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Nick Cohen is a British journalist and political commentator. He writes the Without Prejudice political column for The Observer, contributes regularly to the New Statesman, and is the author of two books, Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous (2000), and Pretty Straight Guys (2003).

An erstwhile darling of the left, Cohen created controversy in 2002 when, in several hard-hitting columns, he announced his support for the invasion of Iraq and denounced the left for its support, as he saw it, of Saddam Hussein.

Cohen attacked the left for forming alliances with rightwing Islamic and Islamist groups in its opposition to the war, writing that the "principled left" is a thing of the past. After the February 2003 anti-war demonstration in London, he was particularly critical of human-rights, feminist and gay-rights activists who marched alongside Islamist groups accused of homophobia and misogyny. "The left has swerved to the right," he wrote.

The hit of the season is Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a sort of Fox News for liberals. Among the many clunking contradictions and honking errors, one unforgiveable scene stands out. Moore brushes aside the millions forced into exile and mass graves by Saddam Hussein, and decides to present life in one of the worst tyrannies of the late 20th century as sweet and simple. Boys scamper to barber shops. Merry children fly kites. Blushing lovers get married. At the end of the film, leftish audiences in America and Europe show they are more than prepared to forgive and forget. They rise to their feet and applaud.

Cohen is a strong critic of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the "new left" project, which he argues is based on image, not principle. He told the British television network, Channel 4:

You get this picture of the leadership of this country, people in the heart of power, Blair, Campbell, Powell all in Downing Street, all worried intensely and working intensely about the Prime Minister's image. This is the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They really ought to have better things to do with their time ... Apart from Tony Blair's image, his sincerity, his integrity, there's no ideology behind it, beyond the standard neo-Conservative ideology of the day, and so his integrity is kind of all they've got.

Cohen opposes a proposed British law against incitement to religious hatred, believing that it violates fundamental principles of liberalism and freedom. He supports proposals to enforce a blanket ban on members of the neo-Nazi British National Party joining the British Civil Service. More recently, he wrote of President George W. Bush:

In the long-run the only solution is for the global move towards democracy to get moving again. In these strange times, the only person who believes that this is possible or desirable is George W Bush. In his inauguration address last week he announced that the "survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." And was feared and hated by right-thinking people the world over for saying so.

References

• Cohen, Nick (2000). Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous. Verso Books. ISBN 1859842887
• ____________ (2003). Pretty Straight Guys. paperback edition: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571220045
• "Who will save Iraq?" by Nick Cohen, The Observer, August 11, 2002
• "The Left isn't listening" by Nick Cohen, The Observer, February 16, 2003
• "Where have all the children of the left gone?" by Nick Cohen, The New Statesman, August 16, 2004
• "Cowards of the left" by Nick Cohen, The Observer, January 9, 2005
• "Taking Liberties" by Nick Cohen, The Observer, January 23, 2005
• "Face up to the truth" by Nick Cohen, The Observer, July 10, 2005

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• British journalists