Left Field

He's redesigned it and made it more eclectic, but has recently been out-scooped by his right-wing rival. Peter Wilby, editor of the New Statesman, tells David Lister he's too deaf to listen to New Labour spin and doesn't give a hoot about The Spectator

Peter Wilby is one of the very few editors in Britain who is also a socialist. He betrays his political leanings in his use of the shift key, admitting with pride to being the only editor who, to his knowledge, never caps up the "N" in New Labour. "I always use a lower case 'n'," he says with his usual mixture of magisterial pedantry and gruff bonhomie. "I don't accept that there's such a thing as New Labour. My Labour Party membership card does not say New Labour. I did not see New Labour on the ballot paper when I voted in the last election. It is an invention of the marketing people close to the Labour leader."

Perhaps Wilby discusses this from time to time with Geoffrey Robinson, the former (and, at the time, newish if not Newish) Labour minister who owns the New Statesman, which Wilby has edited for four years. Or maybe he and Robinson discuss the opposition. Not the Tory party, but The Spectator, Britain's other key political weekly, and traditionally the New Statesman's rival. The Spectator seems to be on a roll at the moment, with agenda-setting political issues such as last week's story about Tony Blair using private tutors for his children or the saga of Black Rod.

Editors of the New Statesman have always glanced over their shoulders at The Spectator. Wilby, though, is glancing less often, even though The Spectator appears to have more political clout and certainly has the circulation clout – 60,000 to the New Statesman's 26,000.

"In some respects that rivalry is out of date," Wilby says. "Our readership surveys show that the overlap of readers is actually quite small, only about five or six per cent.

"The point about The Spectator," he adds, "is that its agenda is to be an instrument of the Tory party and to discredit Tony Blair. So it isn't really an agenda, apart from undermining him."

Besides, Wilby believes the New Statesman last week had as good a scoop with the government minister Peter Hain saying his fellow ministers hadn't done enough to keep the unions happy.

A real scoop, Wilby adds, the one he thinks most fondly of under his editorship, was the interview with Robert Winstone in which he said the British health service had sunk to the level of the Polish health service. "He was a friend of the Blair family," says Wilby. "He was in the House of Lords; he was a prominent Labour supporter. And when Blair was questioned about it on the Frost programme he said he would bring NHS spending up to the European average. It changed government policy. You can't get more agenda-setting than that.

"The Spectator is a lot of old Tory fogeys muttering away to one another. Its whole design and tone and general culture are hopelessly outdated."

His use of the word design is significant. Unusually for a New Statesman editor, he has made design a priority in the chase for readers. During the spring he oversaw a redesign of the magazine, aimed at getting new readers to stick with the magazine.

The redesign has given the magazine a cleaner look and a more coherent separation of features and columnists, has put colour on every spread, and has made the cover livelier and more eye-catching. It also seems to have pulled in readers: the current circulation shows a 20 per cent increase over last year.

Wilby also wanted the redesign to emphasise his new approach to the magazine. "The days are long past when the New Statesman could rely on a dedicated Labour or leftist audience. Most of our columnists are well to the left, like John Pilger or Mark Thomas. But I try to make sure there is room to make it more eclectic."

The hiring of Amanda Platell, the former Tory spin doctor, is the most visible sign of that eclecticism. It seemed at first almost too eccentric a move, yet she is becoming an increasingly assured media columnist. Wilby's deputy, Christina Odone, is also a key factor in the magazine moving away from a purely political agenda. She is of a much more flexible political bent than her boss, but she has an eye for a good story and knows how to maximise its effect, as well as owning a bulging address book.

The New Statesman's core readership, however – and most of its writers – will expect it to have an equally coherent left-of-centre philosophy informing its pages.

Wilby defines his magazine's current political philosophy thus: "We are trying to produce a cultural and political magazine that is radical and questioning. I define our position as left of centre, probably to the left of new Labour, but not doctrinaire. Critical but friendly towards them. We like to think of ourselves as 'thinking Left'.

"We don't think of ourselves as having relations with the Labour Party. Occasionally they grumble at us; but because I'm so deaf I'm very difficult to spin. I can't hear them properly."

He can, though, hear his proprietor, and he believes that what he hears from Robinson are supportive words. "Geoffrey is chairman of the company. He has a particular say in the business side; but he has no say in editorial matters. Occasionally he lets his views be known, and why shouldn't he? But I've never felt under any pressure to be kinder to the Labour Party or to Gordon Brown."

Occasionally, Wilby's judgement has slipped; he apologised publicly after a cover on British Jews' attitude to Israel, which featured a Star of David piercing a Union flag. Another cover on how Labour views its women was illustrated with a woman showing her knickers, which infuriated Jackie Ashley, the author of the piece. But the proprietor has maintained confidence in his editor.

"My relations with Geoffrey are perfectly amicable," says Wilby. "I will stay as long as he wants me to and as long as I can do the work; and with few staff and little money it is very hard work."

With circulation rising and the redesign proving a success, Wilby, who formerly edited The Independent on Sunday, has reason to believe he can continue to reshape the New Statesman. Not that he would ever put it so optimistically. "An editor must always approach every issue as if it were his last," he says. "Any editor who doesn't do that is a fool."