BY ALEXIA JAMES “Popinjay”—a word so charmingly obsolete. I propose that this gloriously colourful term merits a revival. In an age where “selfie” and “raw dogging” are seemingly integral to our vernacular, surely we can find room for a bit of old-school pizzazz? In 2018 Boris Johnson attempted a revival but the word has slipped back onto the linguistic scrapheap where it does not deserve … Continue reading Popinjay
BY NICK PEARCE On the 8th November 2018, James O’Brien, a DJ from LBC, unwittingly promoted a con. One of the victims of the con wrote an article in this magazine in January of this year detailing her experiences. The con centred around a homeless charity called Humanity in Torbay, Devon. The charity at the time was run by a certain Mrs Ellie Waugh. Waugh … Continue reading Humanity & James O’Brien
BY JAMIE FOSTER Credit where credit is due, James O’Brien has finally said something that is worthy of praise. On his LBC show he came out against Corbyn’s epic hypocrisy in failing to condemn the actions of the government of Venezuela despite tweeting that if one remains neutral in the face of oppression one comes out on the side of the oppressor. O’Brien is a … Continue reading Credit Where Credit Is Due
BY SAM WHITE The right looks for converts, the left for traitors. So runs the famous saying and it’s true, but feels incomplete. The modern left sniffs around obsessively for racists, homophobes, pronoun-sceptics, Islam-doubters, and any other kind of careless bigot you can imagine, with the possible exception of anti-Semites, to whom the hard left is more likely to give a free pass and an … Continue reading Long Live the Traitors
BY ALEXIA JAMES Few people tend to remember Tonight. It was a predecessor of today’s BBC Newsnight, which has been on air since 1980. It’s funny how shows which run out of public love and then end up on the TV scrapheap are so easily forgotten. Newsnight was also once the BBC flagship news and current affairs programme. It housed cherished presenters like Peter Snow, distinguished journalists … Continue reading Newsnight’s Inexorable Decline
BY JAMIE FOSTER Dear James, I find myself compelled to write to you a second and hopefully final time. My first letter was heartfelt but far more widely read than I anticipated that it might be, and, I fear, occasionally misinterpreted. One of your friends, who I have agreed to neither name nor involve in this correspondence, told his radio listeners that my first … Continue reading A Second Open Letter to James O’Brien
EDITORIAL Since An Open Letter to James O’Brien from Country Squire’s Jamie Foster was published in this magazine on Monday it has been viewed 12,651 times. Just this morning (and this follow-up is being published before breakfast on Tuesday) there have been a thousand more views of this letter. By the time James takes the microphone for Tuesday’s show, no doubt thousands more will have read it. … Continue reading “What Don’t I Get?”
BY JAMIE FOSTER Dear James, Following the new fashion for writing letters to people unlikely to ever read, understand or be persuaded by them, I address this missive to you. For the benefit of those who may wish to read it and don’t know who you are, I will introduce you. You are the son of a hugely respected Telegraph journalist who made it to … Continue reading An Open Letter to LBC’s James O’Brien
