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Spiked (magazine)

British Internet-based magazine

Spiked (magazine)

British Internet-based magazine

FieldValue
nameSpiked
logoSpiked-online.svg
urlspiked-online.com
commercialNo
typePolitics
registrationNo
editorTom Slater
authorMick Hume
launch_date2001

Spiked (also written as sp!ked) is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society. The magazine was founded in 2001 with the same editor and many of the same contributors as Living Marxism, which had closed in 2000 after losing a case for libel brought by ITN.

There is general agreement that Spiked is libertarian, with the majority of specialist academic sources identifying it as right-libertarian, and some non-specialist sources identifying it as left-libertarian. Activists associated with Spiked, sometimes described as part of "the Spiked network", took part in the Brexit Party as candidates or publicists, while disagreeing with Nigel Farage on many domestic issues.

Editors and contributors

Spiked is edited by Tom Slater, who was previously its deputy editor. He was appointed in September 2021, and replaced Brendan O'Neill, who had been editor following Mick Hume's departure in January 2007. On ceasing to be editor, O'Neill became ''Spiked'''s 'inaugural chief political writer'.

The magazine also produces a number of podcasts, with contributors including Christopher Snowdon.

Origin

Spiked emerged from Living Marxism, the magazine of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Living Marxism was founded in 1988 and rebranded as LM in 1999.

Spiked was founded in 2000 after the bankruptcy of its predecessor after losing a libel case brought against it by the broadcasting corporation ITN. The case centered around ITN coverage of Fikret Alić and other Bosnian Muslims standing behind a barbed-wire fence at the Trnopolje camp during the Bosnian war. LM claimed to oppose Western intervention on traditional anti-imperialist grounds, and published an article titled "The Picture that Fooled the World" which claimed that ITN's coverage was deceptive, the barbed-wire did not enclose the camp and the Muslims were in fact "refugees, many of whom went there seeking safety and could leave again if they wished." During the court case, evidence given by the camp doctor led LM to abandon its defence. ITN was awarded damages and costs, estimated to be around £1 million.

The RCP itself formally dissolved in 1996, but maintained its existence as a loose network, first around LM and then Spiked. The group of writers associated with LM who went on to form the core editorial group at Spiked, are often referred to as the "LM network" or "Spiked network".

Content

Frank Furedi, interviewed in Spiked in 2007, said that the stance of LM and Spiked originates from the "anti-Stalinist left". Environmentalists such as George Monbiot and Peter Melchett have suggested that the LM Network pursued an ideologically motivated 'anti-environmentalist' agenda under the guise of promoting humanism. In a 2007 interview in Spiked, Frank Furedi referred to these critics as "a network of McCarthyites". Monbiot described the views of Living Marxism as having "less in common with the left than with the fanatical right." In 2018, Monbiot wrote that, "Its [Spiked's] articles repeatedly defend figures on the hard right or far right: Katie Hopkins, Nigel Farage, Alex Jones, the Democratic Football Lads' Alliance, Tommy Robinson, Toby Young, Arron Banks, Viktor Orbán".

The Daily Beast, as well as Paul Mason of the New Statesman, have described the site as libertarian. A study in Policy & Internet by Heft et al. described Spiked as populist, saying that it has "roots in the radical left‐wing scene, but now oppose the political establishment from a position on the right side of the spectrum." According to Tim Knowles, the technology correspondent for The Times, Spiked is right-wing and libertarian, By contrast, digital media scholar Jean Burgess and James Bowman of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center have referred to the site as left-libertarian.

Spiked opposes many public health interventions. For example, it sees campaigns against obesity as state intrusion and "a war on the poor". It opposes multiculturalism and (as its contributor Munira Mirza put it) sees institutional racism as "a perception more than a reality".

Spiked opposed the post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and of Iraq and Western interference in developing nations in general.

