Journalism from London.
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REVIEWS
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“Nick Cohen’s brilliant broadside against censorship in an age of freedom.” Richard Dawkins
"Cohen is right that the struggle for freedom of speech is a political struggle. The internet does not itself liberate, Cohen reminds us. On the contrary. Both the powerful and the weak can use internet technologies. Techno-utopianism is a dangerous distraction, encouraging the illusion that the censors can be defeated by the click of a mouse. Cohen celebrates Milton's Areopagitica (1644) and Mill's On Liberty (1859). His own book stands alongside them." Anthony Julius, Standpoint.
"Nick Cohen’s books are like the best Smiths songs; however depressing the content, the execution is so shimmering, so incandescent with indignation that the overall effect is uplifting." Julie Burchill Prospect
"He has a sense of history and literature, in contrast to the dominant political generation of PPE graduates who have read every page of the Economist since they were at Oxford, but have never opened a novel." Denis MacShane, the Observer.
"At the risk of winning the Order of the Brown Nose, Cohen is perhaps the most insightful, thought-provoking and entertaining political writer in Britain today, and comes from the honest tradition of English liberal thought that threads from John Milton to John Stuart Mill and George Orwell; for that reason he has fallen out with the dishonest liberal tradition, a split that began with the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie on Valentine’s Day, 1989. He has that rare trait of being fair to all parties, refreshing in the tribal atmosphere of political debate, which has no doubt angered sectarians on his side." Ed West, The Telegraph
"Cohen is a friendly and engaging writer, who combines the solitary scholar’s extraordinary range of reference with a bon-vivant wit and warmth. A lover of contemporary fiction, his polemics read like novels. He finishes his book with a list of ways to fight back."Max Dunbar 3am Magazine
"The author has no time for artists, comedians and "loud-mouthed newspaper columnists" who pose as the moral equivalents of dissenters in repressive regimes, as they fearlessly speak truth to power, knowing that power will never go after them. On more delicate matters, meanwhile, they preserve a cowardly or self-interested silence. Cohen is a political animal, but with this free-thinking man of the Left there is no sense of the hedging, elisions or contrarian games so familiar in the field. A nose for censorship, of the silent or bullying variety, means not just carrying a powerful bullshit detector, which he does, but being your own man. And God knows there are few enough of those."
George Walden, London Evening Standard
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"After all, there are thousands and thousands of middle-aged lefties for whom their once-revolutionary “credentials” are all they have left to show for a lifetime of “activism”, and who could not face their friends — or, perhaps, their students — if they found themselves endorsing a war fought by British or American soldiers. (I myself remember repressing a twinge of annoyance at the idea that the assault on civilisation represented by the 9/11 attacks would drive my anti-Kissinger book from the front page where I still believe it belonged.) But Cohen goes further: “I wanted anything associated with Tony Blair to fail, because that would allow me to return to the easy life of attacking him.”
It is this sentence, and its implications, that make his book an exceptional and necessary one. Cohen has no problem with those who are upset about state-sponsored exaggerations of the causes of war, or furious about the bungled occupation of Iraq that has ensued. People who think this is the problem are not his problem. Here’s his problem: the people who would die before they would applaud the squaddies and grunts who removed hideous regimes from Afghanistan and Iraq, yet who happily describe Islamist video-butchers and suicide-murderers as a “resistance”. Those who do this are not “anti-war” at all, but are shadily taking the other side in a conflict where the moral and civilisational stakes are extremely high."
Christopher Hitchens, Sunday Times
"Nick Cohen's roaring polemic of outrage against the moral and political crisis of the liberal tradition. It is already one of the most discussed current affairs books of the new year. At the very least it forces, or ought to force, anyone on the left to think carefully about where their movement has ended up in the modern world. Martin Kettle, The Guardian
"The psychology of the left wing is hauntingly displayed by Nick Cohen" Philip Hensher, The Spectator
In the Observer today I look at the media’s hatred of Tony Blair, which is building up in the advance of the release of his autobiography. The most distasteful manifestation of the mania is the conspiracy theory that Blair covered up the “murder” of David Kelly and maybe….
