Tom Harwood

Last updated

Tom Harwood
Tom Harwood Headshot.jpg
Harwood in 2021
Born
Thomas Hedley Fairfax Harwood

(1996-08-26) 26 August 1996 (age 27)
Cambridge, England
Alma mater St Mary's College, Durham University
Occupation(s)Journalist, political commentator
Website tomharwood.uk

Thomas Hedley Fairfax Harwood (born 26 August 1996) is a British journalist, political commentator and television show host. He became the deputy political editor of GB News in March 2023. Harwood previously worked as a reporter for the right-wing political news website Guido Fawkes between 2018 and 2021, and was a regular contributor to The Daily Telegraph , writing online columns from 2019 to 2021.

Contents

Early life and education

Harwood was born on 26 August 1996. [1] [2] He grew up in Cambridge, England. [3] Harwood attended The Perse School, a private school in the city. [4]

He studied politics at Durham University, where he was elected as president of its debating society, The Durham Union. [5] [6] Harwood ran a satirical campaign to become a National Union of Students (NUS) delegate, criticising the organisation with viral videos and satirical pledges such as using NUS funds to build a fully functional Death Star, and defeating the terrorist group ISIS with an NUS boycott. [5] [7] He was elected in what The Times newspaper described as "a landslide victory" that gained national attention in December 2016. [8] After his election, he appeared on the BBC's Daily Politics show. [9]

Harwood later ran for the presidency of the NUS in 2017 with a similar campaign and was endorsed by the University of Manchester Students' Union. [10] [11] The union was the only one to hold a primary election in which students could directly vote for their candidate. [12] Their vote mandated their delegates to vote for him in the NUS presidential election. [11] He finished a distant third in the election with 35 votes out of the 1,200 NUS delegates. [4] In the following year, Harwood ran another satirical campaign to lower the voting age to 12. [13]

Career

While at university, Harwood also became the national chair of pro-Brexit campaign group Students for Britain, an arm of the official Brexit campaign organisation Vote Leave. [7] [14] [15] In 2017, he worked for the American libertarian organisation Students for Liberty. [16] He was a Conservative Party candidate for the East Chesterton ward in the 2018 Cambridge City Council election. In the election, the two Labour candidates were elected. [17] Harwood received 336 votes, and finished in 6th place. [18] Harwood became a reporter for the right-wing political news website Guido Fawkes in July 2018. [7] [19]

Harwood was listed in talk radio station LBC's list of top 100 most influential Conservatives of 2019. [20] Harwood was briefly a member of Turning Point UK, an offshoot of the US right-wing student organisation Turning Point USA, [21] [22] distancing himself from the group days after it launched, saying that he did not realise its political positions would be aligned with those of the US organisation, which he opposes. [23] [24] He contributed opinion pieces to The Telegraph between 2019 and 2021. [25] In 2019, at the age of 22, he became the youngest panellist to appear on a regular edition of the topical debate programme BBC Question Time . [26] [27]

In 2021, Harwood joined GB News as its political correspondent. [28] In August 2021 it was announced that he would host a new programme on the channel, The Briefing: AM with Tom Harwood. [29] Harwood was promoted to deputy political editor of GB News in March 2023. [30]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Union of Students (United Kingdom)</span> National students union in the United Kingdom

The National Union of Students (NUS) is a confederation of student unions in the United Kingdom. Around 600 student unions are affiliated, accounting for more than 95% of all higher and further education unions in the UK. Although the National Union of Students is the central organisation for all affiliated unions in the UK, there are also the devolved national sub-bodies NUS Scotland in Scotland, NUS Wales in Wales and NUS-USI in Northern Ireland.

Durham Students' Union, operating as Durham SU, is the students' union of Durham University in Durham, England. It is an organisation, originally set up as the Durham Colleges Students’ Representative Council in 1899 and renamed in 1969, with the intention of representing and providing welfare and services for the students of the University of Durham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graham Brady</span> British politician (born 1967)

Sir Graham Stuart Brady is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Altrincham and Sale West since 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Chairman of the 1922 Committee since 2010, except for a brief period during the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour Students</span>

Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of equality and social justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberation Left</span>

Liberation Left is a factional grouping operating within the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom.

