Claire Fox

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Claire Regina Fox (born 5 June 1960,[1] Barton-upon-Irwell), also known as Claire Foster,[citation needed] is a British libertarian writer. She is the director and founder of the British think tank, the Institute of Ideas, and a prominent former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Early life

Fox was born into an Irish Catholic family in North Wales, the daughter of John Fox and Maura Cleary and the older sister of Fiona Fox and Gemma Fox.[2] After attending St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School, Flint,[citation needed] Claire Fox studied at the University of Warwick where she graduated with a lower second class degree (2:2) in English and American Literature.[citation needed] She gained a PCGE from Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich) on the A210 in Avery Hill, Eltham in 1992.[citation needed]

Career

Fox was a mental health social worker from 1981-7.[citation needed] From 1987-90 she was an English Language and Literature lecturer at Thurrock Technical College (now called Thurrock and Basildon College) and at West Herts College from 1992-9.[citation needed]

Revolutionary Communist Party

During her time at the university, Fox joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). For the next twenty 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). Fox stayed with her ex-RCP members when the group transformed itself in the late 1990s into a network around the web magazine Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, both based in the former RCP offices. The group now takes the position that the terms 'left-' and 'right-wing' no longer carry any meaning.

In the media

Fox is regularly invited to contribute to BBC Radio 4's programme The Moral Maze.[3] She has also appeared as a panellist on BBC One's political television show Question Time.[4]

Criticism

Fox has been widely criticised for her libertarian belief in the desirability of minimal governmental control and support of free speech in all contexts. In particular, she has been accused of "supporting Gary Glitter’s right to download child porn",[5][6][7] (a claim she denies[8]), without a source for the statement. She has also been criticised for rejecting multiculturalism as divisive,[5] questioning the negative publicity surrounding genetically modified crops[9] and denying that there are any natural limits to human activity on the planet with her suggestion that everyone could be as rich as a multi-millionaire.[10]

References

  1. ↑ guardian.co.uk.
  2. ↑ Sunday Times: Relative Values Claire and Fiona Fox, sisters (May 2006) - An interview with Claire and Fiona Fox
  3. ↑ "The Moral Maze – Claire Fox". BBC. Retrieved January, 2013. 
  4. ↑ "BBC ONE Question Time guests for 15 January 2004". BBC. Retrieved January 2013. "The panellists are: David Miliband MP, Minister for Schools; George Osborne MP, Shadow Treasury Minister; Baroness Williams, Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords; Dr David Starkey, Historian and Broadcaster; and Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas." 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Stuart Jeffries, "Infamy's child", Guardian
  6. ↑ The Andrew Billen Interview, Times
  7. ↑ Time Out list of London's movers and shakers (no.64)
  8. ↑ "Foxing Clever". The Richmond Magazine. 
  9. ↑ "The Alliance of Science", Guardian
  10. ↑ Turn up the Heat event, World Development Movement, 8 May 2008

External links

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