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{{Short description|English journalist and author (1937–2019)}}
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'''Christopher John Penrice Booker''' (7 October 1937 – 3 July 2019) was an English ] and author. He was a founder and first editor of the ] magazine '']'' in 1961. From 1990 onward he was a columnist for '']''.<ref>, Routledge, 2003. p63</ref> In 2009, he published '']''. He also disputed the link between ] and ],<ref> Published by The Shropshire Star on 6 July 2019, retrieved on 12 July 2019</ref><ref name=passivesmoking/> and the ] posed by ].<ref> Published by The Guardian on 28 September 2010, retrieved on 12 July 2019</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Booker |first=Christopher |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531446/Christopher-Bookers-Notebook.html |title=Christopher Booker's Notebook |newspaper=] |date=15 October 2006 |accessdate=12 April 2012 |location=London}}</ref> In his ''Sunday Telegraph'' section he frequently commented on the UK ]s and Social Services.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/10580028/Child-protection-services-A-mothers-diary-records-the-awful-death-of-a-child-in-care.html |title=Child protection services: A mother's diary records the awful death of a child 'in care' |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |first=Christopher |last=Booker |date=18 January 2014 |access-date=19 September 2016}}</ref>


In collaboration with ], Booker wrote a variety of publications advancing a ], though academically disputed,<ref name="perspectives">{{Cite journal|last=Tunkrová|first=Lucie|date=Winter 2006|editor-last=Karlas|editor-first=Jan|title=The Great Deception. The Secret History of the European Union (Skryté dějiny evropské integrace od roku 1918 do současnosti) by Christopher Booker, Richard North|journal=Perspectives: The Central European Review of International Affairs|publisher=Institute of International Relations, NGO|issue=27|pages=122–124|issn=1210-762X|eissn=1803-4551|jstor=23616067}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|editor1-last=Richard|editor1-first=Spall|title=Book Review: The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union. By Christopher Booker and Richard North. (New York: Continuum, 2003. Pp. xiii, 474. $39.95.) University of Trenton Reviewed by Mark Gilbert|journal=The Historian|date=December 2005|volume=67|issue=4|pages=787–788|doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.2005.00130.x|s2cid=218499735 }}</ref> ] of the ]. The best-known of these is ''The Great Deception''.
'''Christopher John Penrice Booker''' (born 7 October 1937) is an English ] and author, and one of the founders of the magazine '']''.

==Biography==
Booker was educated at the ] in ], ], and ], ], where he read ]. His parents founded the elite girls' school ].

He was briefly married to the novelist ] and to Christine Verity, who later married historian ]. In 1979, he married Valerie Patrick, with whom he has two sons; they live in ].


==Career== ==Career==
⚫ With fellow ] ] and ] he founded '']'' in 1961, and was its first editor. He was ousted by Ingrams in 1963. Returning in 1965, he has remained a member of the magazine's collaborative joke-writing team ever since (with Ingrams, Barry Fantoni and current editor ]).

From 1959 to 1962, he was the first jazz critic for the '']'' and '']s''. In 1962 he became the resident political scriptwriter on the ] satire show '']'', notably contributing sketches on Home Secretary ] and prime minister ] which have often been cited as examples of the programme's outspoken style.


===Early life===
⚫ From 1964 he became a '']'' columnist, writing on the press and TV, and in 1969 published ''The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life In The Fifties and Sixties'', a highly critical analysis of the role played by fantasy in the political and social life of those decades.
Booker was educated at ], ]<ref name="Grun"> Published by The Guardian on 4 July 2019, retrieved on 12 July 2019</ref> and ], where he read History.<ref>{{Who's Who | title=BOOKER, Christopher John Penrice | id = U8078 | volume = 2019 | edition = online}}</ref>


===1960s===
⚫ In the early 1970s he campaigned against the building of ] and the wholesale redevelopment of Britain's cities according to the ideology of the ] movement. In 1973, he published both ''Goodbye London'' (written with John Betjeman's daughter ]), and, with Bennie Gray, was the IPC Campaigning Journalist of the Year. His ] documentary ''City of Towers '' (1979) was widely praised, not least by some of the modern ] whose work it criticised.
⚫ With fellow ] ] and ] he founded '']'' in 1961, and was its first editor. He was ousted by Ingrams in 1963. Returning in 1965, he remained a permanent member of the magazine's collaborative joke-writing team thereafter (with Ingrams, ] and current editor ]) till his death.<ref> Published by Chortle and retrieved on 12 July 2019</ref>


Booker began writing jazz reviews for '']'' while at university.<ref name="Tobitt">{{cite web |last1=Tobitt |first1=Charlotte |title=Private Eye founding editor and Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker dies aged 81 |url=https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/private-eye-founding-editor-and-telegraph-columnist-christopher-booker-dies-aged-81/ |website=Press Gazette |access-date=3 July 2019 |date=3 July 2019}}</ref> From 1961 to 1964, he wrote about jazz for '']'' as well. His contributions included a positive account of a concert given by the pianist ], which did not happen; it was a late cancellation.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/christopher-booker-obituary-bpxfr7j3c|title=Christopher Booker obituary|work=The Times|date=4 July 2019|access-date=4 July 2019}} {{subscription required}}</ref> In 1962, he became the resident political scriptwriter on the ] satire show '']'', notably contributing sketches on Home Secretary ] and Prime Minister Sir ] which have often been cited as examples of the programme's outspoken style.
In the mid-70s he contributed a regular quiz to ]'s BBC literary programme '']'', and he returned to the ''Spectator'' as a weekly contributor (1976-1981), when he also became a lead book-reviewer for the ''Sunday Telegraph''.
⚫ In 1980, he published ''The Seventies: Portrait Of A Decade'', and covered the ] for the '']'', publishing ''The Games War: A Moscow Journal'' the following year. Between 1988 and 1990 he contributed ''The Way of the World'' satirical column to the ''Daily Telegraph'' (as Peter Simple II), and in 1990 swapped places with ] to become a weekly columnist on the ''Sunday Telegraph'', where he has remained to this day.


