David Aaronovitch

Last updated

David Aaronovitch
David Aaronovitch Guildford SitP (cropped).JPG
David Aaronovitch at Guildford Skeptics in the Pub in July 2012
Born
David Morris Aaronovitch

(1954-07-08) 8 July 1954 (age 69)
Hampstead, London, England
Alma mater
Occupation(s) Journalist, broadcaster, author
Children3
Parent(s) Sam Aaronovitch
Lavender Aaronovitch
Relatives Owen Aaronovitch (brother)
Ben Aaronovitch (brother)
Awards

David Morris Aaronovitch (born 8 July 1954) [1] is an English journalist, television presenter and author. He is 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 .

Contents

Early life and education

Aaronovitch is the son of communist intellectual and economist Sam Aaronovitch, [2] and brother of actor Owen Aaronovitch and author and screenwriter Ben Aaronovitch. His parents were atheists whose "faith was Marxism", according to Aaronovitch, and he is ethnically half Jewish and half Irish. [3] He has written that he was brought up "to react to wealth with a puritanical pout". [4]

Aaronovitch attended Gospel Oak Primary School until 1965, Holloway County Comprehensive (now Holloway School) [5] until 1968, and William Ellis School from 1968 to 1972, all in London. He studied Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford. Aaronovitch completed his education at the Victoria University of Manchester, graduating in 1978 with a 2:1 BA (Hons) in History.

While at Manchester, Aaronovitch was a member of the 1975 University Challenge team that lost in the first round after answering most questions with the name of a Marxist ("Trotsky", "Lenin", "Karl Marx" or "Che Guevara"). The tactics were a protest against the fact that the University of Oxford and Cambridge University were allowed to enter each of their colleges into the contest as a separate team, even though the colleges were not universities in themselves. [6]

Aaronovitch was initially a Eurocommunist, and was active in the National Union of Students (NUS). There he got to know the president at the time, Charles Clarke, who later became Home Secretary. Aaronovitch himself succeeded Trevor Phillips as president of the NUS from 1980 to 1982. He was elected on a Left Alliance ticket.

Career in journalism

Aaranovitch began his media career in the early 1980s as a television researcher and later producer for the ITV programme Weekend World . In 1988, he began working at the BBC as founding editor of the political current affairs programme On the Record .

He moved to print journalism in 1995, working for The Independent and The Independent on Sunday as chief leader writer, television critic, parliamentary sketch writer and columnist until the end of 2002.

He began contributing to The Guardian and The Observer in 2003 as a columnist and feature writer. Aaronovitch's columns appeared in The Guardian's G2 section. His desire for his pieces to appear on the main comment pages, according to Peter Wilby, was reportedly vetoed by the section editor, Seumas Milne, although Aaronovitch himself does not know if Milne was involved in the decision. [7] Since June 2005, he has written a regular column for The Times that he set to depart from in March 2023 following an announcement he made in January 2023 on Twitter. [8] He has also been a columnist for The Jewish Chronicle . In addition, Aaronovitch has written for a variety of other major British news and opinion publications, such as the New Statesman . In addition, he has written for New Humanist , and is an "honorary associate" of its publisher, the Rationalist Association.

Aaronovitch also presents or contributes to radio and television programmes, including the BBC's Have I Got News for You and BBC News 24. In 2004 he presented The Norman Way , a three-part BBC Radio 4 documentary looking at régime change in 1066.

Aaronovitch also hosted the BBC series The Blair Years (2007), which examined the prime ministership of Tony Blair. Some journalists were unimpressed with Aaronovitch or dismissed the series. [9] [10]

Political views

Aaronovitch said the case had "been made" for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and that he "reluctantly support[ed] military action," his "biggest reason" being "the failure of "vigilant containment" to help the people of Iraq." [11] [12] Since the invasion he maintains the view that it liberated Iraqis, and has played down the significance of Iraq's putative weapons of mass destruction. However, he wrote in 2003: "If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere." [13] On 7 September 2018, he labelled people who ask him about the article "lamebrains". [14] He remains a strong supporter of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. [15]

