Johann Hari

Johann Hari has reported from Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Congo, the Central African Republic, Venezuela, Peru and the US, and his journalism has appeared in publications all over the world. The youngest person to be nominated for the Orwell Prize for political writing, in 2003 he won the Press Gazette Young Journalist of the Year Award and in 2007 Amnesty International named him Newspaper Journalist of the Year. He is a contributing editor of Attitude magazine and published his first book, God Save the Queen?, in 2003.

Johann Hari: Cameron a progressive? I don't think so

Britain is stumbling in a daze towards Tory rule. Every week now we sleep-walk further up the opinion polls, giving David Cameron a 26-point lead by one count. What keeps us from waking? The lullabies of Cameron posing with huskies and the homeless soothe us; it won't be so bad, he's a New Tory, we mutter, and close our eyes again.

Recently by Johann Hari

Johann Hari: The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics

Thursday, 8 May 2008

In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.

Johann Hari: BNP votes are a cry of white working-class anguish

Monday, 5 May 2008

The London results were so bleak the election coverage soon turned into an edition of Have I Got Noose For You. Mayor Boris has gone from punch-line to punch-out, and I watched it all in a black cloud, waiting for his pledge to rule on behalf of all Londoners – white, Asian or piccaninny.

Johann Hari: It's the policies that count – and that means Londoners should vote for Ken Livingstone

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Are we becoming an Attention Deficit Democracy, where we are swayed by shiny objects and empty images rather than – crazy idea! – the policies that affect our lives? When Londoners stream into the polling booths tomorrow, they won't just be picking between Boris and Ken. They will be picking between two different ways of doing politics.

Johann Hari: Israel is suppressing a secret it must face

Monday, 28 April 2008

When you hit your 60th birthday, most of you will guzzle down your hormone replacement therapy with a glass of champagne and wonder if you have become everything you dreamed of in your youth. In a few weeks, the state of Israel is going to have that hangover.

Johann Hari: The ideological tug-of-war over our schools

Thursday, 10 April 2008

Can you hear the grunts? Can you smell the sweat? There is currently a heaving, ideological tug-of-war between Labour and the Conservatives, with Britain's schools acting as the rope. This contest could decide the life-chances of millions of kids, but you wouldn't know it from the shrieking coverage, which has been reduced to Balls – and balls.

Johann Hari: Boycotting the Beijing Olympics won't work, but here's a proposal that just might

Monday, 7 April 2008

On the streets of London, the Chinese dictatorship has just learned with a painful jab that their Olympic Slogan – "One World, One Dream" – is true. In every city the Olympic torch sashays through on its world tour, its greeting is the same. Tibetans wave their banned flag and grieve for their freshly-slaughtered countrymen. Falun Gong refugees hold aloft pictures of their co-believers who have vanished into China's vast "re-education camps". Darfuris cry for an end to the massacres against them backed from Beijing. And ordinary people line the streets to support them. Yes, they all have One Dream: an end to human rights abuses.

Johann Hari: I like to be informed – but TV's not helping

Thursday, 3 April 2008

It's easy to forget as we bullet down the information super-highway, but 67 per cent of British people still get "most" or "all" of their news from the old-fangled flashing box in the corner of the living room. (And kitchen, and bedroom, and kids' bedrooms, and... hey! Put down the remote and listen to me.) But something sad is happening on that box. Politics – the democratic debate that determines our fate – is slowly, steadily disappearing, or being rendered ever-more useless. Where the top-ranking politics shows used to be, there is now a message: We're sorry if your picture has been disrupted. Normal service will not resume, ever.

Johann Hari: We need proportional representation. But what's on offer will just make matters worse

Monday, 31 March 2008

Before you read this column, I need you to do something. Drink ten cups of black coffee. Down three cans of Red Bull. Ask a friend to slap you in the face at the end of each sentence. The issue we need to talk about – electoral reform – can bring on narcolepsy in even the most alert people. But it matters, because it determines the very shape of our politics – and who gets to be Prime Minister. Every other political issue you care about starts here, with this.

Johann Hari: Where have all the strong women gone?

Thursday, 27 March 2008

Precisely a century ago, in a suburb of Boston, a child called Bette Davis erupted into the world. She was not only a woman; she was an electrical storm with skin. With nothing but raw talent and raw determination, she became the most famous woman in the world, taking on the Hollywood studio system, the FBI and the Catholic Church.

Johann Hari: Why is Britain allowing money and weapons to pass into the hands of right-wing militias?

Monday, 24 March 2008

On the website of the British Foreign Office, a small photograph recently appeared. It shows Kim Howells, our Foreign Office minister, looking into the camera, smiling, as he is surrounded by gun-yielding men accused of murder. He had not been taken hostage. No: he was there to represent a government that gives these men money and military aid.

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