⚫ From 1964 he became a '']'' columnist, writing on the press and TV, and in 1969 published ''The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties'', a highly critical analysis of the role played by fantasy in the political and social life of those decades. He was married to the novelist ] between 1963 and 1968.
⚫ From 1992 he focused more on the role played in British life by bureaucratic regulation and the ], forming a professional collaboration with Dr ], and they subsequently co-authored a series of books: ''The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain'' (1994); ''The Castle of Lies'' (1996); ''The Great Deception'' (2003), a critical history of the European Union; and most recently ''Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth '' (2007), a study of the part played in Western society in recent decades by the 'scare phenomenon'.


===1970s===
⚫ Between 1986 and 1990 he took part in a detailed investigation, chaired by Brigadier Tony Cowgill, of the widely publicised charges that senior British politicians, including ], had been guilty of a serious ] in handing over thousands of Cossack and Yugoslav prisoners to the Communists at the end of the ] in 1945. Their report, published in 1990, presented those events in a very different light, and Booker published a lengthy analysis of the controversy in ''A Looking Glass Tragedy'' (1997).
⚫ He married Christine Verity, his second wife, in 1972.<ref name="Grun"/> In the early 1970s, Booker campaigned against both the building of ] and the wholesale redevelopment of Britain's cities according to the ideology of the ] movement. In 1973, he published ''Goodbye London'' (written with ]), and, with Bennie Gray, was the IPC Campaigning Journalist of the Year. He made a documentary for the BBC in 1979 on modernist architecture, called ''City of Towers''. In the mid-1970s he contributed a regular quiz to ]'s BBC literary programme ''Read All About It'', and he returned to ''The Spectator'' as a weekly contributor (1976–1981), when he also became a lead book-reviewer for ''The Sunday Telegraph''. In 1979, he married Valerie Patrick, his third wife, with whom he had two sons; they lived in ].<ref name="Grun"/>


===1980s===
In 2005, he published ''The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories'', a ]-influenced analysis of stories and their psychological meaning, on which he had been working for over 30 years. Although this long book was dismissed by a number of journalistic reviewers, it won praise from a number of novelists, playwrights and academics, including ], ], ], ] and ].
⚫ In 1980, he published ''The Seventies: Portrait Of A Decade'', and covered the ] for the '']'', publishing ''The Games War: A Moscow Journal'' the following year. Between 1987 and 1990 he wrote ''The Daily Telegraph''{{'}}s ''The Way of the World'' column (a satirical column originated by ]) as "Peter Simple II", and in 1990 swapped places with ], after mocking Waugh who firmly requested he should write the column instead of Booker, to become a weekly columnist on ''The Sunday Telegraph'', where he remained until March 2019.<ref name="Tobitt"/>


⚫ Between 1986 and 1990 he took part in a detailed investigation, chaired by Brigadier Tony Cowgill, of the charges that senior British politicians, including ], had been guilty of a serious ] in handing over thousands of Cossack and Yugoslav prisoners to the Communists at the end of the ] in 1945. Their report, published in 1990, presented those events in a very different light, and Booker later published a lengthy analysis of the controversy in ''A Looking Glass Tragedy'' (1997).
In 2009, he published '']'', which was described in ''The Guardian'' as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual".<ref></ref>


==Views on science== ===After 1990===
⚫ From 1992 he focused more on the role played in British life by bureaucratic regulation and the ], forming a professional collaboration with ], and they subsequently co-authored a series of books, including ''The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain'' (1994); ''The Castle of Lies'' (1996); ''The Great Deception'' (2003), a critical history of the European Union; and ''Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth '' (2007), a study of the part played in Western society in recent decades by the 'scare phenomenon'.
Via his long-running column in the UK's '']'', Booker has claimed that 2008 was "the year man-made global warming was disproved", amid "a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming".<ref></ref> As a prominent ] ], he joins other commentators such as ] and ].


In 2004, he published '']'', a ]-influenced analysis of stories and their psychological meaning, on which he had been working for over 30 years. The book was dismissed by ], who objected to Booker employing his generalisations about conventional plot structures prescriptively: "He sets up criteria for art, and ends up condemning '']'', '']'', ], ], ], ] and ] – the list goes on – while praising '']'', '']'' and '']''".<ref>Adam Mars-Jones , '']'', 21 November 2004, retrieved 1 September 2011.</ref>
Booker has also claimed that ] is "chemically identical to talcum powder" and poses a "non-existent" risk to human health<ref></ref>, stating that "HSE studies, including a paper by John Hodgson and Andrew Darnton in 2000, concluded that the risk from the substance is "virtually zero".<ref>Structurally, ] or ]{{sub|3}}(]{{sub|2}}]{{sub|5}})(]){{sub|4}}consists of linear fibers, while ] or Mg<sub>3</sub>Si<sub>4</sub>O<sub>10</sub>(OH)<sub>2</sub> consists of planar sheets. Both minerals are ] ] ], and are similar but not identical in terms of ]. Their ] differs significantly.</ref>


