Mehdi Hasan is a British journalist who has worked in television current affairs and the national press. He was appointed senior editor (politics) at the New Statesman In the late spring of 2009.[1]
Contents |
After graduating from Christ Church, Oxford in 2000, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), he began his working life answering the phones on the ITN newsdesk, before working as a researcher and then producer on LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, with a brief period in between on BBC1's The Politics Show. He then became deputy executive producer on Sky's breakfast show Sunrise before moving to Channel 4 in June 2007 as their editor of news and current affairs.[2]
He has appeared three times on the BBC Question Time: on 13 May 2010, 23 September 2010 and 8 December 2011. He also makes frequent appearances on the Sunday morning programme The Big Questions.
He has given talks at several conferences and universities in the past. He also spoke at a "Next Steps for Labour" event organised by the Tribune newspaper on 17 May 2010 at the TUC Congress House, arguing that the Labour Party should take time to elect its new Leader, and that it had to rethink its approach to certain issues such as civil liberties and the Iraq war.
A regular contributor to The Guardian,[3] Hasan argued in November 2011 that "it be [would be] rational for Iran – geographically encircled, politically isolated, feeling threatened – to want its own arsenal of nukes, for defensive and deterrent purposes?" Hasan himself advocated diplomacy and the reduction of American rhetoric.[4]