In late 2005, Aaronovitch was co-author, with Oliver Kamm and journalist Francis Wheen, of a complaint to The Guardian, after it published an apology to Noam Chomsky for an interview by Emma Brockes, in which she asserted that Chomsky had denied the Srebrenica massacre. [16] [17] A Guardian readers' editor found that the newspaper had misrepresented Chomsky's position on the Srebrenica massacre, and that judgement was upheld in May 2006 by an external ombudsman, John Willis. [18]

In his column of 5 September 2013, Aaronovitch criticized the Labour leader Ed Miliband for allegedly providing no alternative to military intervention in Syria, after the use of chemical weapons in the Ghouta attacks of 21 August 2013. [19] [20] For Aaronovitch, "politically [Miliband] is not a presence at all, he is an absence" and "is neither hunter nor prey, he is scavenger. He is a political vulture." [21]

During 2013, though Aaronovitch had vigorously supported the bombing campaigns against Iraq, Libya and Syria, he became the chairman of the human rights organisation Index on Censorship, succeeding Jonathan Dimbleby in the role. [22]

In May 2014, he criticised Glenn Greenwald's involvement in the Edward Snowden NSA revelations, and characterised Greenwald as "a stilted writer of overlong, dishonest and repetitive polemics." In response to Aaronovitch's article in an interview with Media Lens Greenwald commented on "the hilarious, inane irony of having someone who publicly cheered for the worst political crime of this generation – the attack on Iraq – trying to deny other people “journalist” status on the ground that they seek to “change the world” rather than simply report." [23]

In August 2014, Aaronovitch was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue. [24] [25]

In 2016, he endorsed the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union in the 23 June referendum. [26] Aaronovitch later said that Brexit would eventually be reversed as the number of older voters, who typically voted for Britain to leave the European Union, gradually die. [27]

Personal life

Aaronovitch lives in London with his wife and three daughters. [28]

In 2011, Aaronovitch was the victim of a "medical accident" following routine surgery. [29] He survived septicemia thanks to antibiotics, a treatment that was not available to his grandmother, who died of an infection following an insect bite in 1930. This experience led him to become an advocate for Antibiotic Research UK and the charity's work to promote proper antibiotic use and the development of new antibiotics.

Works

Related Research Articles

<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, 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). He returned as campaign director for the 2005 general election in Blair's third win.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilary Benn</span> British Labour politician (born 1953)

Hilary James Wedgwood Benn is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since he was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet of Keir Starmer on 4 September 2023. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds Central since the 1999 by-election. He served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2010, under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He also served as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2015 to 2016 and as Chairman of the Brexit Select Committee from 2016 to 2021.

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

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour Party Conference</span> Annual gathering of the British Labour Party

The Labour Party Conference is the annual conference of the British Labour Party. It is formally the supreme decision-making body of the party and is traditionally held in the final week of September, during the party conference season when the House of Commons is in recess, after each year's second Liberal Democrat Conference and before the Conservative Party Conference. The Labour Party Conference opens on a Sunday and finishes the following Wednesday, with an address by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party; the Leader's address is usually on the Tuesday. In contrast to the Liberal Democrat Conference, where every party member attending its Conference, either in-person or online, has the right to vote on party policy, under a one member, one vote system, or the Conservative Party Conference, which does not hold votes on party policy, at the Labour Party Conference, 50% of votes are allocated to affiliated organisations, and the other 50% to Constituency Labour Parties, but all voting in both categories is restricted to nominated representatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Meacher</span> British politician (1939–2015)

Michael Hugh Meacher was a British politician who served as a government minister under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Oldham West and Royton, previously Oldham West, from 1970 until his death in 2015.

Francis James Baird Wheen is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster.