] wrote "This is the most extraordinary, exhilarating book. It always seemed to me that 'the story' was God's way of giving meaning to crude creation. Booker now interprets the mind of God, and analyses not just the novel – which will never to me be quite the same again – but puts the narrative of contemporary human affairs into a new perspective. If it took its author a lifetime to write, one can only feel gratitude that he did it".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-seven-basic-plots-9780826452092/ |title=The Seven Basic Plots |publisher=Bloomsbury |access-date=19 March 2013 |archive-date=9 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909234609/https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-seven-basic-plots-9780826452092/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> ] described it as a "brilliant summary of story-telling".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/wagner-moralist-or-monster-1235 |title=Wagner: moralist or monster? |first=Roger |last=Scruton |author-link=Roger Scruton |publisher=The New Criterion |date=February 2005 |access-date=19 March 2013}}</ref>
Booker's claims about the Hodgson and Darnton paper<ref>http://annhyg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/44/8/565</ref> have been criticised by ], who argues that Booker has misrepresented Hodgson and Darnton's findings, and that while the paper does show that white asbestos is less dangerous than the blue and brown varieties, "it still presents a risk of ], which depends on the level of exposure. People exposed to a high dose (between 10 and 100 fibres per millilitre per year (f/ml.yr)) have a risk (around two deaths per 100,000 for each f/ml.yr) of contracting this cancer. Only when the dose falls to less than 0.1 f/ml.yr does it become 'probably insignificant'."<ref></ref> Monbiot also points out that the phrase "virtually zero" does not actually appear in the paper.


==Views==
In an article in May 2008, Booker again cited the Hodgson and Darnton paper, claiming that "they concluded that the risk of contracting mesothelioma from white asbestos cement was 'insignificant', while that of lung cancer was 'zero'".<ref></ref>. This article was criticised by the UK's ] as "substantially misleading"<ref></ref>. According to the HSE, the Hodgson and Darnton paper "makes no specific statement about the risks of asbestos cement. It provides a summary of risk estimates for mesothelioma and lung cancer in relation to blue, brown and white asbestos across a range of exposures. Blue and brown asbestos are substantially more hazardous than white, but all three types can cause ] and ]."
Booker's weekly columns in '']'' covered a wide range of topics of public interest. He has been described by British columnist ] in ''The Spectator'' as doing "the kind of proper, old-school things that journalists hardly ever bother with in this new age of aggregation and flip bloggery: he digs, he makes the calls, he reads the small print, he takes up the cause of the little man and campaigns, he speaks truth to power without fear or favour".<ref name=" Delingpole The Spectator">{{cite news |url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/5482258/you-know-it-makes-sense.thtml |date=28 October 2009 |title=You Know It Makes Sense |author=James Delingpole |author-link=James Delingpole |work=The Spectator |access-date=4 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091111154714/http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/5482258/you-know-it-makes-sense.thtml |archive-date=11 November 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref>


Booker has also claimed that "scientific evidence to support belief that ] causes cancer simply does not exist"<ref></ref> and that there is "no proof that ] causes ] in humans"<ref></ref>. He has also been critical of BBC Radio 4's ], claiming that they had "crudely distorted" the debate between defenders of the the theory of ] and ] and that the BBC "went out of their way to ignore the fact that the proponents of "intelligent design" are scientists". Darwinists, claimed Booker, "rest their case on nothing more than blind faith and unexamined a priori assumptions".<ref></ref> On a range of health issues, Booker put forward a view that the public is being unnecessarily "scared", as detailed in his book ''Scared to Death''. Thus, he argues that ], ]<ref name=passivesmoking>"scientific evidence to support belief that ] causes cancer simply does not exist" – Christopher Booker, 1 July 2007, ''Sunday Telegraph'', </ref> and ]<ref> Published by Daily Telegraph on 10 March 2002, written by Christopher Booker, retrieved on 11 July 2019</ref> have not been shown to be dangerous. His articles on global warming have been challenged by ] of '']''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/03/climate-change-daily-telegraph-christopher-booker |title=Booker's work of clanger-dropping fiction |work=The Guardian |location=London |first=George |last=Monbiot |date=3 February 2009 |access-date=1 April 2010}}</ref>


