Charles Moore

Charles Hilary Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham (born 31 October 1956) is an English journalist and a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and The Sunday Telegraph; he still writes for all three.

While at Eton in 1974 Moore wrote about his membership of the Liberals in the Eton Chronicle and also about his taste for real ale.

During this period he was already a friend of Oliver Letwin.

Moore remained a Liberal into his early twenties.

Moore went to Trinity College, Cambridge, at the same time as Letwin.

At Eton he had also known Nicholas Coleridge, who was also at Trinity.

He read English (2.1) and History (2.1) and graduated BA in 1979.

By now an advocate of architectural conservation, he became an admirer of the work in this field of Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman.

In 1979 he joined The Daily Telegraph as a political correspondent, and, after a short period on the 'Peterborough' gossip column, was writing leaders within two years, by the age of 24.

In the aftermath of the 1981 Brixton riot, (which Moore blamed on "poorly planned mass immigration"), Moore interviewed elderly white residents of Lambeth on their experience of crime, the police, immigration and politics.

Moore wrote: "The native population of Lambeth feels little natural sympathy with the West Indian arrivals. Without having any arrogant or dogmatic theory of racial superiority, the old people of Lambeth can see with their own eyes that they are surrounded by people more primitive than they, who lack their respect for law and privacy".

In the final paragraph, Moore wrote of the old people's loyalty to the Royal Family, their memories of the two world wars, their work ethic and their readiness to obey the law: "As one old man said simply, 'It's our country and our Queen. Why should we be afraid to go out?'"

In 1982 Moore wrote a pamphlet for the Salisbury Group, titled The Old People of Lambeth (1982).

Two years after joining The Spectator as a political columnist, Moore became the magazine's editor in 1984, remaining there until 1990.

Moore employed a young journalist Boris Johnson at The Spectator, who went onto succeed Moore as Editor of the Spectator and then became Mayor of London, Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Moore co-edited A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of T. E. Utley, which was published in 1989.

In 1992 in an article questioning the success of the welfare policies intended to combat historical social problems, Moore supportively claimed there was a perception in America that some groups might be more able than others, which he then went on to support: "The Korean sets up the grocery store which the black then robs, that is the caricature that America recognises", and that there was a prejudice often voiced in conversation but hardly ever put into print "that there really is something different about blacks, or at least about young black men" and "If it is true, as it surely is that some races – the Jews are the obvious example – are highly enterprising and talented, it may also be true that some are the opposite."

Following The Spectator, he edited The Sunday Telegraph from 1992 to 1995.

Near the start of this period, around the time of the publication of the Andrew Morton book Diana: Her True Story, he appeared on Newsnight to discuss the marital difficulties of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

To the astonishment of the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, Moore said that because he wished to protect the monarchy: "I believe in the importance of concealment in these matters and, if you like, hypocrisy."

Moore became editor of The Daily Telegraph in 1995.

In 2001, his signed editorial "A Free Country" gained some notice elsewhere in the media.

In this article, he argued in favour of hunting, pornography, the right to employ whom we choose, the right to trial by jury and advocated the legalisation of cannabis.

He blamed a decline in "freedom" on the controls imposed during the Second World War and on Margaret Thatcher: "If you've been in office for a long time you always start to believe in having more power, and she undoubtedly got that disease."

In September 2003 Moore launched a new column, Beebwatch, that he claimed will "delve into the unconscious bias" of the corporation.

"The BBC's mental assumptions are those of the fairly soft left, that American power is a bad thing, whereas the UN is good, that the Palestinians are in the right and Israel isn't, that the war in Iraq was wrong, that the European Union is a good thing and that people who criticise it are xenophobic," Moore said.

Owing to falling circulation, there had been speculation by 2003 about Moore's future prior to his resignation in the autumn of that year.

Moore had been editor when stories about George Galloway, which led to a successful libel action from the politician, were published.

The newspaper had falsely written that Galloway received payments from Saddam Hussein's regime.

Since leaving the editorship of the Daily Telegraph in 2003, to spend more time writing Thatcher's authorised biography, Moore has penned regular columns at The Spectator and at the Daily Telegraph, and was named in 2023 by the New Statesman as the fortieth most influential right-wing figure in the UK.

In December 2007 he entered the debate over The Hijacking of British Islam, a Policy Exchange report which the BBC had found to rely on evidence that was clearly fabricated.

On 17 December 2007, The Times issued an apology to Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari of the East London Mosque in connection with its coverage of the report originally defended by Moore.

Policy Exchange did not bring its threatened legal action against the BBC but in September 2008, the Finsbury Park Mosque issued a writ in the High Court over the report's allegations.

In March 2009, the report appeared to have been removed from the Policy Exchange website, and a correction notice was published.

Moore was for a number of years chairman of Policy Exchange, a London-based think-tank, before he stepped down in June 2011.

He is known for his authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher, published in three volumes (2013, 2016 and 2019).

Under the government of Boris Johnson, in July 2020 Moore was given a peerage, thus becoming a member of the House of Lords.

Moore was born in Hastings, East Sussex.

He is from a Liberal family.

His mother Ann (née Miles) was a county councillor for the Liberal Party in Sussex and his father Richard was a leader writer on the News Chronicle, who unsuccessfully stood for the party at several general elections.