Anne McElvoy



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Area of interest: Politics

Journals: Evening Standard

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Website: Standard.co / Anne McElvoy

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Biography:
Education: Oxford University: German and Philosophy (first class honours); Humboldt University, Berlin: East German literature and effects of censorship

Career: "Joined The Times as a graduate trainee in 1988 and became a foreign correspondent, reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, break up of Yugoslavia and as bureau chief from Moscow in the early nineties. In 1996 she became Deputy Editor of The Spectator, also working as a columnist on the Daily Telegraph, writing on domestic politics and international affairs. She moved to The Independent in 1998 as Associate Editor. Joined the Evening Standard as Executive Editor in 2002." (info sourced from The Guardian)

Current position/role: Executive Editor


 * also writes/written for: Daily Mail, The Scotsman

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TV/Radio: Regular presenter on Radio 3’s Night Waves arts and ideas magazine; other regular appearances, incl. BBC's Newsnight review and Question Time
 * IMDb

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Books & Debate:

 * The saddled cow : East Germany's life and legacy OCLC 26252990, 1992
 * Man without a face : the autobiography of communism's greater spymaster OCLC 78476030, 1997 (with Markus Wolf, who was head of the General Intelligence Administration (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security)

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Role: Executive Editor

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Website: Standard.co / Anne McElvoy

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Day published: primarily Wednesday

Regularity: weekly

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Articles: 2009

 * A courtly battle for the ear of King Gordon Brown - Picture, if you will, an embattled political leader, in the crossfire of advice from warring advisers - 8th July
 * Labour risks losing North, says Blears - Labour is in danger of losing the electorally vital battle for the North and shedding "aspiring" voters, says former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears - 3rd July
 * The campaign has begun - with a slanging match - David Cameron has indulged his inner Kaiser Chief: who'd have thought "I predict a riot" would be the new Tory anthem? - 1st July
 * Thumper Dave’s rush of blood as he takes on Giant Haystacks - Readers of an older pop generation will remember the lugubrious Eighties hit, Spare Us The Cutter, by Echo and the Bunnymen - 1st July
 * Truth behind London’s unlikely power couple - What is it about the Berc? Self-made, bright, non-Oxbridge Tory, impeccable moderniser — and the new Conservative Speaker many Tories are out to destroy - 25th June
 * Why Gordon Brown is all at sea in the Iraq inquiry - Gordon Brown wants an unsparing inquiry into Iraq. Except he doesn't want it now, as the US troops withdraw - 24th June
 * Sea of black ink would make Orwell proud - A democratic thrill: the published MPs' expenses have finally "dropped". From 6am the inner secrets have been available online. Don't all rush at once - 18th June