Spiked saw the UK's vote to leave the European Union as a demonstration of democracy against ruling elites and has celebrated Nigel Farage's Brexit Party and Boris Johnson's Conservative government for their stance on this. Activists associated with Spiked, sometimes described as part of 'the Spiked network', were active in campaigning for the UK to leave the EU, with a number of its activists involved in the Brexit Party as candidates or publicists. Among those associated with Spiked who joined the Brexit Party were Claire Fox, who said she largely disagreed with Farage on domestic policies.

In 2018 Monbiot wrote that "Spiked's writers rage against exposures of dark money. It calls The Observers Carole Cadwalladr, who has won a string of prizes for exposing the opaque spending surrounding the Brexit vote, 'the closest thing the mainstream British media has to an out-and-out conspiracy theorist.

Spiked opposed lockdown as a policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In July 2020, an exposé by The Daily Beast reported that Spiked was one of several mainly conservative websites that had inadvertently published articles attributed to non-existent experts on the Middle East. This network of fake journalists promoted the United Arab Emirates and pushed for harsher treatment of that country's opponents. Spiked did not remove the two articles, instead leaving an editorial note mentioning the articles' questionable authorship.

Following the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Spiked took a strong pro-Ukrainian position, often publishing articles praising the Ukrainian people and criticising Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, it also criticised Western media reaction following the 2022 missile explosion in Poland, accusing such media of not taking the risk of a major escalation with Russia seriously enough.

Projects

In May 2007 Spiked launched the Spiked Review of Books as a monthly online literary criticism feature. This coincided with controversy in the United States following the scaling back of newspaper book review sections.

Spiked produces annual "free speech rankings" of UK universities.

Funding

A joint investigation between DeSmog UK and The Guardian revealed that Spiked US Inc. received funding from the Charles Koch Foundation between 2016 and 2018 to develop live campus events connected with The Toleration and Free Speech program sponsored by the Charles Koch Foundation. The Guardian suggested that this was due to the online magazine's attacks on left-wing politics, its support and defence of hard right and far-right figures, and the many articles it publishes by writers supported by the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Koch-funded Cato Institute. Spiked's editor Brendan O'Neill dismissed such accusations as "McCarthyism" and stated that such funding was used to promote debate about free speech, saying that the Toleration and Free Speech Programme at the Charles Koch Foundation supports "projects from both progressive and conservative groups", naming as examples the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Newseum, the Knight Foundation and the American Society of News Editors.

