Biography

October 17, 1963 · Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Toby Daniel Moorsom Young

Son of Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington, who invented the term "meritocracy.".

Journalist, critic and author.

Describes himself as a classical liberal.

Dated Natascha McElhone for three months.

There's only one thing worse than being talked about and that's being Toby Young.

I've managed to fashion gold out of base metal. I've somehow taken a string of really humiliating failures and turned them to my own advantage through some peculiar sleight of hand.

[on the 2010 Labour leadership election] When I left university I did flirt with the idea of joining the Labour Party but ruled it out on the grounds that someone like me could never get to the top. I'm not black, I'm not gay, I'm a white, middle class, heterosexual male. I even did Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. What chance would I have in a modern, vibrant party like the Labour Party, committed to diversity and reflecting the rainbow-like quality of contemporary Britain? Yet lo, of the five candidates, they all went to Oxford or Cambridge, four of them went to Oxford, those four are indeed white, middle class, heterosexual males in their mid-forties. Three of them even studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. I mean, if it wasn't for the fact that my first name isn't Ed and my second name isn't Milliband, I might actually have a chance.

[after David Cameron called Dennis Skinner a dinosaur in the House of Commons] If anyone's guilty of "ageism", it's the Labour MPs who, in order to make Cameron (David Cameron) appear Flashman-esque, are depicting Dennis Skinner as a vulnerable old man. In fact, Skinner is one of the toughest and most able Parliamentarians in the House of Commons - hence his nickname "the Beast of Bolsover". He is also a past master at insulting people during PMQs. For years, he would scream out "Paddy Pantsdown" whenever Paddy Ashdown rose to speak and, in 2005, he received a one-day ban for making a cocaine jibe at the expense of George Osborne. Trying to portray Skinner as a victim of a born-to-rule Old Etonian is a bit like trying to portray Dennis the Menace as the victim of Walter the Softy.