Peter Oborne

Peter Alan Oborne (born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist. He is the associate editor of the Spectator and former chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, and, with Frances Weaver, the pamphlet Guilty Men.

Oborne is known for his acerbic commentary on the hypocrisy and apparent mendacity of contemporary politicians.

Career

Oborne was educated at Sherborne School and read history at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA degree in 1978.

He is the author of a highly critical biography of Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell and a 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, A moral duty to act there.

Oborne

Coordinates: 50°57′54″N 2°29′34″W / 50.9651°N 2.4927°W / 50.9651; -2.4927

Oborne /ˈoʊbɔːrn/ is a village and civil parish in north west Dorset, England, situated just north of the A30 road approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) northeast of Sherborne. It is in the West Dorset administrative district but close to the border with Somerset. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 101. Oborne shares a grouped parish council, Yeohead & Castleton Parish Council, with the three village parishes of Poyntington, Goathill and Castleton.

A new parish church, designed by William Slater, was built on a fresh site in 1862. The volume on Dorset in the Buildings of England series by John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner describe this as having "nave with bellcote, chancel and apse ... Slater's and Carpenter's typical single and twin lancets with pointed-trefoiled cusping." The remains of the Old St Cuthbert's Church are half a mile south, on the other side of the A30. Only the chancel remains. Oborne had been given to Sherborne Abbey by the Saxon King Edgar in the 10th century and it remained a 'chapel of ease' to the abbey until the Dissolution in 1539. Above the lintels of windows on the east and north sides are inscriptions entreating prayers for the good standing of Abbot John Myer (1533) and Sacristan John Dunster of Sherborne. The interior of the chancel contains a 17th-century pulpit and communion rails as well as a piscina and font from the former church at North Wootton. Nothing now remains of the medieval nave that was demolished in the 1860s. The chancel lay neglected until the 1930s, when a new incumbent began to restore it, taking advice from A. R. Powys (secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) who was also responsible for the restoration of the church at Winterborne Tomson, Dorset.

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician, who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. He now runs a consultancy business and performs charitable work. Blair was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. Blair led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, winning 418 seats, the most the party has ever held. The party went on to win two more elections under his leadership: in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory, and in 2005, with a reduced majority.

Blair was elected Labour Party leader in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair's leadership, the party used the phrase "New Labour" to distance it from previous Labour policies and its opposition to the traditional conception of socialism. Blair declared support for a new conception that he referred to as "social-ism", involving politics that recognised individuals as socially interdependent, and advocated social justice, cohesion, equal worth of each citizen, and equal opportunity. Critics of Blair denounced him for having the Labour Party abandon genuine socialism and accepting capitalism. Supporters, including the party's public opinion pollster Philip Gould, stated that after four consecutive general election defeats, Labour had to demonstrate that it had made a decisive break from its left-wing past, in order to win again.

Nigel Farage

Nigel Paul Farage (/ˈfærɑːʒ/; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and former commodity broker. He is the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), having held the position since November 2010, and previously from September 2006 to November 2009. Since 1999 he has been a Member of the European Parliament for South East England. He co-chairs the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (formerly "Europe of Freedom and Democracy") group. He has been noted for his sometimes controversial speeches in the European Parliament and has strongly criticised the euro.

Farage was a founding member of UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. After unsuccessfully campaigning in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he was elected MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election. He was subsequently re-elected in 2004, 2009 and, most recently, at the 2014 European Parliament Election.