As New Statesman editor, he published articles denigrating the north Wales victims as "damaged" and manipulated by journalists such as me, all part o… - Peter Wilby

Is Johann Hari, the Independents twentysomething columnist, a twerp? Does he write twaddle? Since I brought Hari into journalism - I gave him his first job, on the NS - I rather hope not.

[Nick] Cohen assures me that he has no intention of following [Paul] Johnson's long political journey. Since he is a personal friend, whose journalism I admire (I hired him twice, once on the Independent on Sunday, once on the NS), I believe him. But I don't underestimate the sense of betrayal on the left. When the rest of the press was cheering on [Tony] Blair, particularly in new Labour's early days, Cohen was his most virulent critic and almost the only coherent voice asserting "real left" values. Now, in some eyes, he has deserted the cause when it needs him most.

[Y]ou may be sure that, if the Soviet Union were still a reality and a threat, the debt crisis, which now affects some 50 countries and has reached previously unimagined levels (some countries have to use a quarter of their export earnings to service debt), would not exist.