dangerous Woman". Darcus Howe held forth about that subject most dear to his darkened Black Panther heart, racism and multiculturalism.

There was a standing room only situation at the event which had been heaviliy oversubscribed. Present in the audience were the Mail on Sunday's fragrant Suzanne Moore and the not-so-lovely Labour leader contender Diane Abbott. Political watchers will know that Darcus dissed Suzanne and favoured Diane in the recent by-elections at which Suzanne dared to stand against the rolly incumbent.

There was a fraught moment which made even the novelist and notoriously smooth Gavin James Bower look a little anxious when Suzanne asked why her children, when they were in nursery school, should be made to learn Black History at the expense of other important events. Farah agreed and said she supported a transcultural historical curriculum. But Darcus said that the Black History fight was won after tears, blood and riots in the streets: in one case he was even falsely accused by the London Evening Standard of congratulating rioters for smashing open a policeman's head.

It should be noted that Abbott fought for supplementary schools and Darcus has been a long term supporter of her politics and attacked Suzanne personally before even meeting her. The argument was to study St Patrick as well as Malcolm X. Darcus rolled his eyes and the luvvies of Stoke Newington let out a collective roar, or was it a phwoar, at the scent of blood and the sight of insurrection.

Since we have Black History Month (October in the UK) please can we also have Pink Faggot Month, Asian Hottie of the Month and My Favourite Fascist Month, please? Candidates may self-nominate on the back of a £50 note and send here...

To buy a copy of Farah Damji's Try Me, click here

Suzanne Moore expelled from Labour Party

Shocking innit. All because she stood as an independent in the general election. How trifling. You'd think her working for the Mail on Sunday might have been a better reason. Was there a trial, some kind of tribunal? A chance to put her case? No. Just a letter in the post. Given she's probably closer politically to Labour than she is to the Tories, this seems a jobsworthy sort of decision. Labour needs all the friends (or sympathisers) it can get.

Oh, Suzanne tells me she left the party before she stood for election. So there.

Is The Spectator a racist magazine?

I only ask because according to The Spectator, blogging is just a "conversational medium". So do please converse. The magazine mounted this defence of its blogger Rod Liddle to the Press Complaints Commission after he wrote that the "overwhelming majority" of violent crime in London was carried out by young African-Caribbean men. The Spectator lost, diddums. The magazine was unable to back Liddle's claim factually. NB: They did not retract the claim.

One assumes Liddle's comment was nodded through by editors sympathetic to the viewpoint. One assumes there are no young African-Caribbean men on the editorial staff to rein in the Empire-nostalgic Tory young Turks dreaming of an Etonian Westminster.

This is a particularly embarrassing outcome for the publication's immature editor, Andrew Neil's mini-me bitch, Fraser Nelson, who also whores his right-wing slob views for the News of the World. Only last year he ran a Spectator coverline which suggested racism in Britain is sooooo not very prevalent any more (Sample from body copy: "The less racist Britain is, the more popular this racist party [BNP] becomes.") Oops. Less racist?

Meanwhile, the new owner of the Independent, Alexander Lebedev owes me, Suzanne Moore and others for dissuading him from making Liddle the paper's editor. We're all heart.

Greg Dyke to be next editor of The Independent

I hear on good authority that the BBC's former D-G Greg Dyke is about to be signed up as the next editor of the Independent. I wholly approve of this appointment if true. He has newspaper savvy and he is not pig ignorant.

New proprietor Alexander Lebedev has gone up in my estimation even if he toyed with Rod Liddle.

The Independent editorship: 'Jeremy Paxman meets the Lebedevs'

On January 23, Madame Arcati broke the story that Jeremy Paxman had been offered the Independent editorship - many thought I was joking. Now the Guardian confirms that Paxman has met likely new owners the Lebedevs to talk about his possible appointment. He's not the only name on Alexander Lebedev's wishlist - Greg Dyke's there too, more in need of a big job than Paxman I should have thought. Apparently Lebedev seeks a star to edit the ailing paper - like Napoleon, he has this fantasy he can hitch a lift off another's X factor. Would you buy a paper just because it was edited by Dyke or Paxman - or Simon Cowell for that matter? Such a ludicrous idea.

Rod Liddle to Suzanne Moore: 'Sorry I called you a "fucking hypocrite"... '

Rod and Suzanne make up ...

One would have to have a heart of stone not feel some sympathy for Rod Liddle, what with the vitriolic Facebook campaign against him over the Independent, Madame Arcati's exclusive on his unseemly Facebook row with the darling Suzanne Moore, Roy Greenslade's Guardian vendetta, and, oh, lots of things. How did all this pressure affect Rod - did it get to him?

