Jonathan Freedland

Life and journalism career

The son of Michael Freedland, a biographer and journalist, and Sara Hocherman, he was educated at University College School, a boys' independent school in Hampstead, London, and at Wadham College, Oxford.

The younger Freedland began his Fleet Street career at the short-lived Sunday Correspondent. In 1990 he joined the BBC, working as a news reporter across radio and television, appearing most often on The World at One and Today on Radio 4. In the summer of 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Stern fellowship on The Washington Post, serving as a staff writer on the national news section. He became Washington Correspondent for The Guardian in 1993, remaining in that post until 1997 when he returned to London as an editorial writer and columnist. Bring Home the Revolution: The case for a British Republic (1998), Freedland's first book, argued that Britain should reclaim the revolutionary ideals it exported to America in the 18th century, and undergo a constitutional and cultural overhaul. The book won a W. Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction and was later adapted into a two-part series for BBC Television.

Between 2002 and 2004, Freedland was an occasional columnist for the Daily Mirror and from 2005 to 2007 he wrote a weekly column for the London Evening Standard. He has also been published in Newsweek and The New Republic magazines.

Jacob's Gift (2005) is a memoir recounting the lives of three generations of his own Jewish family as well as exploring wider questions of identity and belonging. In 2008, he broadcast a two-part series for BBC Radio 4 – British Jews and the Dream of Zion – as well as two TV documentaries for BBC Four: How to be a Good President and President Hollywood.

In March 2014, it emerged that Freedland would assume the role of executive editor of the opinion part of The Guardian from May. His responsibilities included the comment section of the newspaper and the development of longer articles for the paper and the website. Freedland remained in this role until early 2016. He continues to write a Saturday column for the newspaper.

Nominated on seven occasions, Freedland was awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his journalism.

Thriller writer

Freedland has published six books: two non-fiction works under his own name and six novels, originally under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.

The Righteous Men (2006), is a religious thriller published under the Bourne nom de plume. The book made a brief appearance in the gossip columns when a damning review by Michael Dibdin, originally written for The Guardian, appeared instead in The Times. The Guardian's readers' editor discovered that when Dibdin originally submitted his review to The Guardian he offered to withdraw it if it were deemed too awkward – an offer the editor, Alan Rusbridger, accepted. The Righteous Men was picked as a Richard and Judy Summer Read in June 2006 and soon rose to the top of The Sunday Times best-sellers' list. It stayed on the list for several months and has now sold more than half a million copies in the UK; it has been translated into 30 languages.

The book was followed by another Sam Bourne title, The Last Testament (2007), this time set against the backdrop of the Middle East peace process, and by The Final Reckoning (2008), based on the true story of the Avengers: a group of Holocaust survivors who sought revenge against their Nazi persecutors. The Final Reckoning just missed the peak of The Sunday Times best-seller list. Just before The Chosen One (2010), the fourth thriller by Sam Bourne was published in the UK, The Bookseller reported in April 2010 that HarperCollins had signed Freedland for three more Bourne books, describing the author as "the UK's bestselling thriller writer with sales of well over one million ... in less than five years."

HarperCollins published "Pantheon" in July 2012. Freedland's sixth novel, The 3rd Woman, is published by HarperCollins in August.

His Seventh novel under Sam Bourne, To Kill a President, was published by HarperCollins on 12 June 2017.

Views

A leading liberal Zionist in the UK, he wrote in 2012 that he only uses the word Zionism infrequently. He explained:

Of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict he wrote: "Israelis want security, yet their government’s actions will give it no security. On the contrary, they are utterly self-defeating." Freedland has called for negotiations to end the cycles of violence: "The only real security is political, not military. It comes through negotiation, not artillery fire" because "in trying to crush today’s enemy, Israel has reared the enemy of tomorrow."

Freedland sees the Grenfell Tower fire as an example of rich people disregarding the interests of poor people. Freedland states that warnings from residents were ignored or met with legal threats. Freedland wrote about, "a local authority and its arm’s length management company that decided to save a grand total of £4,750 by opting for the cheaper and more flammable version of cladding for this tower." Freedland maintains, "Grenfell Tower should mark a point of no return. No return to the frenzied deregulation, cost-cutting and rampant inequality of the last four decades. These are not new evils. They have been lurking for many years. But it took the light of a burning building for the whole nation to see them. (...) And [the local authority and the management company cut costs] even though the risk was plain to see to anyone paying attention. The management company RMS, for example, which specialises in modelling catastrophes risk, has detailed a recent spate of fires in China involving similar cladding acting as an accelerant, engulfing entire skyscrapers in flames within three or four minutes." Freedland wrote further, "So Grenfell Tower threatens to stand forever as a warning against four of the defining features of our era. First, deregulation – elevated to an ideal by the free marketeers of Thatcherism and pursued ever since. Protections for consumers or workers or residents have long been recast and despised as “red tape”, choking plucky entrepreneurs. A favourite slogan of the right was the promise of “a bonfire of regulations”. Well, they got their bonfire all right. (...) But most obviously, Grenfell Tower is a story of inequality, of the poor herded into a cramped building made unsafe because it was prettified to improve the view of the nearby rich."

Freedland sees the setbacks for the Conservative party in the 2017 general election as evidence the British public are tired of austerity. Freedland maintains the people were first told austerity was to be temporary but later found it was intended to be permanent. Freedland maintains the British are, "sick and tired" of "cherished public services" like schools and policing short of money. People dislike seeing libraries closed, children's centres empty, nurses forced to go to food banks, teachers bringing in food for hungry pupils. Freedland maintains if the Conservatives do not want further election setbacks they should improve public services and fund this by taxing, "the better off". Freedland writes, "The alternative is to be branded forever as the party of meanness and neglect of the public realm, in an era when people are hankering for something better."

Friedland is concerned that flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey is getting far more publicity than disastrous flooding in Asia though the Asian flooding is causing far more casualties among poorer people. Friedland is also concerned about suffering and death in Yemen and notes that western governments including the UK government have supplied Saudi Arabia with weapons used in the Yemen.

Freedland maintains that reduced funding for the police is a factor enabling UK terrorism. Freedland also blames Internet giants for doing too little to prevent terrorist material spreading. Freedland wrote, "Just last week, [the second week in September 2017] the response to the failed bomb attack at Parsons Green underground station included a fully briefed Daily Mail front-page story headlined, “Web giants with blood on their hands”. How much easier to make that the topic of debate rather than, say, the cutting of 20,000 police officers since 2010?

Books