Just rejoice at this news. Its website is not up and running properly yet but the printed version of the Conservative leaning, mildly intellectual, magazine Standpoint has arrived. Certainly it is expensive but packed full of interesting stuff. I suspect that most Conservative Home readers would find a six month subscription to this monthly magazine well worth the £18.90 it costs. The Editor Daniel Johnson (son of historian Paul) is to be congratulated. It's been billed as a right wing version of Prospect but it is livelier than that description implies. More Prospect meets Spectator meets Modern Review (the defunct organ Toby Young used to edit.)
Johnson has got a few Lefties writing for it but this doesn't really constitute balance as they are saying Conservative things. Andrew Marr praises the cartoonist Matt. Nick Cohen attacks Headcases. Antonia Fraser wonders what would have happened if Elizabeth I had married Eric XIV of Sweden.
For other contributors Johnson relies heavily on his old Telegraph mates and some of the slots are thus a bit predictable. Dominic Lawson on chess (groan), James Delingpole on pop music (groan), Charles Moore reviews Ferdinand Mount's memoirs Cold Cream (groan.) But then why not? In the launch issue this is inevitable. Its 82 pages have lots of passages that make you want to read them out and argue over with friends. I will be interested to see how Standpoint broadens out. See if Johnson can get Delingpole to write about something else.
