:Oliver Kamm

Kamm is the son of translator Anthea Bell and publisher Antony Kamm.{{cite news |last1=Armitstead |first1=Claire |author-link=Claire Armitstead|title=Anthea Bell: 'It's all about finding the tone of voice in the original. You have to be quite free' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/16/anthea-bell-asterix-translator-interview |work=The Guardian |date=16 November 2013 |language=en}} Kamm is the grandson of Adrian Bell and nephew of Martin Bell. Although his mother was not Jewish, he lost family members on his father's side in The Holocaust.{{cite news|url=https://www.thejc.com/culture/books/oliver-kamm-how-my-mother-anthea-bell-translated-gems-of-jewish-culture-1.471481|title=Found in translation: My mother's role in Jewish culture|last=Kamm|first=Oliver|date=25 October 2018|access-date=26 July 2019|work=The Jewish Chronicle}}{{cite news|url=https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/free-speech-means-the-right-to-offend-alsion-chabloz-oliver-kamm-1.464825|title=Holocaust denier Alison Chabloz should not have been prosecuted|last=Kamm|first=Oliver|date=31 May 2018|access-date=26 July 2019|work=The Jewish Chronicle}} He studied at New College, Oxford{{cite web |title=Things I Wished I'd Known Before I Went to Oxbridge |url=https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/oxbridge-wish-i-had-known.html |publisher=Oxford Royale Summer Schools |date=2 April 2012}} He began his career at the Bank of England and worked in the securities industry and investment banking.

Kamm joined the Times staff in 2008.{{cite web |title=Oliver Kamm - the 2010 Blogger Prize Long List |url=https://www.orwellfoundation.com/blogger/oliver-kamm/ |publisher=Orwell Foundation |access-date=1 June 2018}} He has also contributed to The Jewish Chronicle,{{cite web|url=https://www.thejc.com/landing/Author/Oliver%20Kamm|title=Oliver Kamm|publisher=The Jewish Chronicle|website=thejc.com}} Prospect magazine,{{cite web|url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/author/Oliver-Kamm |title=Articles by Oliver Kamm|publisher=Prospect|website=prospectmagazine.co.uk}} and The Guardian.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/profile/oliverkamm|title=Oliver Kamm|website=The Guardian}}

Kamm was a consistent supporter of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the foreign policies of his government.{{cite news|last=Lloyd|first=John|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/node/163435|title=The case for freedom|work=New Statesman|date=12 December 2005|access-date=6 May 2018}} According to John Lloyd in 2005, Kamm viewed Blair's policies "as the expression of true social-democratic values". At its launch in 2005, Kamm subscribed to the founding principles of the Henry Jackson Society and was an initial signatory.{{cite web |title=Oliver Kamm: Henry Jackson's legacy |url=http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/henry_jacksons_.html |access-date=22 July 2020 |date=6 May 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060506214317/http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/henry_jacksons_.html |archive-date=6 May 2006 }}{{primary source inline|date=May 2023}}

In 2006 Oliver Kamm wrote a blog post titled "The Islamphobia Scam" in which he said "if any reader wishes to nominate me [for an "Islamophobia" award] and I am successful, you can be sure I'll turn up to collect the award and express my reasons for pride in it.{{cite web |title=Oliver Kamm: The "Islamophobia" scam |url=https://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/10/the_islamophobi.html |access-date=22 July 2020 |date=28 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191128121848/https://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/10/the_islamophobi.html |archive-date=28 November 2019 }}{{primary source inline|date=May 2023}} He states that he is a friend and admirer of Israel, "whose pluralist ethos will be fulfilled when there is an eventual two-state solution with a sovereign Palestine".{{cite news|url=https://www.thejc.com/comment/columnists/corbyn-s-deplorable-allies-1.68238|title=Corbyn's deplorable allies|last=Kamm|first=Oliver|date=20 August 2015|access-date=26 July 2019|work=The Jewish Chronicle}}{{primary source inline|date=May 2023}} Kamm was an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. He told Liam Hoare, writing for The Forward magazine in September 2015, that "the left has incorporated the attitudes of the nativist far-right. Corbyn's alliances with reactionary, misogynistic, theocratic, and anti-Semitic movements bear out what we’ve said".{{cite news|last=Hoare|first=Liam|url=https://forward.com/news/320934/why-jeremy-corbyn-scares-so-many-british-jews/|title=Why Jeremy Corbyn Scares British Jews So Much|work=Forward|date=13 September 2015|access-date=6 May 2018}}

Commentator Peter Wilby stated that, although Kamm and Stephen Pollard of the Jewish Chronicle claim "to be left-wing", they hold "no discernible left-wing views".{{cite news|last=Wilby|first=Peter|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/node/164199|title=The Media Column|work=New Statesman|date=24 April 2006|access-date=17 February 2017}} When interviewed by politics academic Norman Geras in 2003, Kamm said that he wrote to "express a militant liberalism that I feel ought to be part of public debate but which isn't often articulated, or at least not where I can find it, in the communications media that I read or listen to" and that he felt that "the crucial distinction in politics is not between Left and Right, as I had once tribally thought, but between the defenders and the enemies of an open society."{{cite web|last=Geras|first=Norman|url=http://www.normangeras.blogspot.com/2003_11_16_normangeras_archive.html#106941027749247967|title=The normblog profile 9: Oliver Kamm|work=normblog|date=21 November 2003}}{{self-published source|date=May 2023}}

