Francis Wheen

Early life and education

Wheen was born into an army family and educated at two independent schools: Copthorne Preparatory School near Crawley, West Sussex, and Harrow School in north west London.

Career

Running away from Harrow at 16 "to join the alternative society," Wheen had early periods as a "dogsbody" at The Guardian and the New Statesman and attended Royal Holloway College, University of London, after a period at a crammer. At Harrow, he was briefly a contemporary of Mark Thatcher who has been a subject of his journalism.

Wheen is the author of several books, including a biography of Karl Marx which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1999, and has been translated into twenty languages. He followed the biography of Karl Marx with a "biography" of Das Kapital, which follows the creation and publication of the first volume of Marx's major work as well as other incomplete volumes. Wheen had a column in The Guardian for several years. He writes for Private Eye and is currently the magazine's deputy editor. His collected journalism, Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies, won him the Orwell Prize in 2003. He has also been a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard.

In April 2012, Wheen suffered the loss of his entire book collection, his "life's work", and an unfinished novel, in a garden shed fire.

Broadcasting work

Wheen broadcasts regularly, mainly on BBC Radio 4, has made many appearances on The News Quiz, in which he has often referred to the fact that he resembles the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith. He has also several times been a guest on Have I Got News for You.

Wheen wrote a docudrama, The Lavender List, for BBC Four on the final period of Harold Wilson's premiership, concentrating on his relationship with Marcia Williams, which first screened in March 2006. It starred Kenneth Cranham as Wilson and Gina McKee as Williams. In April 2007, the BBC paid £75,000 to Williams (then Baroness Falkender) in an out-of-court settlement over claims made in the programme.

Political views

Wheen was opposed to the Falklands War. In an article syndicated to a number of American newspapers, Wheen stated: "In a famous British play of the 1950s, Look Back in Anger, the hero complained that 'there aren't any good, brave causes to fight for anymore'. Mrs Thatcher apparently agrees with this view, so she went to war over a small, ignoble cause." Wheen is a supporter of the anti-monarchist group Republic.

Wheen was an advocate of NATO's Kosovo intervention against Serbian aggression in 1999; a signatory to the Euston Manifesto (issued in 2006) which called for a realignment of progressive politics; and supported the second Iraq war.

In late 2005, Wheen was the co-author with David Aaronovitch and blogger Oliver Kamm, both contributors to The Times, of a complaint to The Guardian after it published an apology and correction in respect of an interview with Noam Chomsky by Emma Brockes which had been published at the end of October 2005; Chomsky had complained that the interview was defamatory in suggesting that he denied the 1995 Srebrenica massacre through his defence of a book by Diana Johnstone.

Francis Wheen is strongly critical of Foreign Office minister Baroness Anelay's failure to condemn the torture of Raif Badawi by the Saudi Arabian government unreservedly. Wheen maintains this was motivated by her wish to sell arms to the Saudis.

Personal life

Wheen was married to the writer Joan Smith between 1985 and 1993. He has been the partner of Julia Jones (formerly Julia Thorogood) since the mid-1990s; they have two sons.

In 2014, Wheen waived his right to anonymity in order to speak about being a victim of teacher Charles Napier, after Napier was convicted of sexually abusing 23 boys between 1967 and 1983. Wheen described his experience as less serious than that of other victims, and had only become aware of the scale of Napier's activities later.

Wheen was a close friend of the writer Christopher Hitchens.