 April 2021 cover issue | |
| Editor | Christopher Montgomery[1] |
|---|---|
| Deputy Editor | Graham Stewart |
| Online Editor | Ben Sixsmith |
| Associate Editor | Sebastian Milbank |
| Former editors | Michael Mosbacher |
| Categories | |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Format | A4 |
| Paid circulation | 8,950[2] |
| Unpaid circulation | 10,704[2] |
| Total circulation | 19,654 (November–December 2020)[2] |
| Founded | 2019 |
| First issue | November 2019 |
| Company | Locomotive 6960 Ltd |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Based in | London |
| Language | English |
| Website | thecritic |
| ISSN | 2633-2655 |
| OCLC | 1140170196 |
The Critic is a British conservative[7] monthly political and cultural magazine.[8] The magazine was founded in November 2019,[9] with Michael Mosbacher, former editor ofStandpoint, and Christopher Montgomery, a strategist with theEuropean Research Group ofEurosceptic Tory MPs,[10] as co-editors. It was funded by its ownerJeremy Hosking,[6][11] a City of London financier and donor toReform UK,[12] theConservative party,[6] andLaurence Fox'sReclaim Party,[13] who had previously donated toStandpoint.[14]
Contributors includeDavid Starkey,Peter Hitchens,Douglas Murray,Toby Young,Patrick Kidd, Yuan Yi Zhu and Robert Hutton.[8]
Founding co-editor Michael Mosbacher said thatJeremy Hosking had been unwilling to continue fundingStandpoint after its board resisted Hosking's demand for more "culture wars content". Mosbacher said of Hosking, "He's a strong Brexiteer, Eurosceptic and right-of-centre, but we are not trying to fit into that narrowly".[6]
Mosbacher characterisedThe Critic as covering the cultural issues that underpin Brexit.[6]The Times Literary Supplement described it as having a resemblance toThe Spectator, with a mission "to criticize the critics".[15] An editorial from the first issue in 2019 attacked "the closed mind", whose "high priests" are found in the universities, "the civil service, the BBC, the courts, the churches, the arts and the quangos".[8]The Critic has been described as combining "more radical forms of populism and more communitarian forms of conservatism", and "[flirting] with the outer-most limits of respectable nationalism".[16] It is considered to be opposed tonet-zero targets,[17] and "wokeness".[16]
In January 2020, Mosbacher said that the magazine planned to introduce a paywall if subscriber numbers increased to allow the magazine to become self-sufficient.[6]
An April 2020 article byJohn McTernan, former political strategist forTony Blair, encouragedKeir Starmer to purge "Corbynistas" from theLabour party, saying that "there's no problem with a witch-hunt when there really are witches to hunt".[16][18]
In July 2020, after historianDavid Starkey was forced to apologise for an interview comment in which he referred to "so many damn blacks in Africa",The Critic decided to retain him as a columnist, expressing opposition tocancel culture.The Sunday Times noted that Starkey's column in the then latest issue ofThe Critic concernedBlack Lives Matter.[19]
In his essay wishing success for the new publication,David Goodhart, founder ofProspect, remarked, "Does the world need another magazine of tastefully-written, somewhat contrarian, conservatively-inclined thinking? Probably not."[6][8]Peter Wilby of theNew Statesman responded, "I would say probably yes, so why do we never get one?"[8]
Solomon Hughes in theMorning Star deridedThe Critic, along withStandpoint andUnHerd, as "rich men's megaphones", which in contrast to left-wing publications, "rely on millionaires more than actual readers". He said that such magazines are treated seriously by the mainstream press in part because of their "glossy" presentation, but more so "because they will pay a slumming mainstream journalist very well".[20]
Josh White, writing inBattleground, said, "Any Conservative who is aggrieved by the lack of social cohesion in the wake of austerity may pick up the mag and feel his (usuallyhis) prejudices reaffirmed".[16]
openDemocracy criticised Hosking's opposition to net-zero, and that of the publications he funds, noting his substantial financial interest in the fossil fuel industry.[17]
Holland's book was praised inThe Critic, a conservative magazine, as evidence of the West's superiority in contrast to the 'moral horror of cultures unleavened by Christianity's influence...'