Claire Fox

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Claire Fox (born 1960), also known as Claire Foster, is the director and founder of the British think tank, the Institute of Ideas, and a prominent former member of the Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist Party.

1 Early life and education
2 RCP abandons Marxism
3 Moral Maze
4 Criticism
5 External links

[edit] Early life and education

Claire was born in to an Irish Catholic family in North Wales, the older sister of Fiona Fox. After attending St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School, Flint she went to study at the University of Warwick leaving with a lower second class degree (2:2) in literature. During this period Fox joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). For the next 20 years she became one of the RCP's core activists and organisers, becoming co-publisher of its Magazine 'Living Marxism' (later abbreviated simply to LM magazine). LM and the RCP took iconoclastic and contrarian positions, using apparently Marxist language to support traditionally right wing positions.

[edit] RCP abandons Marxism

Fox stayed with her RCP co-thinkers when that group abandoned its Marxism and transformed itself in the late 1990's into a network around the web magazine Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, both based in the former RCP offices. While abandoning its former ideological clothes this ex-RCP network has remained united, sharing the ideas of the RCP's ex-leader Frank Furedi (a sociologist at the University of Kent) and has also kept its trademark combative contrarianism.

[edit] Moral Maze

Fox rose to prominence when she appeared as a witness on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze and argued for the right of a reggae singer called Beenie Man to present music seen as inciting the murder of gay men. This controversial style lead to her invitation to become a regular panellist on the show.

As well as her regular Moral Maze slot she has also appeared as a panellist on BBC One's Question Time. She also writes a monthly column in the Municipal Journal.

[edit] Criticism

Fox has been criticised in the UK for some of her controversial views that include supporting Gary Glitter’s right to download child porn, backing Genetically modified crops and criticizing multiculturalism. She is also known for her highly critical views of anti-social behaviour orders, social exclusion and other aspects of education and social issues in the United Kingdom.

Fox is often criticized for her links to big business and some American pro gun associations.