Stephen Pollard

For the English cricketer (born 1971), see Stephen Pollard (cricketer).
Stephen Pollard
Born c. 1965
Education John Lyon School
Mansfield College, Oxford.
Occupation Journalist

Stephen Pollard (born c. 1965) is a British author and journalist. He is the editor of The Jewish Chronicle.

Early life

Stephen Pollard was born circa 1965. He was educated at John Lyon School and graduated from Mansfield College, Oxford where he received an MA. His dissertation was titled "Why the inconsistent form of Tottenham Hotspur is coped with by Fans by reference to the works of Kant".

Career

After early articles for the Fabian Review in 1993 (for example, "More Southern Discomfort", discussing ways by which the Labour Party could reform itself sufficiently to regain power), Stephen Pollard's career has seen a fair degree of political movement from left to right; he was formerly an advisor to anti-EU Labour politician Peter Shore. He was a journalist at the Daily Express as a journalist and leader-writer, Stephen Pollard left the paper for a time in 2001. However, following a reconciliation with Richard Desmond in mid 2009, Pollard has returned to writing articles for the Daily Express.

He is a former Chairman of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and a former president of the Centre for the New Europe, a free-market think tank based in Brussels. He has written columns for several publications, including The Times, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, and also has maintained a blog.

He is an advocate of market-based public service reforms. He was one of the signatory founders, in 2005, of the Henry Jackson Society, which advocates a proactive approach to the spread of liberal democracy across the world.[1][2] By 2006, he held the view that, in the "battle to save western civilisation", the "Left, in any recognisable form, is now the enemy". His biography of Labour Party politician David Blunkett, with the subject's involvement, was published in 2004.[3]

In November 2008, Pollard became editor of The Jewish Chronicle.[4] He is a frequent commentator on Israel.[5] In his 2009 New York Times review of a book by Bruce Bawer, Pollard endorsed the notion that "liberal appeasement" is paving the way for a "replacement" of European civilization by radical Islamist ideology.[6] Pollard has argued that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has tipped over to antisemitism and the defence of attacks on Jews. Writing about the disruption of an appearance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on 1 September 2011 at the BBC Proms he asserted that the actions of pro-Palestinian activists had a "chilling air" reminiscent of "the way Nazi party members broke up meetings" in Weimar Germany.[7]

In July 2012 Pollard alleged that a suicide bombing in Bulgaria received a lack of coverage in news media due to antisemitism.[8]

References

  1. ↑ The Henry Jackson Society The Guardian,
  2. ↑ "...[The West's] failures in the former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia) were more than just moral. Through their impact on the credibility of our international institutions, such as NATO and the EU, they had a profound effect on the national interests of western powers. These fiascos showed that we had to engage, robustly and sometimes preventatively. The early interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, although imperfect, provide an appropriate model for future action." The Henry Jackson Society's Statement of Principles
  3. ↑ "The Maida Vale Manifesto"
  4. ↑ Matthew Bell, "'Fantastic timing': a baptism of fire at the Jewish Chronicle", [ndependent on Sunday, 11 January 2009
  5. ↑ Stephen Pollard "More Wikipedia", The Spectator
  6. ↑ Stephen Pollard "The Appeasers", New York Times, 24 July 2009
  7. ↑ Stephen Pollard "A Proms protest with a whiff of Weimar about it", Daily Telegraph, 2 September 2011
  8. ↑ http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/123255/dead-jews-dont-make-news/