Nick Cohen is a British journalist, author and political commentator. He is currently a columnist for The Observer, a blogger for The Spectator and TV critic for Standpoint magazine. He formerly wrote for the London Evening Standard and the New Statesman. Cohen has written five books: Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous (1999), a collection of his journalism; Pretty Straight Guys (2003), a highly critical account of the New Labour project; What's Left? (2007), which he describes as the story of how the liberal left of the 20th century came to support the far right of the 21st; and Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England (2009). His most recent book, You Can't Read this Book, was published in 2012 and deals with censorship.

The Orwell Prize for political writing shortlisted What's Left? in 2008.

In 2006, he was a leading signatory to the Euston Manifesto, which proposed "a new political alignment", in which the left opposes terrorism and anti-Americanism.

Michael Coren (born January 15, 1959) is an English-Canadian columnist, author, public speaker, radio host and television talk show host. He hosted the television talk show The Michael Coren Show on the Crossroads Television System from 1999 to 2011 when he moved to the Sun News Network to host an evening talk show, The Arena with Michael Coren. He has also been a long-time radio personality, particularly on CFRB radio.

He has written more than ten books, including biographies of G.K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and C. S. Lewis. His latest book, Why Catholics are Right, was published in 2011.

Coren was born in Essex, England. After obtaining a degree in politics from Nottingham University, he moved from the UK to Canada in 1987. For several years, he was a columnist for Frank and then The Globe and Mail, before he began syndicated columns for the Financial Post and Sun Media in 1995. Following his departure from Frank, he became a favourite target of that publication, culminating in a spoof ad contest to "deflower" Michael Coren (a nod to Frank's notorious "Deflower Caroline Mulroney" contest, and a satirical jab at Coren's conservative leanings.) Coren had also been a favorite target of Frank back in the days before he began writing for them. Coren took exception to being labelled a "literary prostitute" during a 1994 interview.

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.

Deborah Jane Orr (born 23 September 1962) is a British journalist and broadcaster who works for The Guardian newspaper. She was born and raised in Motherwell, Scotland.

Orr worked as deputy editor for City Limits magazine and as a contributor to New Statesman until 1990. She is currently a columnist for The Guardian, a publication she first joined in 1990. She was previously a columnist for The Independent and editor of the Guardian Weekend magazine (1993-98).

Orr married Will Self in 1997 and they have two sons. They live in Stockwell, South London.