Charles Moore (journalist)

Moore was born in Hastings, East Sussex. He is from a Liberal family. His mother was a county councillor for the Liberal Party in Sussex and his father Richard was a leader writer on the News Chronicle,[4] who unsuccessfully stood for the party at several general elections.

While at Eton in 1974 Moore wrote about his membership of the Liberals in the Eton Chronicle and also about his taste for Real Ale.[5] During this period he was already a friend of Oliver Letwin. Moore remained a Liberal into his early twenties.[5]

Moore went to Trinity College, Cambridge, at the same time as Letwin. At Eton he had also known Nicholas Coleridge, who was also at Trinity.[6] He read English (2.1) and History (2.1) and graduated BA in 1979.[7] By now an advocate of architectural conservation, he became an admirer of the work in this field of (then) Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman.[8]

In 1979 he joined The Daily Telegraph as a political correspondent,[6] and, after a short period on the 'Peterborough' gossip column, was writing leaders within two years, by the age of 24.[5] In 1982 Moore wrote a pamphlet for the Salisbury Group, titled The Old People of Lambeth (1982).[9] In the aftermath of the 1981 Brixton riot Moore interviewed elderly white residents of Lambeth on their experience of crime, the police, immigration and politics.[10] Moore wrote: "The native population of Lambeth feels little natural sympathy with the West Indian arrivals. Without having any arrogant or dogmatic theory of racial superiority, the old people of Lambeth can see with their own eyes that they are surrounded by people more primitive than they, who lack their respect for law and privacy".[10][11][12] In the final paragraph, Moore wrote of the old peoples' loyalty to the Royal Family, their memories of the two world wars, their work ethic and their readiness to obey the law: "As one old man said simply, “It's our country and our Queen. Why should we be afraid to go out?”"[10]

Two years after joining The Spectator as a political columnist, Moore became the magazine's editor in 1984, remaining there until 1990. Moore co-edited A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of TE Utley, which was published in 1989.

Following The Spectator, he edited The Sunday Telegraph from 1992 to 1995. Near the start of this period, around the time of the publication of the Andrew Morton book Diana: Her True Story, he appeared on Newsnight to discuss the marital difficulties of the Prince and Princess of Wales. To the astonishment of the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, Moore said that because he wished to protect the monarchy: "I believe in the importance of concealment in these matters and, if you like, hypocrisy."[5]

Moore became editor of The Daily Telegraph in 1995. In 2001, his signed editorial "A Free Country"[13] gained some notice elsewhere in the media.[14] In this article, he argued in favour of hunting, pornography, the right to employ whom we choose, the right to trial by jury and advocated the legalisation of cannabis.[13] He blamed a decline in 'freedom' on the controls imposed during the Second World War and on Margaret Thatcher: "If you've been in office for a long time you always start to believe in having more power, and she undoubtedly got that disease."[14] In The Spectator in 2018 he wrote that "religious freedom is central to all freedoms".[15]

Owing to falling circulation, there had been speculation by 2003[16] about Moore's future prior to his resignation in the autumn of that year.[17] Moore had been editor when stories about George Galloway,[16][18] which led to a successful libel action from the politician, had been published. The newspaper had falsely claimed that Galloway received payments from Saddam Hussein's regime.[19]

Moore is a vehement critic of the BBC, which he believes has a left-wing bias.[17][20] Moore was fined £262 for not possessing a TV licence in May 2010,[21] eighteen months after announcing that he would donate the amount payable as a television licence to Help the Aged because the BBC had failed to sack Jonathan Ross for his "Sachsgate" prank with Russell Brand.[22] He saw the episode as part of an ongoing "pathology" at the BBC, rather than being an isolated incident.[22]

Moore was a critic of David Cameron's Conservative Party modernisation strategy, that he stated embraced "subjects which they had previously ceded to the Left, like health, welfare, the environment and schools", which he believed had supported the interests of government organisations rather than that of the consumer. In particular, Moore has been critical of the National Health Service, which he considers "a terrible organisation".[23][24]

In December 2009, regarding the Beano character Lord Snooty, also his Private Eye nickname,[14] Moore thought that "he is the ideal role model for David Cameron."[25] In 2011, after the News International phone hacking scandal became public knowledge, he wondered if the Left had been right all along, not only in their objection to Rupert Murdoch's power, but also whether "'the free market' is actually a set-up."[26]

Moore was for a number of years chairman of Policy Exchange, a London-based think-tank, before he stepped down in June 2011. In December 2007 he waded into the debate over The Hijacking of British Islam, a Policy Exchange report which the BBC had found to be contentious because of receipts for extremist material which were claimed to be somehow falsified. In the fullness of time a number of lawsuits against Policy Exchange in connection with The Hijacking of British Islam were vacated, discontinued or otherwise abandoned; in at least one instance, the result vindicated Policy Exchange when the court ordered significant damages against the plaintiff.