Booker said that ] is "chemically identical to talcum powder" and poses a "non-existent" risk to human health,<ref name=Booker130102>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1381270/Christopher-Bookers-Notebook.html |title=Christopher Booker's Notebook Billions to be spent on nonexistent risk |work=The Daily Telegraph |location=London |date=13 January 2002 |access-date=1 April 2010}}</ref> relying primarily on a 2000 paper for the ] (HSE).<ref name=Hodgson00>{{cite journal |author=Hodgson JT, Darnton A |title=The quantitative risks of mesothelioma and lung cancer in relation to asbestos exposure |journal=Ann Occup Hyg |volume=44 |issue=8 |pages=565–601 |date=December 2000 |pmid=11108782 |doi=10.1093/annhyg/44.8.565 |quote=At exposure levels seen in occupational cohorts it is concluded that the exposure specific risk of mesothelioma from the three principal commercial asbestos types is broadly in the ratio 1:100:500 for ], ] and ] respectively. For lung cancer the conclusions are less clear cut. ... The risk differential between chrysotile and the two amphibole fibres for lung cancer is thus between 1:10 and 1:50.|doi-access=free }}</ref> He wrote in January 2002 that "HSE studies, including a paper by John Hodgson and Andrew Darnton in 2000, concluded that the risk from the substance is "virtually zero". In response, the HSE's Director General, ], wrote that Booker's articles on asbestos had been "misinformed and do little to increase public understanding of a very important occupational health issue."<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/02/17/dt1704.xml | title=Booker's claims are irresponsible | work=The Daily Telegraph | location=London | first=Timothy | last=Walker | date=17 February 2002 | access-date=1 April 2010}}{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> The HSE issued further rebuttals to articles written by Booker in both 2005<ref>{{cite web | url =http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/record/st151205.htm | title =HSE Press Office: Putting the record straight | date =15 December 2005 | publisher =Health and Safety Executive | access-date =18 November 2008 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20081105174441/http://hse.gov.uk/press/record/st151205.htm | archive-date =5 November 2008 | url-status =dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505199/Christopher-Booker%27s-notebook.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510203138/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505199/Christopher-Booker%27s-notebook.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=10 May 2008 | title =Christopher Booker's notebook Fatal cracks appear in asbestos scam as HSE shifts its ground | work=The Daily Telegraph | location=London | date=11 December 2005 | access-date=1 April 2010 | first=Christopher | last=Booker}}</ref> and in 2006.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1525683/Christopher-Booker%27s-notebook.html | archive-url=https://archive.today/20120912174028/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1525683/Christopher-Booker%27s-notebook.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=12 September 2012 | title = Christopher Booker's notebook |first1=C|last1=Booker | work=The Daily Telegraph | location=London | date=6 August 2006 | access-date=1 April 2010}}</ref>


In an article in May 2008, Booker again cited the Hodgson and Darnton paper, claiming that "they concluded that the risk of contracting mesothelioma from white asbestos cement was "insignificant", while that of lung cancer was "zero"".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3558729/Farmers-face-6bn-bill-for-asbestos-clean-up.html |url-access=registration |title=Farmers face £6bn bill for asbestos clean-up|author=Christopher Booker|date=25 May 2008|work=The Telegraph US }}</ref> This article was also criticised by the HSE as "substantially misleading", as well as by George Monbiot, who argued that Booker misrepresented the authors' findings.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/23/controversiesinscience.health |title=The patron saint of charlatans is again spreading dangerous misinformation |work=The Guardian |location=London |first=George |last=Monbiot |date=23 September 2008 |access-date=1 April 2010}}</ref> Booker's claims were also critically analysed by Richard Wilson in his book ''Don't Get Fooled Again'' (2008). Wilson highlighted Booker's repeated endorsement of the alleged scientific expertise of John Bridle, who in 2004 was convicted under the UK's ] of making false claims about his qualifications.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/asbestos_expert_lied_about_his_qualification_1_2129412 |title=Asbestos expert lied about his qualifications |work=] |location=York |first=Geoff |last=Fox |date=30 August 2005 |access-date=4 April 2010}}</ref>
==Criticism==


===Global warming===
Booker's articles in '']'' on ] and also on ] have been repeatedly challenged by ] of '']''<ref>http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/23/controversiesinscience.health</ref><ref>http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/03/climate-change-daily-telegraph-christopher-booker</ref>.
Booker said that the ] was "the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament", and likely to cost hundreds of billions over the next 40 years.<ref name="Booker Telegraph ">{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7550164/Climate-Change-Act-has-the-biggest-ever-bill.html |date=4 April 2010 |title=Climate Change Act has the biggest ever bill |author=Christopher Booker |work=] |access-date=4 April 2010 |location=London}}</ref> In May 2009, Booker spoke at an ] organised by ].<ref>{{cite news |author-link=George Monbiot |last=Monbiot |first=George |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/feb/24/christopher-booker-heartland-climate |title=Environment: George Monbiot's Blog: Anything to declare, Mr Booker? We need transparency about Heartland |work=] |location=London |date=24 February 2012}}</ref> In the autumn of 2009, he published '']''. The book, which became his best-selling work, claims that there is not actually a consensus on climate change, and postulates that the measures taken by governments to ] "will turn out to be one of the most expensive, destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made".<ref name="Booker-342">{{harvnb |Booker|2009| p=342}}</ref> The book was characterised by ] in '']'' as being as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual", in which "he has rounded up just about every criticism ever made of the majority scientific view that global warming, most probably caused by human activity, is under way, and presented them unchallenged".<ref name="guardian.co.uk">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/15/real-global-warming-christopher-booker |date=15 November 2009 |title=The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker |author=Philip Ball |author-link=Philip Ball |work=The Observer |access-date=9 January 2014 |location=London}}</ref>