These ravings are not only coming from the Mail and Norman Baker, the conspiracy-loving Liberal Democrat MP, but from the Mirror, which ought to know better.
Carry on
I was disappointen with your artical yesterday. I recall the events regarding David Kelly well. The BBC refused to disclose who gave Andrew Gilligan his information and because if this both Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davis lost their jobs. David Kelly’s revelations followed Blairs speach to the House of Commons and the vote that took us to war with what we now know was false information. It was Alistair Cambell, an unelected apointee who took it on himself to run round to Channel 4 news and in a fury stabbing his fingers on the table castergating the BBC.
When David Kelly went to his superiors and admited that he had spoken to Gilligan, Number 10 press office in conjuction with John Scarlett seemed to engineer simple clues in their briefings that easily led to David Kelly being identifed by the press.
That is my memory and I think it was wrong of you to blame the BBC solely.
@Nick: “Is there Blood on your hands Prime Minster?” he was asked by a hack about the death of Dr David Kelly? And yes there was. He said later of the Iraq/Afghan war, ‘I did what I thought was right?’ Yes Tony but at what cost politically, financially and morally to you and us? And first and foremost Tony you got it so wrong..
‘Dodgy Dossier’ aside, he took ‘us’ to War for the wrong reasons? Half backed truths and weak HUMIT [Human Intelligence] . And the JIC [Joint Intelligence committee] should have stood up to him. The Hutton Inquiry was a whitewash of facts. The Butler Report was nearer the mark, but couched in Whitehall-speak, that only they [the never-naked-always-worried-about-their-careers-and –Mortgages] top Civil Servants and Politicians could understand.
David Kelly probably killed himself, a scientist would never be definite about a fact, but say the probability is near 90%. Why look for a conspiracy when staring you in the face is incompetence.
‘Have you ever felt like you are a Patsy? You have been put up as chaff?’ Said one Parliamentarian committee member. Whether the machinations of egos colliding, i.e.: Alistair Campbell’s at Number 10 or Andrew Gilligan’s at the BBC they both contributed to Dr David Kelly committed suicide. They have blood on their hands.
Dr David Kelly had converted to the Ba’hai Faith some years earlier, the all encompassing Abramaic come Buddhist belief system with their HQ in Jerusalem. His motivations [Dr D Kelly’s] for getting the truth out there, leaking to hacks, was because he may have been an honourable man who wanted to save lives.
Andrew Giligans faxing to Liberals or alleged talking to key Tories on that committee [though their hack wives] was to use the War as a political pawn. Gilligan got the story right but then facts wrong and we, the people, lost a great Director General who honourably resigned from the BBC cause you got it wrong Andrew?
As for that arrogant Burnley supporter, Alistair Campbell you were touting yourself around TV studios protesting to much. And a contributor to the Condem pact we have to now endure.
Neither you nor Tony have shown any remorse and the close ‘friend’ who advised you about ‘Intel’, wrongly, was later promoted head of MI6 Sir John Scarlet.
The lesson to our young might be ‘it does not matter if you get blood on you hands, lie, misinterpret information, completely muck up and your advice is costly when it takes lives, as you will be rewarded with a Promotion, whether it be a position or a fact-less book?
Was David Kelly murdered? Who had something to gain by his untimely death? Or was his death a result of “powers at work” wanting to stir up trouble for the British government during the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There is a new novel called Lancashire Hotpot for sale on lulu that attempts to provide examples of a certain type of psychology closely linked to untimely deaths of key persons.
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/lancashire-hotpot/12312693
I just want to say to Tony Blair yes u did what u thought was right,but so did Hitler nd so does Osama,they did what they thought was right,but was it Tony?
Nick Cohen