I write book reviews for the New Statesman. The fact that its editorial line is, in my view, deeply wrong, both about most domestic issues and, more importantly, over Iraq and the Middle East, has not been that much of a problem for me. I don't think one can stop writing for publications simply because one disagrees with some of their editorial lines, and although I've sometimes found it rather weird to appear in the Statesman, alongside the likes of Pilger and other loony tunes, I've rather enjoyed baiting them with my remarks. (I derived a huge thrill from choosing as my book of the year, a while ago, the collected columns of Richard Littlejohn. Sad, maybe, but the thought of the juice bar lefties choking over the carrot and ginger smoothies cheered me up no end.)

But there comes a point when things go too far and you realise that it's not a matter of some political disagreements but a fundamental contempt for the publication, and I think that point has now come.

This week's issue (you can read it here. but only if you pay or read a full-ish report here) argues that:

[T]here appears to be something worryingly adrift in the mind of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, a man who doesn't really know who or what he is. More technically, he is diagnosed as a psychopath capable of reinventing himself with remarkable dexterity, like an actor. What most people call 'spin', the routine lubricant of all political gearboxes, is, in Blair's case, eloquent self-delusion on a heroic scale. Three articles and an editorial push the line that the PM is essentially deranged.

I was sickened this morning when I saw that my review of Mark Steel's book (see post yesterday) appeared alongside these Goebbels-like smears.

It's one thing disagreeing with the PM on Iraq and other issues - we are all entitled to our view. That's something some of us want to fight to protect, of course.

But a concerted campaign to brand him a psychopath is, to my mind, not merely gutter journalism but contemptible.

And how can I carry on writing for a publication I view as contemptible?

The answer is that I can't, and I've written to tell them so.
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