Newsnight row: Matthew Perry next to former social worker Baroness Meacher and opposite Peter Hitchens in the debate hosted by Jeremy Paxman Picture: BBC
7 January 2014
The Guardian ran a column yesterday by the Spectator’s Melissa Kite where she noted that it was “infuriating to witness Hitchens insisting that addiction is not an illness.” Kite was referring to Mail on Sunday journalist Hitchens’s row with actor Matthew Perry on Newsnight last month.
But Kite had originally written “an intellectually brilliant man like Hitchens”, and this version appeared in the Guardian online. “I’ve never claimed to be more than a jobbing scribbler,” Hitchens told the Londoner, “but I suspect that’s not why they took it out. If Melissa wants to say nice things about me, they should print them.”