I've just hacked into Suzanne's email account and among some priceless exchanges between her and Rod is this line from him apropos their Facebook face-off: "But I'm sorry I called you a 'fucking hypocrite'. It's been a rough week. Hypocrite would have done."

Let's send him healing prayers ....

'Rod Liddle won't be editing the Independent' - thanks to Madame Arcati

Alexander Lebedev - a man of incomparable wisdom. He is Madame Arcati's Man of the Year. And it's only February

Rod Liddle will not be the next editor of the Independent, the Guardian reports. The paper claims that Alexander Lebedev had a change of heart.

I have little doubt this was due to Madame Arcati: Mr Lebedev is a follower of Arcati on Twitter and visits this site regularly for about 0.3 seconds per ingress. For a man of his intelligence and scope this would be sufficient time to scan the educated hostility to fag-ash Liddle whose politics, demeanour, temperament and flakiness (and hairstyle) are the subject of much concern.

And it was Madame Arcati that exclusively ran the Facebook row between Liddle and Suzanne Moore: while she was the model of civility, preparing to cook lunch for her little poppets, he ranted and raved like, er, someone who thought he was a national newspaper editor already.

Anyone who writes a column for the hideous and bullying Sunday Times is, as a matter of course, unsuitable for the Independent. Incidentally, does anyone know where the ST's editor now lives?

Rod and Suzanne

Mr Lebedev goes up in my estimation. He is clearly a man of tremendous insight, of wisdom, of worldliness. My God, Geordie Greig was right about Lebby! The Guardian better be fucking right. Meantime, Alexander should consider Suzanne Moore for the Indy editorship - unusually, she combines a left-wing sensibility with haute personal style and grooming: she is well-shod proof that you can make a good living from the politics of selflessness.

And please, Alexander, abandon the idea of Jeremy Paxman. He wouldn't survive five minutes. Plus, he's molto sensitive.

'Jeremy Paxman offered Independent editorship'

Well, that was the rumour at Groucho's last night. No idea if true or whether Paxman is even interested. But it's said Alexander Lebedev is impressed by the crashing snob.

Rod Liddle and Suzanne Moore slug it out on Facebook

Sorry to go on about the Independent but... well, this is too delicious. I have just come across a Facebook row today between Rod Liddle (rumoured to be the next Indy editor) and Suzanne Moore, the Mail on Sunday columnist and my preferred candidate for the Indy job.

The exchange takes place in a thread started by someone called Claire Khaw who appears to defend Liddle against the racism charge in today's Mail on Sunday. Suzanne mocks her (and others') hopes that by supporting Liddle they will land jobs under his editorship. She also appears annoyed that he's called her middleclass ...

Rod responds [unedited] to Suzanne: "what your thrid division reporter wrote in the MoS today was a perfect example of fascism, a tirade of lies. He attempted to attribute racism to me by quoting a)things which I had not said at ... See Moreall and b) quoting me using a direct quote in SUPPORT of a black footballer who had been allegedly subject to racist abuse. Your paper is morally and politically despicable, Suz, and better still - you know it. But what will you do about it? Just pocket the cheque, pocket the cheque."

Suzanne: "Rod you can message me direct. I never go into the office. So I cant comment. Pocket the cheque for my column? Yes I will just as you pocket the cheque from Murdoch. If the MOS story is a tirade of lies i guess you can sue? As for Claire's question i dunno I have never got a job by sleeping with anyone. Quite the reverse."

Rod: "A journalist sue a journalist? You really have no morals, do you? And it's pointless waving Murdoch at me - I didn't put myself on a high horse . I didn't say I wouldn't work for you because you were a reactionary. I am well aware of who I work for and wouldn't be hypocritical about it."

Suzanne: "Yes please Rod do give me a lecture on morals. I am all ears."

Rod: "You should be, Suzanne. I know principle and truthfulness when I see it. You don't."

Suzanne: "Rod you sound like Tony Blair or something! Obviously I disagree. I dont think you know much about me at all. I Am gonna make my amoral children some amoral dinner if thats OK....

Later Suzanne writes: "Meerkats are the liberal choice surely Rod? I promise if you promise to stop challenging us with your base racist and sexist assumptions which hardly make us see the world anew.... Rod Liddle CANNOT become editor of The Indy. No no no."

Oh and it goes on and on. Doncha love the chattering classes? And Liddle has much to learn about seemly behaviour becoming a newspaper editor.

Suzanne Moore for editor: She's Independent, are you?

