Fraser Nelson

Early life

Educated at Nairn Academy and Dollar Academy, Nelson went on to study history and politics at the University of Glasgow and gained a diploma in journalism at City University, London. He is Catholic, and he once worked as a barman at Cleos in Rosyth.

Journalism career

Nelson began his journalistic career as a business reporter with The Times in 1997, followed by a short spell as Scottish political correspondent. At a party he met Andrew Neil, then editor of The Scotsman who recruited him as its political editor in 2001. In 2003 he moved to The Business, a sister title of The Scotsman in the Barclay brothers' Press Holdings group.

In July 2004 the brothers bought The Telegraph Group, which included The Spectator and in December 2005 they sold The Scotsman Publications Ltd. Neil had been appointed Chief Executive of The Spectator after the Barclays bought it, and in 2006 he brought in Nelson as associate editor and then political editor of the magazine. He replaced Matthew d'Ancona as editor of The Spectator when the latter left in August 2009.

In addition to his role as editor of The Spectator, Nelson was a political columnist for the News of the World from 2006 and a board director with the Centre for Policy Studies think tank. He was named Political Columnist of the Year in the 2009 Comment Awards.

In 2013, the Evening Standard named Nelson as one of the most influential journalists working in London. The British Society of Magazine Editors awarded Nelson the 2013 Editors’ Editor of the Year. In the same year he won the British Press Award as Political journalist of the Year.

Style and beliefs

Nelson is an economic libertarian and a supporter of the Conservative Party. Nelson has stated that he is a supporter of immigration. He describes The Spectator magazine under his editorship as "right of centre, but not strongly right of centre". He on occasion criticised David Cameron's leadership but was generally supportive, and has also been known to praise Cameron's Liberal Democrat coalition partner from 2010 to 2015, Nick Clegg.

Immigration

On 4 April 2014, Nelson published a piece in the Daily Telegraph entitled "The British Muslim is truly one among us – and proud to be so", which praised the integration of mainstream Islam in the UK and described it as one "of our great success stories". He returned to the theme in May 2015, with an article entitled "The unsayable truth about immigration: it's been a stunning success for Britain", in which he examined the history of Operation Trojan Horse, Sharia patrols, the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal and other scandals.

Gay marriage

The nuclear family

Charlie Hebdo

Nelson wrote two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre a reflective piece in which he compared that massacre to the Deal barracks bombing by the Provisional IRA:

Nelson also noted that the Muslim Council of Britain released an unequivocal statement condemning the Paris massacre, while the Islamic Human Rights Commission had released nothing to that date.

Theresa May

On July 13, 2017, reporter Nimrod Kamer attended The Spectator summer party in Whitehall and spoke to then Prime Minister Theresa May about his concerns as a Romanian passport holder residing in the UK in the wake of Brexit. The PM assured him that he can stay in the country and Mr. Nelson reassured it once hearing that Kamer is also an Israeli passport holder [1][2][3]. In the same video David Davis (British politician) is also seen asked about the EU-UK Divorce Bill. It has gained traction in two Romanian publications [4][5].