The Organised Independents are a grouping within the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Staines</span> British right-wing political blogger (born 1967)

Paul De Laire Staines is a British-Irish right-wing political blogger who publishes the Guido Fawkes website, which was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of Britain's leading political blogsites" in 2007. The Sun on Sunday newspaper published a weekly Guido Fawkes column from 2013 to 2016. Born and raised in England, Staines holds British and Irish citizenship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gloria De Piero</span> British Labour politician

Gloria De Piero is a British broadcaster and former politician, who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield from 2010 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wes Streeting</span> British Labour politician

Wesley Paul William Streeting is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 2021, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford North since 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hope not Hate</span> Advocacy group against racism and fascism, based in the United Kingdom

Hope not Hate is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns against racism and fascism. It has also mounted campaigns against Islamic extremism and antisemitism. It is self-described as a "non-partisan, non-sectarian organisation." The group was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles, a former editor of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. It is backed by various politicians and celebrities, and it has also been backed by several trade unions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Durham Union</span> Debating society at Durham, England

The Durham Union Society (DUS), commonly referred to as the Durham Union, is a debating society, founded in 1842, by the students at Durham University. It is the largest society associated with the university, with over 3,000 members in residence, and 24,000 worldwide. Members of the union have reciprocal rights at sister societies, including the Oxford Union and the Cambridge Union.

<i>Guido Fawkes</i> Right-wing political website

Guido Fawkes is a right-wing political website published by British-Irish political blogger Paul Staines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Hoare</span> British politician (born 1969)

Simon James Hoare is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Dorset since May 2015. He has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government since November 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Tice</span> Leader of Reform UK

Richard James Sunley Tice is an English businessman and politician who has been the leader of Reform UK since 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malia Bouattia</span> Former president of the National Union of Students

Malia Mazia Bouattia is the former president of the National Union of Students (NUS) of the United Kingdom, elected at the National Conference in April 2016. She was the first female Black British and Muslim leader of the NUS. She attended the University of Birmingham. In March 2017, she was defeated in her attempt to run for a second term in office by NUS Vice-president Shakira Martin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reform UK</span> Political party in the United Kingdom

Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Catherine Blaiklock with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit. It was a significant political force at the 2019 European Parliament election, but failed to win any seats at the 2019 general election. After the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) on 31 January 2020, it was renamed to Reform UK, and it became primarily an anti-lockdown party during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, in December 2022, it began campaigning on broader right-wing populist themes during the British cost-of-living crisis.

Alexandra Lesley Phillips is a British journalist and former politician. She served as a Brexit Party member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the South East England constituency from 2019 to 2020. She was the second candidate on the party's list for the constituency after party leader Nigel Farage. Phillips was previously head of media at the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which she left in September 2016. She was a GB News presenter between June 2021 and September 2022. In February 2023, Phillips joined Reform UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darren Grimes</span> British political commentator and activist

Darren Grimes is a British right-wing political commentator and activist. A Liberal Democrat activist before dropping out of university, he then worked for a number of Brexit campaigns. He set up the website Reasoned in May 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dehenna Davison</span> British Conservative politician

Dehenna Sheridan Davison is a British Conservative Party politician and former broadcaster. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bishop Auckland since the 2019 general election. She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up between September 2022 and September 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calvin Robinson</span> British political commentator (born 1985)

Calvin John Robinson is a British Old Catholic cleric, conservative right wing political commentator, writer and broadcaster. Since 2023, he has been a priest in the Nordic Catholic Church, an Old Catholic denomination of high church Lutheran patrimony; from 2022 until his priestly ordination, he had been a deacon in the Free Church of England, a conservative Anglican realignment denomination.

