Speccy Goes From Nelly To Oiky

And so the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine was sold for a cool £100 million to Paul Marshall, the main benefactor of hugely loss-making Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”). Former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil was first out the door, apparently voluntarily. He has now been followed by long-term editor Fraser Nelson, perhaps not voluntarily.

Out goes Fraser Nelson ...

The BBC has reported on Nelson not being sacked at all, to be succeeded by former failed politician and alleged journalist Michael “Oiky” Gove, telling its readers “Former government minister Michael Gove is to be the new editor of The Spectator, after the magazine was bought by hedge fund tycoon and GB News-backer Sir Paul Marshall”. We are reminded of Gove’s past.

“Mr Gove, who stepped down from Parliament at the general election, was a journalist before he became a Conservative MP”. And his appointment will be waved through. “He will start the job after final approval from Acoba, the advisory committee on business appointments which advises former ministers when they take jobs after leaving the government”.

There was more. “Mr Gove replaces Fraser Nelson [who] will continue to write for The Spectator and will become associate editor … Mr Nelson called Mr Gove ‘the clear successor’ to replace him … ‘He’s a first-class journalist who took a detour into politics and not (as so often happens) the other way around,’ he wrote”. And then came the Oh What A Giveaway moment.

“There's never a good time to leave a job like mine but, after 15 years and a new owner with big ambitions, there is an obvious time”. Which is code for I Got Sacked. New publisher Freddy Sayers let us know that "the magazine's non-executive Chairman would be Charles Moore, a former Spectator editor [who] would have ‘the specific brief of safeguarding editorial independence and the soul of the publication’”. His soul is indeed our soul.

Charles Moore will do Sweet Jack to get in the way of whatever direction the new owner chooses for the Speccy. Which brings us to the question of why Nelson - whose tenure as editor has been a financial success story, whatever one might think of the content - should be binned in favour of Gove.

... and in comes Oiky

Were I a betting man, the money would be going on the answer to that question being Scary Muslims™. But, one might ask, why? Nelson has published some serious Islamophobic bigotry over the years, from the likes of Doug Murray The K, Rod Liddle, Mark Steyn, and indeed the aforementioned Charles Moore. All this is true. But here, Gove is in a class of his own.

He is, after all, the author of Celsius 7/7, for which the Wiki entry notes “Although, according to [Damian] Thompson, Celsius 7/7 provides a useful analysis of Western 'appeasers' of militant Islam, by and large comparing the war on terror to a war against a totalitarian ideology is ‘misleading’, and even dangerous”. Author and critic William Dalrymple went rather further.

He “has attacked the book as a ‘confused epic of simplistic incomprehension’ and pointed out that contrary to claims on the book's jacket that Gove was an authority on Islamist terror, he had in fact never lived or travelled in any Islamic country, knew little about Islamic history or theology, and showed no sign of having met or talked to any Muslims”. So who would defend “Oiky”?

He was “vigorously defended” by none other than Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips, and Stephen “Vicky” Pollard, the latter serving with less than total distinction as editor of the Jewish Chronicle, which has managed to attract several defamation suits and even the annoyance of sham press regulator IPSO for its occasional relationship with accuracy.

All of which suggests very strongly that, although Nelson published plenty of Muslim bashing copy, it may not have been enough for Marshall. Also, Gove has acquired the attribute of Very Clever Person during his time in politics, whether that is justified, or, more likely, not. A Muslim basher with the backing of other Muslim bashers is more likely to be what the new owner wants.

So farewell then Fraser Nelson, fired for not being Islamophobic enough.

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