Toby Young

Toby Young
Young in 2011
Non-Executive Member of the Board of the
Office for Students
In office
2 January 2018 – 9 January 2018
Personal details
Born
Toby Daniel Moorsom Young

(1963-10-17) 17 October 1963 (age 61)
Buckinghamshire, England
Spouse
Caroline Bondy
(m. 2001)
Children4
Parent
EducationBrasenose College, Oxford
Harvard University
Trinity College, Cambridge (did not graduate)
OccupationJournalist

Toby Daniel Moorsom Young (born 17 October 1963) is a British social commentator. He is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union,[1][2] an associate editor of The Spectator,[3] creator of The Daily Sceptic blog and a former associate editor at Quillette.[4]

A graduate of the University of Oxford, Young briefly worked for The Times, before co-founding the London magazine Modern Review in 1991. He edited it until financial difficulties led to its demise in 1995. His 2001 memoir, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, details his subsequent employment at Vanity Fair. He then went on to write for The Sun on Sunday, the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator. He also served as a judge in seasons five and six of the television show Top Chef.[5] A proponent of free schools, Young co-founded the West London Free School and served as director of the New Schools Network.

Young has been at the centre of several controversies. In 2015, he wrote an article in advocacy of genetically engineered intelligence, which he described as "progressive eugenics".[6] In early January 2018, he was briefly a non-executive director on the board of the Office for Students,[7] an appointment from which he resigned within a few days after Twitter posts described as "misogynistic and homophobic" were uncovered.[8] In 2020, press regulator Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) found Young to have promoted misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic in a Daily Telegraph column.[9][10]

  1. ^ "Who We Are". The Free Speech Union. Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  2. ^ Bland, Archie (9 January 2021). "Students quit free speech campaign over role of Toby Young-founded group". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 January 2021 – via www.theguardian.com.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Spec was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Lederer, Katy (25 January 2022). "Can They Read?". n+1. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  5. ^ "What's Cooking with Season 5 of Top Chef?" TV Guide. 12 November 2008. Retrieved 12 November 2008.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Adams, Richard (1 January 2018). "Toby Young to help lead government's new universities regulator". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  8. ^
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference guardian-daily-telegraph-rebuked-over-toby-youngs-herd-immunity-covid-column was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference bbc-toby-young-telegraph-coronavirus-column-significantly-misleading was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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