Melanie Phillips: A Heroine Candidate

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version

For heroine of the year I nominate Melanie Phillips, a journalist and writer and regular columnist at the London’s Daily Mail. She recently published her book Londonstan, in which she argues that Britain and Europe are facing a civilizational test and they are in danger of failing.

Recently she was asked if she would give up? She said: I will not give up without a fight to bring Britain to its senses.”

From her biography:
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She is best known for her controversial column about political and social issues which currently appears in the Daily Mail. Awarded the Orwell Prize for journalism in 1996, she is the author of All Must Have Prizes, an acclaimed study of Britain's educational and moral crisis, which provoked the fury of educationists and the delight and relief of parents. Her ideas have influenced politicians in both government and opposition, who follow her battles in the culture wars with fascination. Styled a conservative by her opponents, she prefers to think of herself as defending authentic liberal values against the attempt to destroy western culture from within.

Born in 1951, Melanie read English at St Anne's College, Oxford before training as a journalist on the Evening Echo, Hemel Hempstead. After a short period on New Society magazine, she joined the Guardian in 1977 and soon became its social services correspondent and social policy leader writer. After a stint as the paper's news editor, she started writing her column in 1987, taking it to the Observer and then the Sunday Times before starting to write for the Daily Mail in December 2001.

Apart from All Must Have Prizes, she is the author of The Sex-Change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male, published by the Social Market Foundation, and America's Social Revolution, published by Civitas. She also wrote a play, Traitors, which was performed at the Drill Hall in London in 1985.

My second choice would be the Pope because of his awareness of the Islamic threat and his brave stand, considering the sensitivities of his position.

For a dhimmi person I agree with Ali’s choice, my second choice would be Britain.