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Nick Cohen rssNick Cohen

Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer and author of What’s Left and You Can’t Read This Book.

How angry are Conservatives going to be?

9 April 2011 17:30

I worry that Coffee House sometimes fails to enrage readers sufficiently, so let me run a scenario past you, suggested to me by Rafael Behr, the Observer’s brilliant leader writer.… Continue reading

26 Comments

Billy Bragg and the fate of the Lib Dems

3 April 2011 11:58

For as long as I can remember Billy Bragg has been arguing for tactical voting. He lives in some splendour in Dorset, and wants to drive the Tories out of… Continue reading

48 Comments

The Tory Party’s Secret Weapon

28 March 2011 12:37

Writing in today’s Guardian about the weekend protests, my colleague Jackie Ashley makes a half-true argument. ‘Miliband [cannot] be blamed for the embarrassing juxtaposition of his words at the Hyde… Continue reading

47 Comments

More like Veena, please

22 March 2011 14:38

If we are going to avoid a clash of civilisations, we are going to need many more like the Pakistani actress Veena Malik. Watch her take on a mullah, who… Continue reading

33 Comments

A plea for help

15 March 2011 9:31

I am writing a book about threats to freedom of speech – real threats that is – and wonder if I should include a chapter on political correctness. I find… Continue reading

91 Comments

Cameron is wrong to target the Quilliam Foundation

7 March 2011 15:49

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister promised a muscular liberalism that would take on the Islamist extremist groups Jack Straw, Ken Livingstone, John Denham and other frightened or simply… Continue reading

16 Comments

The Hunt becomes the Hunted

4 March 2011 10:47

Writing yesterday my esteemed colleague James Forsyth said that for want of a better alternative Jeremy Hunt was the Tory Party’s coming man. I hate disagree with James, but I… Continue reading

17 Comments

Why Howard Davies had to resign

3 March 2011 21:50

The London School of Economics once had a global reputation. The Libyan revolution wiped it away as easily as if it was mist on a window.   I cannot find… Continue reading

12 Comments

The Future of the BBC

28 February 2011 9:29

I’ve a piece in Standpoint about The Killing, one of the most interesting dramas on television. It’s not British, alas, and provides another reason for the controllers of British television… Continue reading

34 Comments

Mandy on Milly

25 February 2011 19:05

Peter Mandelson’s publishers have sent me extracts from the updated  paperback edition of his memoirs, The Third Man,  which is out on 3 March. Here are his thoughts on Ed… Continue reading

3 Comments

On not understanding Tories

19 February 2011 9:50

I don’t understand you, really I don’t. The immediate cause of my bewilderment was a piece on this site, yesterday by Matthew Hancock MP, attacking Ed Balls. In normal circumstances,… Continue reading

42 Comments

Cleggy Goes to Hollywood

15 February 2011 13:17

I once vowed never again to mock celebrities who endorse political campaigns as if they were advertising two-for-the-price-of-one offers in supermarkets. But today’s announcement that the Yes to AV campaign… Continue reading

16 Comments

Feminists for Cameron?

9 February 2011 16:06

The fallout from Labour’s morally and tactically disastrous decision to attack David Cameron’s defence of liberal values continues. Now it is Joan Smith’s turn to take a kick. She is… Continue reading

16 Comments

Labour’s Working Class Problem

8 February 2011 14:24

Here is a dispatch from the north-east by Andrew Hankinson, one of the best feature writers around, who wrote a superb piece on the effects of the crash of 2008… Continue reading

19 Comments

Dr Johnson and Ms Huffington

7 February 2011 17:34

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," declared Dr Johnson. Boswell did not like the maxim and explained it away as an example of Johnson’s lazy nature.… Continue reading

12 Comments

Why the Left Loses

31 January 2011 14:15

Writing behind the paywall in today’s Times, Aaron Porter, the president of the National Union of Students, says: "In Manchester on Saturday the National Union of Students organised what was… Continue reading

78 Comments

1981 and all that

30 January 2011 13:12

LP Hartley could not have been more wrong. The past is not a foreign country to which we can never return. It fills the minds of the living and stops… Continue reading

10 Comments

Andy Gray: The View from the Sports Desk

27 January 2011 9:22

After expressing some doubt yesterday that Andy Gray was as wicked or the journalists denouncing him were as virtuous as the media were claiming, I received the following email from… Continue reading

13 Comments

A profession for snide hypocrites

26 January 2011 12:38

One of the few pieces of writing that made me emit an admiring whistle last year, was by the Economist’s political correspondent Bagehot. He argued that Britain did not have… Continue reading

12 Comments

News International: will one more scandal be enough?

23 January 2011 12:47

At the start of the phone hacking scandal, I was sceptical that News International’s pursuers would get far. There is an omerta on Fleet Street. Reporters do not blab about… Continue reading

12 Comments
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