<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">Ed Miliband</span> British politician (born 1969)

Edward Samuel Miliband is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition between 2010 and 2015. Alongside his brother, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Peter Alan Oborne is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying, The Triumph of the Political Class, and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism, and along with Frances Weaver of the pamphlet Guilty Men. He has also authored a number of books about cricket. He writes a political column for Declassified UK, Double Down News, openDemocracy, Middle East Eye and a diary column for the Byline Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat McFadden</span> British Labour politician

Patrick Bosco McFadden is a British politician serving as Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Labour National Campaign Coordinator since September 2023. He served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 2021 and 2023. A member of the Labour Party, he has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South East since 2005.

Steve Richards is a British TV presenter and political columnist, who has written columns for the Guardian, Independent and New Statesman, of which he was political editor for a time.

Emma Brockes is a British author and a contributor to The Guardian and The New York Times. She lives in New York.

<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 served as 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. He is the second-longest-serving prime minister in post-war British history and the longest-serving Labour politician to have held the office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis</span> British Labour politician and journalist

Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis, is a British Labour Party politician and journalist who served in HM Government for five years in the Blair ministry and the Brown ministry. He served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2009 to 2010, and as Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission from 2015 to 2017. He was Chair of the European Movement, from March 2021 until December 2022 having previously served as Vice-Chairman from 2019 to 2021. He is currently a columnist for The New European.

Paul Michael Dacre is an English journalist and the former long-serving editor of the British tabloid the Daily Mail. He is also editor-in-chief of DMG Media, which publishes the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, the free daily tabloid Metro, the MailOnline website, and other titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Miliband</span> Chief executive of the International Rescue Committee and former British politician

David Wright Miliband is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a British Labour Party former politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields in North East England from 2001 to 2013. He and his brother, Ed, were the first siblings to sit in the Cabinet simultaneously since Lord Edward and Oliver Stanley in 1938. He was a candidate for Labour Party leadership in 2010, following the departure of Gordon Brown, but was defeated by his brother and subsequently left politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Premiership of David Cameron</span> Period of the Government of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016

David Cameron's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 11 May 2010 when he accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and ended on 13 July 2016 upon his resignation following the 2016 referendum that favoured Brexit, which he had opposed. As prime minister, Cameron served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury and as Minister for the Civil Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Labour</span> Pressure group in the UK Labour Party

Blue Labour is a British campaign group and political faction that seeks to promote blue-collar and culturally conservative values within the British Labour Party — particularly on immigration, crime, and community spirit — while remaining committed to labour rights and left-wing economic policies. It seeks to represent a traditional working-class approach to Labour politics. Launched in 2009 as a counter to New Labour, the Blue Labour movement first rose to prominence after Labour's defeat in the 2010 general election, in which for the first time the party received fewer working-class votes than it did middle-class votes. The movement has influenced a handful of Labour MPs and frontbenchers; founder Maurice Glasman served as a close ally to Ed Miliband during his early years as Leader of the Opposition, before himself becoming a life peer in the House of Lords. The movement has also seen a resurgence of interest after the loss of red wall seats in the 2019 general election.

Daniel Pearce Jackson Hodges is a British newspaper columnist. Since March 2016, he has written a weekly column for The Mail on Sunday. Prior to this, he was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and in 2013 was described by James Forsyth in The Spectator as David Cameron's "new favourite columnist".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn</span> Jeremy Corbyns tenure as Leader of the Labour Party

The Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn began when Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the UK Labour Party in September 2015, following the resignation of Ed Miliband after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election. Disillusioned by a lack of a left-wing voice in the 2015 leadership contest, Corbyn stood on an anti-austerity platform. Of the candidates who stood, Corbyn received the fewest parliamentary nominations. Many who nominated him said they had done so not to support his candidacy, but to widen the debate by including a socialist voice. However, Corbyn soon became the frontrunner and was elected with a landslide of 59%.

