Matthew d'Ancona

He graduated in Modern History at Oxford, and after a year studying medieval confession, d’Ancona joined the magazine Index on Censorship, before proceeding to The Times as a trainee. There he rose swiftly to become education correspondent and then assistant editor at the age of 26. He joined The Sunday Telegraph in 1996 as deputy comment editor and columnist, before becoming deputy editor. In 2006-09 he was editor of The Spectator. He has also written several articles for the British political magazine Prospect. He is the co-author of two books on early Christian theology, The Jesus Papyrus and The Quest for the True Cross. He has written novels including Going East, Tabatha’s Code, Nothing to Fear and Identity, Ignorance and Innovation. In January 2015-19, d’Ancona was a weekly columnist at The Guardian and now writes columns for the Evening Standard, GQ and The New York Times. He is chairman of the liberal Conservative think tank, Bright Blue, a trustee of the Science Museum and a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. He is editor and partner at the subscription based ‘slow news’ digital magazine, Tortoise.