 * Merkel and Sarkozy on the wrong side of the great G20 divide - Barack and Michelle looked straight out of Noughties Camelot as they descended the plane steps last night. But disappointment is on the G20 agenda long before the goodie bags are dispensed to departing guests - 1st April
 * Pity the hapless political husband - One thing I would not have predicted of Jacqui Smith is that she would add to the stock of national gaiety - 31st March 2009
 * Zut alors – Gordon’s just discovered he likes Europe after all - The PM’s efforts to impress the Strasbourg parliament are part of his desperate strategy to woo the voters back home - 25th March 2009
 * A spin too far for the Statesman - Now I know that the sight of Alastair Campbell is enough to put some people off their breakfast but it's quite something that his presence for a mere week at the New Statesman should unleash such a rip-roaring feud - 24th March 2009
 * Farewell Jade Goody, tragicomic heroine of the way we live now - The fascination with the reality TV star was so great because she reflected some home truths about modern Britain - 23rd March 2009
 * Top Tory: Let schools open for teaching on Saturdays - Conservative schools spokesman Michael Gove has announced a radical plan to transform education by allowing schools to lengthen the school day and introduce shorter holidays - 20th March 2009
 * Silver fox has played blame game with PM - The job of culling bonuses and clearing up the mess from a leaky regulatory system has fallen to a man who has had a swift march through industry and financial institutions. Lord Turner, a former head of the CBI, pensions reformer and now FSA chief, is one of the figures Gordon Brown fears most and for good reason - these two are old adversaries in the blame game - 18th March 2009
 * Cameron still needs a remedy for fragile post-boom Britain - The Tory leader has made a strong attack on the PM’s record. But he won’t reassure voters until his own instincts are less ambiguous - 18th March 2009
 * Truth – the first casualty of faction - A policeman fights corruption at the heart of the Ripper hunt and so lifelike is the account that we even see home-made film footage taken on Christmas Day in more light-hearted times - 17th March 2009
 * New Labour is dead – but who will lead the fightback? - Who killed New Labour? I enquire only because the most successful political creation of the past 20 years is dying on its feet - 11th March 2009
 * The state we’re in is nothing like Stalin’s - Burnt By the Sun at the National is a play I venture to with trepidation. Nikita Mikhailov's film (made under Yeltsin) is a classic reckoning with the past: a mixture of revenge tragedy, bleak comedy and Chekhovian saga of a fateful day in a countryside dacha on the eve of Stalin's great purge - 10th March 2009
 * Gordon Brown needs more from his new best friend than a handshake - Gordon Brown and Barack Obama are quite a contrast, aren't they? Mr Obama is newly elected on a big mandate, widely popular, charismatic, photogenic - and Gordon is, well, you know - 4th March 2009
 * Turbo-Hattie just keeps going - Arise Turbo-Hattie. The leader of the House had forsaken her Battenberg pastels for a neat, dark grey suit and designer spectacles, in case we needed to be reminded that she is quite smart enough for the top job (at least in her attire) - 4th March 2009
 * Proof we live our lives by the book - Occasionally life offers unexpected treats. This week, I get a big one: the Goethe Society has asked a few of us London Germanophiles to read from our favourite German literary work. It's not as hard going as it sounds: no verbs at the end of three-page sentences, because it is in English - 3rd March 2009
 * Brown needs to connect with bloke Britain - The Prime Minister has chosen the seemingly unlikely channel of talkSport radio to deal with the fallout of Harriet Harman's latest foot-in-mouth moment - 2nd March 2009
 * It's the academies or bust - It is still remarkably easy to end up in a no man's land in inner-city education in London - 2nd March 2009
 * He was the centre of their lives - Any visitor to the Cameron home was struck by how central their disabled son Ivan and his needs were in the life of a busy household - 25th February 2009
 * Maggie’s back – but this drama misses what made her great - Gordon Brown hosts the unveiling of the new Baroness Thatcher portrait at No 10 today: one of those moments when we pinch ourselves and imagine what Old Mr Brown would have said about her, as opposed to new Mr Brown, who can grin and bear anything that cements his shaky presence at her old address - 25th February 2009
 * Gordon’s on the Orient Express – with an awful lot of suspects - It's getting hard to find anyone in the Government who, when pressed, doesn't think Labour will lose the election - 18th February 2009
 * Gordon and the fine art of talking it out - So Gordon, if you got it so right - how could it have gone so wrong? This was the question the committee of Commons Chairmen, stout elders of the parish, tried to lob at Mr Brown this morning - 12th February 2009
 * Deep down, Gordon knows full well that he's on a losing streak - If Mr Brown thought the recession would be his saviour, that faith in ill winds blowing good looks pretty shaky now - 11h February 2009
 * Happiness is the art of posturing - I have developed a yoga crush. For us sufferers of deskworkers' back and general despair at the state of our bodies by the end of the week, it's addictive - 10th February 2009
 * What’s said in the Green Room is very different from a remark on air - The BBC lives between a rock and a hard place. It must entertain but not rile sensitivities, it must inform, but not bore. It must spend money to attract top talent but not so much that it will foment outrage. And it must do it all on the basis of an involuntary tax called the licence fee, which is both good value but also an imposition - 5th February 2009
 * In Cameron-land, Ken has already sown his trademark turmoil - Happy days for the Conservatives: the polls send a loud raspberry to Gordon Brown's recovery plans and show a cautious but sustained interest in the alternative - 4th February 2009
 * Lords-a-lobbying spell double trouble for Labour - Lords a lobbying don't make a pretty sight, do they? The bottom of the Labour barrel has been scraped with this lot. Lord Taylor positively exudes mediocrity - except for his income, obviously. Here is the payroll pensioner vote in action - 28th January 2009
 * Obama the anti-cynic – and his message - It's rare for Barack Obama, the smoothest political orator on the block, to stumble in front of the microphone. In a reminder that he is, after all, mortal, he did so at the most important moment of his life: during the inaugural oath - 21st January 2009
 * I heard Obama speak in 2004 and thought: I've seen the new black Kennedy - I first set eyes on Barack Obama while covering an event that was supposed to be about someone else entirely. It was the Democratic party's Boston convention, nominating John Kerry as candidate for the 2004 presidential race - 20th January 2009
 * Stop kidding yourself, Harriet: there’s only one road to social mobility - Social mobility is back - the unsolved conundrum of opportunity and what impedes it. I ought to be pleased, as someone who has campaigned for it to be taken seriously by politicians for some time now - 14th January 2009
 * There is a way out of this conflict - but not until Israel is secure - The saddest conflicts in the world are those defined by their bloody repetitions, as predictable as they are chilling. So it is with Israel and the Palestinians - 7th January 2009



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