Ball said that Booker's position required the reader to believe that "1) Most of the world's climate scientists, for reasons unspecified, decided to create a myth about human-induced global warming and have managed to twist endless measurements and computer models to fit their case, without the rest of the scientific community noticing. George W Bush and certain oil companies have, however, seen through the deception. 2) Most of the world's climate scientists are incompetent and have grossly misinterpreted their data and models, yet their faulty conclusions are not, as you might imagine, a random chaos of assertions, but all point in the same direction."<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/>
Booker's scientific claims, which include the assertion that white asbestos (]) is "chemically identical to ]"<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1381270/Christopher-Bookers-Notebook.html</ref> were also critically analysed by Richard Wilson in his book ''Don't Get Fooled Again'' (2008). Wilson highlighted Booker's repeated endorsement of the alleged scientific expertise of John Bridle, who has claimed to be "the world's foremost authority on asbestos science", but who in 2005 was convicted under the UK's ]<ref>http://www.bohs.org/newsArticle.aspx?newsItem=14</ref> of making false claims about his qualifications, and who the BBC has accused of basing his reputation on "lies about his credentials, unaccredited tests, and self aggrandisement".<ref>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/01/2006_42_wed.shtml</ref>


In December 2009, Christopher Booker and ] had published an article in '']'' in which they questioned whether ], chair of the ] (IPCC), was using his position for personal gain,<ref>Christopher Booker and Richard North , '']'', 20 December 2009 </ref><ref name=apol/><ref name=GM260810>George Monbiot , ''The Guardian'', 26 August 2010</ref> with a follow-up ''Telegraph'' article in January 2010.<ref name=followup>Christopher Booker and Richard North , ''Sunday Telegraph'', 17 January 2010</ref> On 21 August 2010, ''The Daily Telegraph'' issued an apology,<ref name=apol>, '']'', 21 August 2010</ref> and withdrew the December article from their website<ref name=GM260810/> having reportedly paid legal fees running into six figures.<ref name=GM260810/> Pachauri described the statements against him as "another attempt by the climate sceptics to discredit the IPCC."<ref>, '']'', 21 August 2010</ref>
Booker's scientific claims about asbestos have also been criticised several times by the UK government's ]. In 2002, the HSE's Director General, Timothy Walker, wrote that Booker's articles on asbestos had been "misinformed and do little to increase public understanding of a very important occupational health issue."<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/02/17/dt1704.xml</ref>


==Family courts==
In 2005, the Health and Safety Executive issued a rebuttal<ref>http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/record/st151205.htm</ref> after Booker wrote an article suggesting that the HSE had agreed with him that white asbestos posed "no medical risk"<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505199/Christopher-Booker's-notebook.html</ref>, and in 2006, the HSE published a further rebuttal<ref>http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/record/st060806.htm</ref> after Booker had claimed, again incorrectly, that the Health and Safety Laboratory had concluded that the white asbestos contained within ] textured coatings posed "no health risk".<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1525683/Christopher-Booker%27s-notebook.html</ref>
Booker wrote a number of articles raising concerns about the Family Court system in England and Wales. Booker championed the cause of Victoria Haigh, bringing him into further conflict with the judiciary.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8727312/Judge-Wall-the-secrecy-rules-and-another-stinging-attack.html | location=London | work=The Daily Telegraph | first=Christopher | last=Booker | title=Judge Wall, the secrecy rules, and another stinging attack | date=27 August 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10037048/A-mother-sent-to-prison-on-evidence-she-cannot-see.html | location=London | work=The Daily Telegraph | first=Christopher | last=Booker | title=A mother sent to prison on evidence she cannot see | date=4 May 2013}}</ref> Booker also championed the cause of Marie Black, who fled the UK with her partner and daughter in order to evade social services.<ref> Written by Christopher Booker, published by The Daily Telegraph on 9 November 2013, retrieved on 11 July 2019</ref>


==Death==
In May 2008, the Health and Safety Executive accused Booker of writing an article that was "substantially misleading"<ref>http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/record/tel250508.htm</ref>. In the article<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/25/do2502.xml</ref>, published by the ''Sunday Telegraph'' earlier that month, Booker had claimed that a paper produced in 2000 by two HSE statisticians, Hodgson and Darnton<ref>http://annhyg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/44/8/565</ref>, had 'concluded that the risk of contracting mesothelioma from white asbestos cement was "insignificant", while that of lung cancer was "zero"'.
Booker died on 3 July 2019.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/03/journalist-christopher-booker-dies-aged-81/|title=Former Telegraph and Private Eye journalist Christopher Booker dies aged 81|first=Gareth|last=Davies|newspaper=The Telegraph |date=3 July 2019|via=www.telegraph.co.uk}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/04/christopher-booker-obituary|title=Christopher Booker obituary|first=Stephen|last=Bates|newspaper=The Guardian |date=4 July 2019|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/christopher-booker-obituary-bpxfr7j3c|title=Christopher Booker obituary|date=4 July 2019|via=www.thetimes.co.uk}}</ref> On 12 July he was featured in the ] obituary programme ''].''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0006n1k|title=Last Word - Eva Kor, Christopher Booker, João Gilberto, John McCririck - BBC Sounds|website=www.bbc.co.uk}}</ref>