References

  1. ↑ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  2. ↑ Barker, Martin (1992). Haunt of Fears: Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign, University Press of Mississippi. ISBN   978-0-87805-594-4
  3. ↑ "The JDOV talks no.3 - David Aaronovitch: Choosing a faith". The Jewish Chronicle. 3 January 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  4. ↑ Stephen Byers and the sad ghost of new Labour Archived 26 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ The Old Camdenians Club. Retrieved 31 January 2015
  6. ↑ Kelner, Simon (22 April 2013). "How did Manchester get so good at University Challenge? Fingers on the buzzers, please". The Independent. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
  7. ↑ Wilby, Peter (16 April 2016). "The Thin Controller". New Statesman. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  8. ↑ Maher, Bron (16 January 2023). "David Aaronovitch to depart The Times after 18 years". Press Gazette. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  9. ↑ Cooke, Rachel (22 November 2007). "A great big rip-off". New Statesman. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  10. ↑ Lawson, Mark (17 November 2007). "The Blair Years: Economical with the candour". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  11. ↑ Aaronovitch, David (18 February 2003). "Dear marcher, please answer a few questions". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  12. ↑ Aaronovitch, David (11 February 2003). "War or peace - blood will still be spilled". The Guardian.
  13. ↑ Aaronovitch, David (29 April 2003). "Those weapons had better be there ..." The Guardian.
  14. ↑ Aaronovitch, David (7 September 2018). "If you search you will find that I responded to the first thousand unoriginal lamebrains who raised it on here. Then, about half a decade ago I thought, 'nah', and just muted".
  15. ↑ Nelson, Fraser (5 September 2013). "David Aaronovitch: Syria vote shows Ed Miliband is a 'vulture' not a eader'". The Spectator . Archived from the original on 7 September 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  16. ↑ The Chomsky Complaint David Aaronovitch's weblog, 20 March 2006. Archived 16 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ↑ Brockes, Emma (31 October 2005). "The Greatest Intellectual?", The Guardian (London); the background was that Chomsky complained that Brockes' article was defamatory in implying he denied the fact of the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. The article has since been withdrawn from the Guardian's website, but, as Chomsky is opposed to censorship, it remains available on the official Chomsky website Chomsky.info Archived 3 January 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ↑ Willis, John (25 May 2006). External Ombudsman Report, The Guardian.
  19. ↑ Sellström, Åke; Scott Cairns; Maurizio Barbeschi (13 September 2013). "United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic – Report on the Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascus on 21 August 2013" (PDF). United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 September 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  20. ↑ "UN Chemical Weapons Report Will Confirm Sarin Gas Used in Aug. 21 Attack". 16 September 2013. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2013.
  21. ↑ David Aaronovitch "Ed Miliband is no leader. He is a vulture", The Times (subscription), 5 September 2013, cited by Fraser Nelson "David Aaronovitch: Syria vote shows Ed Miliband is a ‘vulture’ not a ‘leader’" Archived 7 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine , The Spectator (Coffee House blog), 5 September 2013
  22. ↑ "Winners – Index Awards 2013", Index on Censorship, 21 March 2013
  23. ↑ David Aaronovitch "After Snowden, do you feel less safe?" New Statesman, 28 May 2014
  24. ↑ "Scottish independence: Celebrities call for Scots No vote", BBC News Scotland, 7 August 2014
  25. ↑ Peter Dominiczak "Sir Mick Jagger joins 200 public figures calling for Scotland to stay in the UK", The Sunday Telegraph, 10 August 2014;
  26. ↑ "Party Animals: Brexit could drag all of Europe into disaster". The Times. 11 February 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  27. ↑ "BBC Two - Newsnight, 'The Brexit generation is dying out'". bbc.co.uk. 4 January 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  28. ↑ "About David Aaronovitch, from penguin.com". Archived from the original on 30 December 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2013. Not found 21 July 2022
  29. ↑ David Aaronovitch video from Antibiotic Research UK AGM 2017 , retrieved 8 September 2022
  30. ↑ "No excuses for terror" Archived 25 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine , Honest Reporting, September 2006.
  31. ↑ "Debunking conspiracy theories", BBC Breakfast, 8 May 2009. Not found 21 July 2022
Political offices
Preceded by President of the National Union of Students
1980-82		Succeeded by
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.