References

References

  1. (7 June 2021). "David Lammy is right".
  2. "Fake writers promoting UAE".
  3. (25 August 2019). "Beyond Breitbart: Comparing Digital News Infrastructures in Six Western Democracies". [[Policy & Internet]].
  4. (2018). "Youtube: Online Video and Participatory Culture". [[John Wiley & Sons]].
  5. (February 2017). "Faking it and making it".
  6. Monbiot, George. (7 December 2018). "How US billionaires are fuelling the hard-right cause in Britain". [[The Guardian]].
  7. Bartholomew, Emma. (2019-03-08). "'Pro-Brexit, anti-feminist, anti-environmental' videos from Hackney charity WORLDwrite spark concern".
  8. "It's time for a change at Spiked 27 September 2021".
  9. Ideas, Jenny Turner reports from the Battle of. (2010-07-08). "Who Are They?". London Review of Books.
  10. "Thomas Deichmann". Lobby-Watch.
  11. (15 May 1999). "Licence to rile".
  12. Hartley-Brewer, Julia. (15 March 2000). "High stakes in battle over Serbian guilt". [[The Guardian]].
  13. (31 March 2000). "LM closes after losing libel action". The Guardian.
  14. (13 June 2011). "Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers". The Guardian.
  15. (8 July 2000). "Life after Living Marxism: Fighting for freedom – to offend, outrage and question everything". The Guardian.
  16. (15 March 2000). "Poison in the well of history". The Guardian.
  17. "Spiked". Lobby Watch.
  18. Hepworth, Jack. (28 April 2022). "'The moral rearmament of imperialism': the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Northern Ireland conflict, and the new world order, 1981-1994". Informa UK Limited.
  19. Monbiot, George (9 December 2003). [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/dec/09/highereducation.uk2 "Invasion of the entryists"]. ''The Guardian'' (London).
  20. Melchett, Peter (19 April 2007). [https://web.archive.org/web/20070615094537/http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_melchett/2007/04/farming_for_the_future.html "Clear intentions"]. ''The Guardian'' (London).
  21. [http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=39 Profiles: Martin Durkin], [http://www.lobbywatch.org/lm_intro.html LobbyWatch]. Retrieved 17 April 2007.
  22. Monbiot, George. (1 November 1998). "Far Left or Far Right?". [[Prospect (magazine).
  23. (7 December 2018). "How US billionaires are fuelling the hard-right cause in Britain". [[The Guardian]].
  24. (15 April 2019). "David Lammy is right".
  25. (25 August 2019). "Beyond Breitbart: Comparing Right-Wing Digital News Infrastructures in Six Western Democracies". Policy & Internet.
  26. (23 June 2020). "How a fringe sect from the 1980s influenced No 10's attitude to racism". The Guardian.
  27. (2018). "Youtube: Online Video and Participatory Culture". John Wiley & Sons.
  28. Beckett, Andy. (1 August 2020). "Why Boris Johnson's Tories fell for a tiny sect of libertarian provocateurs".
  29. "Life, liberty and politics after 9/11". Spiked.
  30. Hume, Mick. "The age of PR imperialism". Spiked.
  31. Cunliffe, Philip. "Exposing 'Empire in denial'". Spiked.
  32. Smith, Evan. (21 November 2022). "A Platform for Working Class Unity? The Revolutionary Communist Party's The Red Front and the pre-history of Living Marxism/Spiked Online in the 1980s". Informa UK.
  33. (2019-05-21). "Revealed: Nigel Farage's Brexit Party candidate spread 'propaganda' for Balkan warlord, was 'bugged' by MI6".
  34. Llewellyn Smith, Julia. (2019-04-28). "The Brexit Party's Claire Fox on why she's fighting for Farage".
  35. English, Otto. (2019-04-24). "Fox Breaks Cover – from Revolutionary Communist to Farage's Right Hand Woman".
  36. English, Otto. (2019-05-13). "AstroTurfers of Britain Part Two: Who is Behind Brexit Party Recruitment and its PR Makeover?".
  37. (6 July 2020). "Right-Wing Media Outlets Duped by a Middle East Propaganda Campaign". The Daily Beast.
  38. (7 July 2020). "Conservative Sites Pull Articles".
  39. Black, Tim. (21 September 2022). "Putin is the one escalating the war in Ukraine".
  40. Black, Tim. (12 October 2022). "Russia is terrorising Ukraine".
  41. Reynolds, Jacob. (12 September 2022). "Ukraine is one step closer to freedom".
  42. Reynolds, Jacob. (19 October 2022). "We must not give up on Ukraine".
  43. Reynolds, Jacob. (11 November 2022). "The liberation of Kherson should inspire us all".
  44. Bailey, Tom. (15 November 2022). "How Poland and Ukraine overcame a dark history".
  45. Black, Tim. (16 November 2022). "Do the Western media want World War 3?".
  46. Freeman, John. "The National Book Critics Circle's Campaign to Save Book Reviews". National Book Critics Circle.
  47. Thompson, Carl. (2018-02-17). "Free Speech Rankings: misleading, ill-informed and worryingly influential".
  48. Malik, Nesrine. (2019-10-13). "There is a crisis on campuses – but it's about racism, not free speech".
  49. (3 December 2018). "The New McCarthyism is ruining public life". Spiked.
  50. Small, Mike. (6 December 2018). "Revealed: US Oil Billionaire Charles Koch Funds UK Anti-Environment Spiked Network". [[DeSmogBlog.
  51. (8 December 2018). "Zuckerberg must end far right's fundraising on Facebook – Tom Watson". [[The Guardian]].
  52. O'Neill, Brendan. (3 December 2018). "The New McCarthyism is ruining public life".
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