Kamm has been accused of expressing anti-Catholic views for his remarks towards Catholic Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey.{{Cite web|last=McDonagh|first=Melanie|date=21 January 2020|title=I had begun to feel a certain warmth towards Rebecca Long-Bailey...|url=https://www.thetablet.co.uk/columnists/3/17466/i-had-begun-to-feel-a-certain-warmth-towards-rebecca-long-bailey|access-date=23 November 2020|website=The Tablet|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Does Labour have a Catholic problem?|date=20 January 2020|url=https://www.thearticle.com/does-labour-have-a-catholic-problem|last=Berry-Kilby|first=Portia|access-date=23 November 2020|website=TheArticle}}{{Cite web|last=Dodd|first=Liz|title=Long-Bailey 'victim of anti-Catholic bigotry'|url=https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/12396/long-bailey-victim-of-anti-catholic-bigotry|date=21 January 2020|access-date=23 November 2020|website=The Tablet|language=en}}

In 2007, he criticized Wikipedia, saying that its articles usually are dominated by the loudest and most persistent editorial voices or by an interest group with an ideological "axe to grind".{{cite web|author=Kamm, Oliver|date=16 August 2007|title=Wisdom? More like dumbness of the crowds|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2267665.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110814104256/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2267665.ece|archive-date=14 August 2011|work=The Times}} ([http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/wisdom-more-lik.html Author's own copy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160905131644/http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/wisdom-more-lik.html|date=5 September 2016}}){{primary source inline|date=May 2023}}

In September 2021, Kamm called for Labour leader Keir Starmer to shut down Young Labour.{{cite web|last=Kamm|first=Oliver|url=https://capx.co/young-labour-has-no-attachment-to-democratic-politics-its-time-the-party-shut-it-down/ |title= Young Labour has no attachment to democratic politics – it's time the party shut it down|work=CapX|date= 1 September 2021}}{{primary source inline|date=May 2023}} The reasons cited by Kamm included an accusation that Young Labour members using the historic Palestinian slogan From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, in support of Palestinian liberation, means support of a "second Holocaust against the Jewish people".{{primary source inline|date=May 2023}}

Kamm has described his marriage as "caring but unsuitable", and after it ended he was a single parent for their two young children. He had a subsequent three-year relationship.{{Cite news |last=Kamm |first=Oliver |date=2023-07-07 |title=Oliver Kamm on Covid and clinical depression – and how to overcome it |newspaper=The Times |language=en |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/oliver-kamm-on-covid-and-clinical-depression-and-how-to-overcome-it-23bqph238 |access-date=2023-07-07 |issn=0140-0460}}

Kamm has written three books. In Anti-Totalitarianism, he argued that military intervention against totalitarian regimes to support democratic values in other countries, can be expression of left wing values; he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq under this rubric and seemed to focus his argument against foreign policies stances based narrowly on the national interest that are typical of the traditional right. In a review, Nicholas Marsh wrote that Kamm "fails to provide a definition of the totalitarianism he opposes. ... [H]e also fails to provide any sense of how one should weigh the benefits of democratization against the inevitable costs of warfare".{{cite journal |last1=Marsh |first1=Nicholas |title=Review of Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy |journal=Journal of Peace Research |date=2006 |volume=43 |issue=5 |pages=637 |jstor=27640397}} On his book on usage, Accidence Will Happen, he argued against linguistic prescription and in favour of linguistic description.{{cite news |last1=Cohen |first1=Nick |title=If 'incorrect' English is what's widely understood, how can it be wrong? |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/03/if-incorrect-english-is-whats-widely-understood-how-can-it-be-wrong/ |work=The Spectator |date=7 March 2015 |access-date=1 June 2018 |archive-date=22 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622121708/https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/03/if-incorrect-english-is-whats-widely-understood-how-can-it-be-wrong/ |url-status=dead }}

In August 2018, The Bookseller reported on Kamm's book In Mending the Mind: The Art and Science of Treating Clinical Depression, in which he "draws on his own experience of the illness as a jumping off point to investigate depression" and "makes a case for embracing both art and science to better understand and treat the condition."{{cite news|last=Cowdrey|first=Katherine|date=6 August 2018|title=Times columnist's investigation into depression to W&N|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/wn-publish-times-columnists-investigation-depression-843761|work=The Bookseller|access-date=11 August 2018}}

• {{cite book |last=Kamm |first=Oliver |title=Anti-totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy |publisher=Social Affairs Unit |year=2005 |isbn=978-1780227955}}
• {{cite book |last=Kamm |first=Oliver|title=Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage |publisher= Phoenix |year=2015 |isbn=978-1780227955}}
• Kamm, Oliver (2021). Mending the Mind: The Art and Science of Overcoming Clinical Depression. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. {{ISBN|978-1474610827}}.

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Category:1963 births

Category:Living people

Category:Date of birth missing (living people)

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Category:Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London

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Category:British male bloggers

Category:British male journalists

Category:The Times people

Category:Labour Party (UK) people