T. E. Utley

Thomas Edwin 'Peter' Utley CBE (1 February 1921–21 June 1988) was an English High Tory journalist.

Utley, blind since his childhood, went to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he achieved a double first in History. During the Second World War, he was a Times leader writer and then worked for the Observer and the Sunday Times. In the early 1950s, Utley was Assistant Editor of The Spectator and then for twenty years, he was a leader writer for The Daily Telegraph, then columnist and Chief Assistant Editor. In 1987, Utley moved to The Times, as Obituary Editor and a columnist.

In the general election of February 1974, Utley stood as the Ulster Unionist candidate for North Antrim against Ian Paisley, but lost, getting 21.01% of the vote. ^[1]

Margaret Thatcher called him 'the most distinguished Tory thinker of our time'.^[2] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1980.

His son, Tom, is a columnist for The Daily Mail.

References

Essays in Conservatism (1949).
Modern Political Thought (1952).
The Conservatives and the Critics (1956).
Documents of Modern Political Thought (Joint editor, 1957).
Not Guilty (1957).
Edmund Burke (1957).
Occasion for Ombudsmen (1963).
Your Money and Your Life (1964).
Enoch Powell: The Man and his Thinking (1968).
What Laws May Cure (1968).
Lessons of Ulster (first edition: 1975, second edition: 1997).
Charles Moore and Simon Heffer (editors), A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of T. E. Utley (1989).