American conservative

Harvard man Russell Seitz has sent me an extraordinary present as an object lesson in ‘what a magazine should be in case you start another one’. The paper has yellowed and is dog-eared, pages are falling out and the print is faint. But the Transatlantic Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, dated January 1924, is a joy to behold. Mind you, we were already almost 100 years old when Ford Madox Ford first edited TTR in Paris. And that’s what I told my friend Russell. Anyone who writes for or reads The Spectator is not likely to be impressed by other publications, but this does not include a posturing peacock from the BBC who recently spouted gibberish learned at university diversity courses at a Speccie reader.

Cockburn was sad to learn that W. James Antle III, the highly esteemed editor of the American Conservative (TAC), has parted ways with the magazine after little more than a year at the helm. Antle is a terrifically gifted journalist and a dexterous thinker who has contributed many fine pieces to The Spectator in his time.TAC is one of the best magazines in the world — Cockburn does not make such compliments lightly — and Antle has steered the publication to new heights. It has in recent years flourished into a hugely influential voice on the American right: its influence on Trumpism is unmistakable.Cockburn, busybody that he is, has asked around to find out what caused Antle’s sudden departure, but TAC staff are being impressively tight-lipped.