==Bibliography== ==Bibliography==
*''The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life In The Fifties and Sixties'' (1969) *''The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties'' (1969).
*''Goodbye London'' (written with John Betjeman’s daughter ]) (1979) *''Goodbye London'' (with ]) (1979).
*''The Seventies: Portrait Of A Decade'' (1980) *''The Seventies: Portrait Of A Decade'' (1980).
*''The Games War: A Moscow Journal'' (1981) *''The Games War: A Moscow Journal'' (1981).
*''The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain'' (1994) *''The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain'' (with ], 1994).
*''The Castle of Lies'' (1996) *''The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must get Out of Europe'' (with ], 1996).{{ISBN|0715626930}}
*''A Looking-Glass Tragedy. The Controversy Over The Repatriations From Austria In 1945, London, United Kingdom, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, First Edition'' (1997) *''A Looking-Glass Tragedy. The Controversy Over The Repatriations From Austria in 1945'', London, United Kingdom, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, First Edition (1997).
*'']'' (with ], 2003), London: ].
*''The Great Deception'' (2003)
*''The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories'' (2005) *'']'' (2004).
*''Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth'' (2007) ISBN 0826486142 *''Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth'' (with ], 2007), London: Continuum. {{ISBN|0-8264-8614-2}}.
*'']'', London, Continuum. (2009) ISBN 9781441110527 *''Climategate to Cancun: The Real Global Warming Disaster Continues...'' (with ], 2010), London: Continuum.
* {{cite book
| last = Booker
| first = Christopher
| title = The Real Global Warming Disaster
| publisher = Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
| year = 2009
| isbn = 978-1-4411-1052-7
| url-access = registration
| url = https://archive.org/details/realglobalwarmin0000book
⚫ }}
*'']: A Study in Self Delusion'' ( 2020), London: Bloomsbury. {{ISBN|1472959051}}.


==References== ==References==
{{reflist}} {{Reflist}}


==External links== ==External links==
* * at telegraph.co.uk {{subscription required}}
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{{Private Eye}} {{Private Eye}}


{{Authority control}}
{{Persondata
|NAME=Booker, Christopher John Penrice
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=] ] and author
|DATE OF BIRTH=7 October 1937
|PLACE OF BIRTH=
|DATE OF DEATH=
|PLACE OF DEATH=
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Booker, Christopher}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Booker, Christopher}}
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Latest revision as of 04:47, 19 November 2024

English journalist and author (1937–2019) For other people named Chris Booker, see Chris Booker (disambiguation).

Christopher John Penrice Booker (7 October 1937 – 3 July 2019) was an English journalist and author. He was a founder and first editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye in 1961. From 1990 onward he was a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. In 2009, he published The Real Global Warming Disaster. He also disputed the link between passive smoking and cancer, and the dangers posed by asbestos. In his Sunday Telegraph section he frequently commented on the UK Family Courts and Social Services.

In collaboration with Richard North, Booker wrote a variety of publications advancing a Eurosceptic, though academically disputed, popular historiography of the European Union. The best-known of these is The Great Deception.

Career

Early life

Booker was educated at Dragon School, Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read History.

1960s

With fellow Salopians Richard Ingrams and Willie Rushton he founded Private Eye in 1961, and was its first editor. He was ousted by Ingrams in 1963. Returning in 1965, he remained a permanent member of the magazine's collaborative joke-writing team thereafter (with Ingrams, Barry Fantoni and current editor Ian Hislop) till his death.

Booker began writing jazz reviews for The Daily Telegraph while at university. From 1961 to 1964, he wrote about jazz for The Sunday Telegraph as well. His contributions included a positive account of a concert given by the pianist Erroll Garner, which did not happen; it was a late cancellation. In 1962, he became the resident political scriptwriter on the BBC satire show That Was The Week That Was, notably contributing sketches on Home Secretary Henry Brooke and Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home which have often been cited as examples of the programme's outspoken style.

From 1964 he became a Spectator columnist, writing on the press and TV, and in 1969 published The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties, a highly critical analysis of the role played by fantasy in the political and social life of those decades. He was married to the novelist Emma Tennant between 1963 and 1968.

1970s

He married Christine Verity, his second wife, in 1972. In the early 1970s, Booker campaigned against both the building of tower blocks and the wholesale redevelopment of Britain's cities according to the ideology of the modernist movement. In 1973, he published Goodbye London (written with Candida Lycett Green), and, with Bennie Gray, was the IPC Campaigning Journalist of the Year. He made a documentary for the BBC in 1979 on modernist architecture, called City of Towers. In the mid-1970s he contributed a regular quiz to Melvyn Bragg's BBC literary programme Read All About It, and he returned to The Spectator as a weekly contributor (1976–1981), when he also became a lead book-reviewer for The Sunday Telegraph. In 1979, he married Valerie Patrick, his third wife, with whom he had two sons; they lived in Somerset.

1980s

In 1980, he published The Seventies: Portrait Of A Decade, and covered the Moscow Olympics for the Daily Mail, publishing The Games War: A Moscow Journal the following year. Between 1987 and 1990 he wrote The Daily Telegraph's The Way of the World column (a satirical column originated by Michael Wharton) as "Peter Simple II", and in 1990 swapped places with Auberon Waugh, after mocking Waugh who firmly requested he should write the column instead of Booker, to become a weekly columnist on The Sunday Telegraph, where he remained until March 2019.

Between 1986 and 1990 he took part in a detailed investigation, chaired by Brigadier Tony Cowgill, of the charges that senior British politicians, including Harold Macmillan, had been guilty of a serious war crime in handing over thousands of Cossack and Yugoslav prisoners to the Communists at the end of the war in 1945. Their report, published in 1990, presented those events in a very different light, and Booker later published a lengthy analysis of the controversy in A Looking Glass Tragedy (1997).

After 1990

From 1992 he focused more on the role played in British life by bureaucratic regulation and the European Union, forming a professional collaboration with Richard North, and they subsequently co-authored a series of books, including The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain (1994); The Castle of Lies (1996); The Great Deception (2003), a critical history of the European Union; and Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth (2007), a study of the part played in Western society in recent decades by the 'scare phenomenon'.

