Martin Kettle

Last updated

Martin Kettle
The panel at Reconsidering Blairism.jpg
Kettle (left) in 2012
Born (1949-09-07) September 7, 1949 (age 74)
OccupationJournalist, author
Education Leeds Modern School
Alma mater Balliol College, Oxford
Years active1977-

Martin James Kettle (born 7 September 1949) is a British journalist and author. Kettle is best known as for his long associated as an assistant editor and columnist for The Guardian newspaper.

Contents

Early life and education

Kettle is the son of two communist activists, Arnold Kettle (best remembered as a literary critic; 1916–1986) [1] and Margot Kettle (née Gale; 1916–1995. Kettle grew up in Far Headingley was educated at Leeds Modern School. [2] He graduated in modern history from Balliol College, Oxford having matriculated in 1967. [3] [4]

Career

Kettle worked for the National Council for Civil Liberties (now known as Liberty) as a research officer from 1973. He then began his career in journalism as home affairs correspondent for New Society (1977–1981) and moved to The Sunday Times in 1981, working as a political correspondent for three years. He has been with The Guardian since 1984 and also wrote regularly for Marxism Today in its later years. He writes a column on classical music in Prospect magazine.

Kettle is a long-term contributor to for The Guardian, where he is assistant editor, having worked as the newspaper's Washington D.C. bureau chief from 1997 to 2001. He was formerly a leader writer (1993–1997) and chief leader writer from 2001 onward. He has often defended New Labour and Tony Blair (a personal friend) – though not over the Iraq War.[ citation needed ] Kettle has been dismissed by John Pilger as Blair's "most devoted promoter". [5]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<i>The Times</i> British daily newspaper

The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times, are published by Times Media, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times, which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have had common ownership only since 1966. In general, the political position of The Times is considered to be centre-right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Pilger</span> Australian journalist (1939–2023)

John Richard Pilger was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker. From 1962, he was based mainly in Britain. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Hill (historian)</span> English historian

John Edward Christopher Hill was an English Marxist historian and academic, specialising in 17th-century English history. From 1965 to 1978 he was Master of Balliol College, Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alastair Campbell</span> British journalist and political adviser (born 1957)

Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster, and activist, who is known for his political roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director in opposition (1994–1997), then as Downing Street Press Secretary, and as the Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson (1997–2000). He then became Downing Street's director of communications and spokesman for the Labour Party (2000–2003).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Geach</span> British philosopher (1916–2013)

Peter Thomas Geach was a British philosopher who was Professor of Logic at the University of Leeds. His areas of interest were philosophical logic, ethics, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion and the theory of identity.

Hugo John Smelter Young was a British journalist and columnist and senior political commentator at The Guardian.

Kelvin Calder MacKenzie is an English media executive and a former newspaper editor. He became editor of The Sun in 1981, by which time the publication was established as Britain's largest circulation newspaper. After leaving The Sun in 1994, he was appointed to executive roles in satellite television and other broadcasting outlets, as well as being involved in a number of publishing enterprises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media Lens</span>

Media Lens is a British media analysis website established in 2001 by David Cromwell and David Edwards. Cromwell and Edwards are the site's editors and only regular contributors. Their aim is to scrutinise and question the mainstream media's coverage of significant events and issues and to draw attention to what they consider "the systemic failure of the corporate media to report the world honestly and accurately".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Aaronovitch</span> English journalist and author (born 1954)

David Morris Aaronovitch is an English journalist, television presenter and author. He was a regular columnist for The Times and the author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country (2000), Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History (2009) and Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists (2016). He won the Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2001, and the What the Papers Say "Columnist of the Year" award for 2003. He previously wrote for The Independent and The Guardian.

<i>The Yorkshire Post</i> Daily newspaper reporting on parts of northern England

The Yorkshire Post is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire, although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by Johnston Press and is now owned by National World. Founded in 1754, it is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rageh Omaar</span> Somali-born journalist and writer

Rageh Omaar is a Somali-born British journalist and writer. He was a BBC world affairs correspondent, where he made his name reporting from Iraq. In September 2006, he moved to a new post at Al Jazeera English, where he presented the nightly weekday documentary series Witness until January 2010. The Rageh Omaar Report, first aired in February 2010, is a one-hour, monthly investigative documentary in which he reports on international current affairs stories. From January 2013, he became a special correspondent and presenter for ITV News, reporting on a broad range of news stories, as well as producing special in-depth reports from around the UK and further afield. A year after his appointment, Omaar was promoted to international affairs editor for ITV News. Since October 2015, alongside his duties as international affairs editor, he has been a deputy newscaster of ITV News at Ten. Since September 2017, Omaar has occasionally presented the ITV Lunchtime News including the ITV News London Lunchtime Bulletin and the ITV Evening News.

Victor Keegan is a British journalist and author focusing on economics and technology issues. Born in London, he attended Wimbledon College and Brasenose College, Oxford. After which, he spent most of his working life at The Guardian as reporter, financial correspondent, deputy financial editor, economics editor, business editor, duty editor, Chief Leader Writer, Assistant Editor and Online Editor.

Richard Littlejohn is an English author, broadcaster and opinion column writer, having started his career as a journalist. As of May 2023, he writes a twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail about British affairs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Blair</span> Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007

Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997 and held various shadow cabinet posts from 1987 to 1994. Blair was Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007, and was special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East from 2007 to 2015. He is the second-longest-serving prime minister in post-war British history after Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving Labour politician to have held the office, and the first and only person to date to lead the party to three consecutive general election victories.

Peter John Wilby is a British journalist and convicted sex offender. He is a former editor of The Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Leadbeater</span> British writer and political adviser

Charles Leadbeater, also known as Charlie Leadbeater, is a British author and former advisor to Tony Blair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Walker (reporter)</span> British journalist

Martin Walker is the author of the popular Bruno detective series. After working at The Guardian from 1971 to 1999, Walker joined United Press International (UPI) in 2000 as an international correspondent in Washington, D.C., and is now editor-in-chief emeritus of UPI. He was a member of A.T. Kearney's Global Business Policy Council.

Michael Robin Christiansen was a British newspaper editor.

<i>The Sun</i> (United Kingdom) British tabloid newspaper

The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper, published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lachlan Murdoch's News Corp. It was founded as a broadsheet in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner. The Sun had the largest daily newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom, but was overtaken by freesheet rival Metro in March 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Rentoul</span> British journalist

John Tindal Rentoul is a British journalist. He became the chief political commentator for The Independent in 2004.

References

  1. Kettle, Martine (28 July 2011). ""What MI5's records on my father tell us about the uses of surveillance"". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  2. Kettle, Martin (30 May 2009). "Leeds Modern and ancient". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  3. "Martin Kettle - Full profile". 2008. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  4. "Annual Record" (PDF). Balliol College. 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2024.}
  5. Pilger, John (16 May 2005). "Let's face it – the state has lost its mind". New Statesman.