In 2014, ten years on from the Civil Partnership Act 2004, Moore wrote in a Telegraph article that he believed civil partnerships achieved a "balance" and were a "moderate conservative approach".[27] The year before, he wrote that "[R]espectable people are truly terrified of being thought anti-homosexual".[28] Moore's views on civil partnerships and same-sex marriage are similar to former Telegraph Assistant Editor Andrew Pierce.

In the wake of the 2015 Sousse attacks, in which 38 Westerners were murdered by an Islamist who had apparently been seduced by an associate of Abu Qatada, Moore wrote an essay, the thesis of which was that ISIS and its fellow-travellers truly believe only it can defeat the conspiracy that runs the world and that there is no possible common ground. He concluded that "It is not paranoid to say that there is a deadly enemy within (the UK) and not intolerant to want to defeat it."[29]

As of 2015, Moore wrote for two of the publications he once edited, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph. In August 2015, Moore received media attention and criticism after he wrote an article for The Spectator about the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, titled "Have Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall got the looks for a leadership contest?", in which he wrote "there is an understanding that no leader — especially, despite the age of equality, a woman — can look grotesque on television and win a general election" and discussed the looks of the two female candidates in detail. The article was condemned by Liz Kendall, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and Tessa Jowell, candidate for the Labour nomination for Mayor of London and former Minister and MP, along with several journalists and MPs from various parties.[30][31]

In January 2017 Moore robustly defended Donald Trump after the President caused international outrage by attempting to ban citizens of several Muslim nations entering the US. Moore described the criticisms of Trump as "foaming" and "ridiculous" in an editorial for The Daily Telegraph newspaper.[32] On the same day that newspaper reported that over 750,000 UK citizens had signed a petition calling for the withdrawal of Donald Trump's invitation to make a state visit to the UK.[33]

In April 2017 he authored an article for The Telegraph which advocated "a bonfire of green regulations" and a return to fossil fuels to improve the British economy after Brexit.[34]

In August 2019 he was criticised for suggesting that Olivia Colman had a "distinctly leftwing face" which cast a doubt in his mind on her ability to play the role of the Queen in the upcoming new season of The Crown.[35]

Moore married Caroline Baxter (whom he had met at university) during 1981[16] in Tunbridge Wells. The couple have two children.

Moore converted to Roman Catholicism following the Church of England's decision to allow the ordination of women as priests in 1992.[40][41] His wife, a former English don at Cambridge University, chose not to make such a move and remains an Anglican.[42]

Moore is the founder-chairman of the Rectory Society which is dedicated to preserving past and present parsonages.[8]

• Moore, Charles, & Simon Heffer (1989). A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of TE Utley. Foreword by Margaret Thatcher; Introduction by Enoch Powell. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 9780241127285.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Moore, Charles (2013). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography, Volume One: Not for Turning. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713992823.
  • — (2013). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography [Volume 1]: From Grantham to the Falklands. U.S. edition/title. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307958945.
• Moore, Charles (2015). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780713992885.
  • — (2016). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography [Volume 2]: At Her Zenith: In London, Washington, and Moscow. U.S. edition/title. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307958969.
• Moore, Charles (2019). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography, Volume Three: Herself Alone. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9780241324745.
  • — (2019). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography [Volume 3]: Herself Alone. U.S. edition/title. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9781101947203.

Critical studies and reviews of Moore's work

• Howard, John (January–February 2016). "Seized with outcomes". Quadrant. 60 (1–2): 73–75. Review of Margaret Thatcher : the authorized biography, volume two : everything she wants.

• Charles Moore Column archive The Telegraph
• I'm starting to think that the Left might actually be right, The Telegraph, 22 July 2011
• Charles Moore Column archive The Spectator
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Charles Moore on IMDb
• Charles Moore Article archive Journalisted
• In Defence of Dogma Interview with Luke O Sullivan, Quadrapheme Magazine, 17 April 2014 (Archived)