In 2004, he published The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, a Jungian-influenced analysis of stories and their psychological meaning, on which he had been working for over 30 years. The book was dismissed by Adam Mars-Jones, who objected to Booker employing his generalisations about conventional plot structures prescriptively: "He sets up criteria for art, and ends up condemning Rigoletto, The Cherry Orchard, Wagner, Proust, Joyce, Kafka and Lawrence – the list goes on – while praising Crocodile Dundee, ET and Terminator 2".

Fay Weldon wrote "This is the most extraordinary, exhilarating book. It always seemed to me that 'the story' was God's way of giving meaning to crude creation. Booker now interprets the mind of God, and analyses not just the novel – which will never to me be quite the same again – but puts the narrative of contemporary human affairs into a new perspective. If it took its author a lifetime to write, one can only feel gratitude that he did it". Roger Scruton described it as a "brilliant summary of story-telling".

Views

Booker's weekly columns in The Sunday Telegraph covered a wide range of topics of public interest. He has been described by British columnist James Delingpole in The Spectator as doing "the kind of proper, old-school things that journalists hardly ever bother with in this new age of aggregation and flip bloggery: he digs, he makes the calls, he reads the small print, he takes up the cause of the little man and campaigns, he speaks truth to power without fear or favour".

On a range of health issues, Booker put forward a view that the public is being unnecessarily "scared", as detailed in his book Scared to Death. Thus, he argues that asbestos, passive smoking and BSE have not been shown to be dangerous. His articles on global warming have been challenged by George Monbiot of The Guardian.

Booker said that white asbestos is "chemically identical to talcum powder" and poses a "non-existent" risk to human health, relying primarily on a 2000 paper for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). He wrote in January 2002 that "HSE studies, including a paper by John Hodgson and Andrew Darnton in 2000, concluded that the risk from the substance is "virtually zero". In response, the HSE's Director General, Timothy Walker, wrote that Booker's articles on asbestos had been "misinformed and do little to increase public understanding of a very important occupational health issue." The HSE issued further rebuttals to articles written by Booker in both 2005 and in 2006.

In an article in May 2008, Booker again cited the Hodgson and Darnton paper, claiming that "they concluded that the risk of contracting mesothelioma from white asbestos cement was "insignificant", while that of lung cancer was "zero"". This article was also criticised by the HSE as "substantially misleading", as well as by George Monbiot, who argued that Booker misrepresented the authors' findings. Booker's claims were also critically analysed by Richard Wilson in his book Don't Get Fooled Again (2008). Wilson highlighted Booker's repeated endorsement of the alleged scientific expertise of John Bridle, who in 2004 was convicted under the UK's Trade Descriptions Act of making false claims about his qualifications.

Global warming

Booker said that the Climate Change Act 2008 was "the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament", and likely to cost hundreds of billions over the next 40 years. In May 2009, Booker spoke at an International Conference on Climate Change organised by The Heartland Institute. In the autumn of 2009, he published The Real Global Warming Disaster. The book, which became his best-selling work, claims that there is not actually a consensus on climate change, and postulates that the measures taken by governments to combat climate change "will turn out to be one of the most expensive, destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made". The book was characterised by Philip Ball in The Observer as being as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual", in which "he has rounded up just about every criticism ever made of the majority scientific view that global warming, most probably caused by human activity, is under way, and presented them unchallenged".

Ball said that Booker's position required the reader to believe that "1) Most of the world's climate scientists, for reasons unspecified, decided to create a myth about human-induced global warming and have managed to twist endless measurements and computer models to fit their case, without the rest of the scientific community noticing. George W Bush and certain oil companies have, however, seen through the deception. 2) Most of the world's climate scientists are incompetent and have grossly misinterpreted their data and models, yet their faulty conclusions are not, as you might imagine, a random chaos of assertions, but all point in the same direction."

In December 2009, Christopher Booker and Richard North had published an article in The Sunday Telegraph in which they questioned whether Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was using his position for personal gain, with a follow-up Telegraph article in January 2010. On 21 August 2010, The Daily Telegraph issued an apology, and withdrew the December article from their website having reportedly paid legal fees running into six figures. Pachauri described the statements against him as "another attempt by the climate sceptics to discredit the IPCC."

Family courts

Booker wrote a number of articles raising concerns about the Family Court system in England and Wales. Booker championed the cause of Victoria Haigh, bringing him into further conflict with the judiciary. Booker also championed the cause of Marie Black, who fled the UK with her partner and daughter in order to evade social services.

Death

Booker died on 3 July 2019. On 12 July he was featured in the BBC Radio 4 obituary programme Last Word.

