Ferdinand Mount

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Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet (born 2 July 1939), known simply as Ferdinand Mount, is a British writer and novelist, columnist for The Sunday Times and commentator on politics, and Conservative Party politician. He was head of the policy unit in 10 Downing Street in 1982-83, during the time when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, and wrote the 1983 Tory general election manifesto. He is regarded as being on the One Nation or 'wet' wing of the party.

He attended Greenways Prep School in [Wiltshire], and was later educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford.

He succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baronet in 1993, but does not use the title. He is a cousin of the Conservative Party leader David Cameron, whose maternal grandfather was Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet, the uncle whom he succeeded in the Baronetcy.

He was editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1991, for 11 years.

He has written novels, including a six-volume novel sequence Chronicle of Modern Twilight centred on a low-key character Gus Cotton; the title alludes to the sequence A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight by Henry Williamson, and another sequence entitled Tales of History and Imagination.

He lives in Islington. His son Harry Mount is also a journalist and his cousin Mary Cameron is mother of David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party.

[edit] Works

• Very Like a Whale (1967), novel
• The Theatre of Politics (1972), novel
• The Man Who Rode Ampersand (1975), novel, (Chronicle of Modern Twilight - 1)
• The Clique (1978), novel
• The Subversive Family: An Alternative History of Love and Marriage (1982)
• The Practice of Liberty (1986), novel
• The Selkirk Strip (1987), novel, (Chronicle of Modern Twilight - 2)
• Of Love and Asthma (1991), novel, (Chronicle of Modern Twilight - 3), Winner of the Hawthornden Prize 1992
• Communism (1992), editor
• The British Constitution Now: Recovery or Decline? (1992)
• The Recovery of the Constitution (Sovereignty Lectures) (1992)
• Umbrella: A Pacific Tale (1994), novel, (Tales of History and Imagination - 1)
• The Liquidator (1995), novel, (Chronicle of Modern Twilight - 4)
• Jem (and Sam): A Revenger's Tale (1999), novel, (Tales of History and Imagination - 2)
• Fairness (2001), novel, (Chronicle of Modern Twilight - 5)
• Mind the Gap: Class in Britain Now (2004)
• Heads You Win (2004), novel, (Chronicle of Modern Twilight - 6)
• Private Life 21st Century (2006)
• The Condor's Head (2007), novel

Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William Mount	Baronet (of Wasing) 1993—	Succeeded by Current Incumbent