References

  1. ↑ Harwood, Tom [@tomhfh] (7 May 2020). "lots of papers erroneously reporting Nadia Whittome is 24. As far as I can make out she was born in August 1996, making her 23" (Tweet). Retrieved 14 February 2022– via Twitter.
  2. ↑ Harwood, Tom [@tomhfh] (7 May 2020). "yup, 29 August 1996. Three days younger than me" (Tweet). Retrieved 14 February 2022– via Twitter.
  3. ↑ "GB News announces signings to political reporting team". Evening Express. Aberdeen. Press Association. 18 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  4. 1 2 Gimson, Andrew (15 December 2017). "Sending up the Left is not enough. But it's certainly a start – and Tom Harwood is doing it effectively". ConservativeHome . Archived from the original on 7 October 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  5. 1 2 Gibbons, Amy (6 December 2016). "Durham student promises to 'defeat Isis' and build a 217ft statue of the NUS president". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 October 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  6. ↑ "The Durham Union Michaelmas 2018" (PDF). Durham Union Society. 2018. p. 12. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 Mayhew, Freddie (26 July 2018). "Guido Fawkes hires young Vote Leave talent and looks to boost video output on political blog site". Press Gazette. Archived from the original on 22 September 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  8. ↑ Burgess, Kaya (17 December 2016). "Manifesto of mockery wins student election" . The Times. Archived from the original on 12 January 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  9. ↑ "NUS 'does not represent students any more'". BBC News. 19 December 2016. Archived from the original on 14 September 2018. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  10. ↑ Diver, Tony (13 March 2017). "NUS Presidential candidate claims the far left have hijacked the student organisation". The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 May 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  11. 1 2 Sterne, Jennifer (25 April 2017). "University of Manchester students back Tom Harwood for NUS President". University of Manchester Students' Union (Press release). Archived from the original on 18 January 2020. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
  12. ↑ Pells, Rachael (25 April 2017). "Who is challenging the controversial NUS President Malia Bouattia? A look at the 2017 candidates". The Independent. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  13. ↑ "Vote for 12 year-olds: Harwood and Preston on child suffrage". BBC News. 26 February 2018. Archived from the original on 15 February 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  14. ↑ Smith, Dominic (10 March 2016). "In or out? Students use condoms to contemplate Brexit". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  15. ↑ Yorke, Harry; Mintz, Luke; Peters, Charlie (24 April 2017). "Student Tory groups swell in backlash at Left-wing activists". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  16. ↑ Harwood, Tom (25 July 2017). "The UK's dangerous attempt at internet censorship". Students for Liberty. Archived from the original on 19 October 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  17. ↑ Gutteridge, Matt; Clynch, Harry; Mochar, Anna (3 May 2018). "Local elections 2018 – as it happened". Varsity . Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  18. ↑ "Election results for East Chesterton". Cambridge City Council. 3 May 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  19. ↑ "Live with Littlewood: Kate Andrews, Sam Bowman, Tom Harwood and more". Institute of Economic Affairs . Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  20. ↑ "The Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives of 2019". LBC. 30 September 2019. Archived from the original on 13 October 2019. Retrieved 13 October 2019.
  21. ↑ Brown, David (6 February 2019). "Right-wing student leader Charlie Kirk will tour UK universities" . The Times. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  22. ↑ Dearden, Lizzie (4 February 2019). "Turning Point UK: Jacob Rees-Mogg and Tory MPs support new branch of 'sinister' right-wing US group". The Independent. Archived from the original on 17 August 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  23. ↑ Spence, Alex; Di Stefano, Mark (8 February 2019). "Days After Its Disastrous British Launch, Turning Point Has Already Lost One Of Its Star Recruits". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on 12 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  24. ↑ Harwood, Tom [@tomhfh] (10 March 2021). "Not evolved - consistent since 2016 as the tweet you quote shows! I was a bit foolish to not realise that the turning point UK stuff would be aligned to the US stuff which I oppose. Left the week it launched, only appeared in one video" (Tweet). Retrieved 14 February 2022– via Twitter.
  25. ↑ "Tom Harwood". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 19 September 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  26. ↑ Finnis, Alex; Sherwin, Adam; Butterworth, Benjamin (5 May 2021). "GB News presenters: Full list of hosts signed up to Andrew Neil's TV channel so far". i. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  27. ↑ "Tom Harwood on Question Time: Brexit Party anthem protest 'dignified'". BBC News. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  28. ↑ Tobitt, Charlotte (18 February 2021). "GB News briefing: Channel will be 'free, fair and impartial' says news chief John McAndrew as political editor named". Press Gazette. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  29. ↑ Duffy, Elle (10 August 2021). "GB News to launch four political programmes". The Herald. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
  30. ↑ @tomhfh (2 March 2023). "Pleased to say I've been appointed Deputy Political Editor of @GBNews" (Tweet). Retrieved 6 March 2023– via Twitter.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.