Bibliography

References

  1. International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004, Routledge, 2003. p63
  2. Private Eye founder dies at 81 Published by The Shropshire Star on 6 July 2019, retrieved on 12 July 2019
  3. ^ "scientific evidence to support belief that inhaling other people's smoke causes cancer simply does not exist" – Christopher Booker, 1 July 2007, Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker's notebook: All done with passive smoke and mirrors
  4. Asbestos saga proves our feeble press watchdog has no bark and no bite Published by The Guardian on 28 September 2010, retrieved on 12 July 2019
  5. Booker, Christopher (15 October 2006). "Christopher Booker's Notebook". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
  6. Booker, Christopher (18 January 2014). "Child protection services: A mother's diary records the awful death of a child 'in care'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
  7. Tunkrová, Lucie (Winter 2006). Karlas, Jan (ed.). "The Great Deception. The Secret History of the European Union (Skryté dějiny evropské integrace od roku 1918 do současnosti) by Christopher Booker, Richard North". Perspectives: The Central European Review of International Affairs (27). Institute of International Relations, NGO: 122–124. eISSN 1803-4551. ISSN 1210-762X. JSTOR 23616067.
  8. Richard, Spall, ed. (December 2005). "Book Review: The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union. By Christopher Booker and Richard North. (New York: Continuum, 2003. Pp. xiii, 474. $39.95.) University of Trenton Reviewed by Mark Gilbert". The Historian. 67 (4): 787–788. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2005.00130.x. S2CID 218499735.
  9. ^ Christopher Booker obituary Published by The Guardian on 4 July 2019, retrieved on 12 July 2019
  10. "BOOKER, Christopher John Penrice". Who's Who. Vol. 2019 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  11. Christopher Booker, Private Eye's first editor, dies at 81 Published by Chortle and retrieved on 12 July 2019
  12. ^ Tobitt, Charlotte (3 July 2019). "Private Eye founding editor and Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker dies aged 81". Press Gazette. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  13. "Christopher Booker obituary". The Times. 4 July 2019. Retrieved 4 July 2019. (subscription required)
  14. Adam Mars-Jones "Terminator 2 Good, The Odyssey Bad", The Observer, 21 November 2004, retrieved 1 September 2011.
  15. "The Seven Basic Plots". Bloomsbury. Archived from the original on 9 September 2017. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
  16. Scruton, Roger (February 2005). "Wagner: moralist or monster?". The New Criterion. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
  17. James Delingpole (28 October 2009). "You Know It Makes Sense". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 11 November 2009. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  18. Ministers hushed up report on the dangers of sheep dip Published by Daily Telegraph on 10 March 2002, written by Christopher Booker, retrieved on 11 July 2019
  19. Monbiot, George (3 February 2009). "Booker's work of clanger-dropping fiction". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  20. "Christopher Booker's Notebook Billions to be spent on nonexistent risk". The Daily Telegraph. London. 13 January 2002. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  21. Hodgson JT, Darnton A (December 2000). "The quantitative risks of mesothelioma and lung cancer in relation to asbestos exposure". Ann Occup Hyg. 44 (8): 565–601. doi:10.1093/annhyg/44.8.565. PMID 11108782. At exposure levels seen in occupational cohorts it is concluded that the exposure specific risk of mesothelioma from the three principal commercial asbestos types is broadly in the ratio 1:100:500 for chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite respectively. For lung cancer the conclusions are less clear cut. ... The risk differential between chrysotile and the two amphibole fibres for lung cancer is thus between 1:10 and 1:50.
  22. Walker, Timothy (17 February 2002). "Booker's claims are irresponsible". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  23. "HSE Press Office: Putting the record straight". Health and Safety Executive. 15 December 2005. Archived from the original on 5 November 2008. Retrieved 18 November 2008.
  24. Booker, Christopher (11 December 2005). "Christopher Booker's notebook Fatal cracks appear in asbestos scam as HSE shifts its ground". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 10 May 2008. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  25. Booker, C (6 August 2006). "Christopher Booker's notebook". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 September 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  26. Christopher Booker (25 May 2008). "Farmers face £6bn bill for asbestos clean-up". The Telegraph US.
  27. Monbiot, George (23 September 2008). "The patron saint of charlatans is again spreading dangerous misinformation". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  28. Fox, Geoff (30 August 2005). "Asbestos expert lied about his qualifications". Yorkshire Evening Post. York. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  29. Christopher Booker (4 April 2010). "Climate Change Act has the biggest ever bill". The Sunday Telegraph. London. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  30. Monbiot, George (24 February 2012). "Environment: George Monbiot's Blog: Anything to declare, Mr Booker? We need transparency about Heartland". The Guardian. London.
  31. Booker 2009, p. 342
  32. ^ Philip Ball (15 November 2009). "The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker". The Observer. London. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
  33. Christopher Booker and Richard North "Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri", The Sunday Telegraph, 20 December 2009
  34. ^ Dr Pachauri – Apology, The Daily Telegraph, 21 August 2010
  35. ^ George Monbiot "Rajendra Pachauri innocent of financial misdealings but smears will continue", The Guardian, 26 August 2010
  36. Christopher Booker and Richard North "The curious case of the expanding environmental group with falling income", Sunday Telegraph, 17 January 2010
  37. "Daily Telegraph apologises to Pachauri", Hindustan Times, 21 August 2010
  38. Booker, Christopher (27 August 2011). "Judge Wall, the secrecy rules, and another stinging attack". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  39. Booker, Christopher (4 May 2013). "A mother sent to prison on evidence she cannot see". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  40. Another couple flee to France only to have their baby taken away Written by Christopher Booker, published by The Daily Telegraph on 9 November 2013, retrieved on 11 July 2019
  41. Davies, Gareth (3 July 2019). "Former Telegraph and Private Eye journalist Christopher Booker dies aged 81". The Telegraph – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  42. Bates, Stephen (4 July 2019). "Christopher Booker obituary". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
  43. "Christopher Booker obituary". 4 July 2019 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  44. "Last Word - Eva Kor, Christopher Booker, João Gilberto, John McCririck - BBC Sounds". www.bbc.co.uk.

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