Spectator launches Coffee House blog

The Spectator today launched a Coffee House blog – a 21st-century version of the 18th-century forums from which the magazine was born.

Coffee House launched today on the magazine’s website and is the first in a series of major online changes that include the appointment of two bloggers – Stephen Pollard and Clive Davis.

Pollard is a journalist and David Blunkett’s biographer, while Davis will blog on politics and culture from the UK and the US.

The magazine hopes its Coffee House blog will recreate the atmosphere that proved vital to the early success of the magazine.

“It’s the first step for what I hope to will be a big year for the magazine online,” said Spectator editor Matthew d’Ancona.

“We want to try and recreate online the milieu and edginess of the 18th century coffee house world that the Spectator actually emerged from.

“The coffee houses were the places that people went for political comment, gossip and mischief.

“We hope that people will come to it with all guns blazing and lots of ideas.”

It is believed that today’s launch is the first of a series of changes that will culminate in the Spectator site relaunching later this year.

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