Make this woman the new editor of the Independent and stop pissing about.

She's a liberal-leftist icon and she makes lots of money from Lord Rothermere by offending him every week in one of his own newspapers. She's proof you don't have to become a rightwing 'mare to coin it in journalism.

And she's no Labour lapdog. When last year the New Statesman made Alastair Campbell guest-editor she resigned from the magazine on highly publicised principle. How could a publication which opposed the Iraq invasion get cuddlesome with one of the war's chief mongers? She's of the left but no apparatchik. Just what we need as virtually every British newspaper right now takes dictation from Andy Coulson.

She's indie down to her legendary fuck-me shoes. She is Madame Arcati's most interesting choice.

Her name is Suzanne Moore. Google her.

(Meanwhile, Rod Liddle's skin colour problem)

Is Suzanne Moore thinking of leaving the Mail on Sunday?

Only asking, in the light of her final words in her last column on Nazi-loving Nick Griffin and her homophobic Mail colleague Jan Moir - "In these culture wars we have to pick sides. Griffin and Moir each believe they are telling their own 'truth'. Neither are my truth nor much of the country's. The day they are, I will pack my bags."

The Screws' Carole Malone is a HELL of a girl

The News of the World's resident bitch Carole Malone must be paid by the number of hells she packs into her opinion pieces each tax year. Just a few samples ....

On Baby P's mother, Tracey Connelly, 16.08.2009
"Why the hell should I worry about Connelly's safety?"

On bumbling Bob Quick who inadvertently revealed an al-Qaeda plot to blow up Manchester's Trafford Centre, 12.04.2009
"Hell's teeth-we're fighting a global war on terror here!"
"Why the hell was he ever given the job in the first place?"

On Judge Ian Trigger's disciplinary for comments made while sentencing a Jamaican drug dealer, 09.08.2009
"And who the hell cares what they [illegal immigrants] feel?"

On Anne Robinson's face lifts, 30.08.2009
"What the hell's wrong with a woman trying to look the best she can?"

On the Hell's Kitchen Antichrist chef Gordon Ramsay swearing about someone, 13.06.2009
"[He] can dish it out, he sure as hell can't take it."

On a demo by "extremist" Muslims, 15.03.2009
"Those guys from the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment sure as hell didn't deserve what they got on the streets of Luton."

Before the Screws, Carole had hell at the Sunday Mirror, too. A few samples ....

On Baby Spice of the Spice Girls, 07.11.1999
"Chris Evans rang HER nine times last week to ask her out. With friends like that, you sure as hell don't need enemies."

On the "murdering al-Qaeda bastards" who bombed London, 10.07.2005
"Where were you when you heard those murdering al-Qaeda bastards had bombed the hell out of London?"
"People lay trapped in smoking hell-holes underground, as bandaged, blood-soaked commuters ricocheted around trying to work out what the hell had happened that sunny summer's morning, the rest of us knew only too well. "

On Mary Wragg's "devastated mother" act in a mercy killing case, 18.12.2005
Headline: "CAROLE MALONE: Jacob's parents as guilty as Hell"

On Celebrity Big Brother's Chantelle, 15.07.2007
Headline: "IT'S HARDLY CHANT-HELL"

On two policewomen awarded £400k for horror witnessed at Dunblane, 21.03.1999
"If those officers didn't receive the counselling they thought they deserved why the hell didn't they fight for it in the same way they are now fighting for £400,000?"

On Sue Barker's wealth, 22.12.2002
"Just how the hell does Ms Barker afford a £110,000 Ferrari and a £2m mansion?"

My favourite piece of Carole's combines her hell-fire prose with her unerring inability to prophesy ...

Screws: On Britain's Got Talent winner Susan Boyle [or Subo], 31.05.2009
"WON? Lost? It doesn't actually matter. What matters is that Susan Boyle is on the road to hell."

This kind of hell? Global fame, a star turn on America's Got Talent (16.09.2009), riches, etc?

Or if you prefer, SuBo remixed

Alastair Campbell hits back at Suzanne Moore on blog

Alastair Campbell has responded on his blog to the Suzanne Moore/New Statesman saga I wrote about yesterday. After giggling over the Guardian's correction (that she wasn't on the magazine's staff) he writes: "So she fills a page in The Mail on Sunday, fee doubtless well into four figures, to say she was sacked from a magazine for which she didn't work. Can't wait for the correction in the Mail on Scumday. I'm sure given her self-styled claim to principled journalism, she will want to correct any false impression she and Obergruppenfuhrer Dacre may have allowed to be created. " His blog.