Peter Oborne - Career

Career

Oborne read history at Christ's College, Cambridge, taking a BA degree in 1978.

He is the author of a highly critical biography of Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell and, in a different vein and contrast, a generous biography of the cricketer Basil D'Oliveira (whose selection for England to tour South Africa in 1968 caused that country's apartheid regime to cancel the tour). Oborne is also a vocal critic of the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe and author of a pamphlet, published by the Centre for Policy Studies about the situation in Zimbabwe, entitled A moral duty to act there.

As a television journalist Oborne began by making three polemical documentaries with filmmaker Paul Yule: "Mugabe's Secret Famine" (2003), "Afghanistan – Here's One We Invaded Earlier" (2004), and "Not Cricket – The Basil D'Oliveira Conspiracy" (2004). In April 2005 he presented the Channel 4 programme in the Election Unspun series, Why Politicians Can't Tell The Truth, that examined how major political parties in Britain allegedly pursue an agenda designed to appeal only to a narrow band of floating voters expected to play a decisive role in the UK General Elections of 2005. In May 2007 Oborne presented a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 called Gordon Brown: Fit for Office?

In June 2005 Oborne wrote an article for London's Evening Standard entitled "Why the US is now our great enemy". In the article Oborne argued that, although he and his generation were brought up to love the US, the country nevertheless represented the greatest threat to world civilisation, in particular as a result of its stance on global warming.

In April 2006 it was announced that Oborne was taking up a new position at the Daily Mail as a political columnist, while retaining his connection with The Spectator as a contributing editor. Fraser Nelson of The Scotsman replaced Oborne as the Spectator's political editor.

In July 2008, Oborne presented a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 called It Shouldn't Happen to a Muslim. In this film and the accompanying leaflet Muslims Under Siege co-written with television journalist James Jones, it was argued that the demonisation of Muslims has become widespread in British media and politics. The pamphlet was serialised in The Independent and prompted heated debate in the following weeks.

Oborne's extensive contacts on the right of British politics mean he is now generally regarded as one of the foremost conservative commentators in the country. He is regularly lampooned in the satirical magazine Private Eye as 'Peter O'Bore'.

In 2009 Oborne contributed to Charlie Brooker's Newswipe on BBC Four. Most of a segment, which discussed cross-party collusion and corruption, had to be dropped owing to its potentially libellous content. Oborne was on the Orwell Prize's Journalism shortlist for 2009.

Again in collaboration with James Jones, Oborne wrote the pamphlet, The Pro-Israel Lobby In Britain, which outlined the influence allegedly enjoyed by pro-Israeli media and politics lobbyists in the United Kingdom. The article asserted that while the lobbying efforts of groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), Labour Friends of Israel, and the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) are not illegal, their funding is untraceable, their operations are non-transparent, and media seldom declare the influence of junkets arranged by these pro-Israeli entities on the tenor of their writing. Oborne and Jones conclude that changes are needed "because politics in a democracy should never take place behind closed doors. It should be out in the open and there for all to see." Oborne also presented the Channel 4 Programme Dispatches Inside Britain's Israel Lobby

In collaboration with Conservative Member of Parliament Jesse Norman, Oborne produced the pamphlet Churchill's Legacy – the Conservative case for the Human Rights Act in the summer of 2009. Published by Liberty, the pamphlet attempted to show how "the Act is not a charter for socialism but contains the most basic rights from 900 years of British history".

In September 2011, Oborne and Frances Weaver co-authored the pamphlet Guilty Men for the Centre for Policy Studies. The report sought to identify the politicians, institutions and commentators who the authors felt had tried to take Britain into the European Single Currency and claimed to expose the "often unscrupulous and vicious personal attacks" carried out by supporters of the Euro. Oborne in particular identified William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Owen as three voices of opposition to early Euro entry that suffered such personal attacks.

Oborne has been both lambasted and lauded for his frank public comments in the 28 September 2011 edition of the BBC programme Newsnight. In the debate about the crisis of sovereign debt in the Eurozone, he on a number of occasions referred to Amadeu Altafaj Tardio (speaking from a television studio in Brussels, and spokesman for European Union economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn) as "that idiot in Brussels", which eventually resulted in Tardio's walking out of the studio. Oborne was "chided" by Newsnight anchor Jeremy Paxman for "gratuituous rudeness" after Paxman had himself asked for a response from, "Mr. Idiot in Brussels".