Standpoint launches this week

This morning's Observer reports that a new magazine Standpoint is to launch.

Aimed at the intellectual market it will appear for the first time this week.Its editor is Daniel Johnson and is backed by shipping millionaire Alan Bekhor.Amongst its editorial board are Sir Tom Stoppard ,Frank Field and VS Naipaul -

Its editor gave a recent interview to the New Culture forum in which he said the magazine stands for

starting thinking again about many things: what we stand for, what we are prepared to make sacrifices for, what we are. Standpoint exists to defend and celebrate Western civilisation.

and will cover

the waterfront in politics and culture - everything except the debased celebrity and lifestyle culture that most other magazines are obsessed with.

Seen as a centre right magazine,its immediate competitor will be the Spectator.Johnson hopes that

readers will include anybody with an ounce of intellectual curiosity - and that certainly includes readers of the Spectator. I believe passionately that most people want to go on learning and appreciating new fields all their lives, as lonmg as they are accessible.