Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts (born 1963) is a British historian and journalist.

Early life

The Telegraph describes Roberts' background as follows:

Roberts was born in 1963, the eldest son of a prosperous Surrey businessman, who inherited the Job's Dairy milk business. This he sold to Unilever in 1987, at the very top of the market. But, to the continuing glee of those who wish to mock Roberts, the other source of the family's fortune was a number of franchises for Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.

Roberts was educated at Cranleigh School and at a Cambridge crammer.

Cambridge

Roberts took a first class honours degree in Modern History at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he is an honorary senior scholar. During his time as an undergraduate, Roberts chaired the Cambridge University Conservative Association and led demonstrations against the miners' strike.

Robert Fleming

Following his graduation in 1985, Roberts joined the merchant bankers Robert Fleming. He told the Telegraph that his time there was not a success:

"I was functionally innumerate. After two-and-three-quarter years there, I still couldn't read a balance sheet. All my investments were rubbish. The only time I ever made any money, it was by insider dealing."

MI6 Approach

Roberts was approached in 1987 by a Cambridge contact to join the 'FCO Co-ordinating Staff', a euphemism for MI6. He went through the selection process, but decided not to join.

On the same day he was accepted by MI6, he was offered a £3,000 advance by Weidenfeld & Nicolson to write a biography of Lord Halifax. It was this opportunity which he decided to take up.

Monckton connection

In an 'author's note' to his May 1987 AIDS Report Christopher Monckton thanked 'those who have read the manuscript and have made constructive comments' including Andrew Roberts, of Robert Fleming Securities Ltd.

Journalistic career

After leaving Robert Fleming, Roberts became a leader writer at The Sunday Telegraph, also contributing leaders and articles to The Spectator. Between 1991 and 1994, he was a political commentator for the Daily Mail and a book reviewer for the Spectator and Sunday Telegraph. From 1996 to 1999, he wrote a political column for the Sunday Times.

'Unionist study group' - Friends of the Union

Roberts has been linked to a group of right-wing unionists:

The things that don't matter to Roberts include everything from CrossRail to the conditions of the underclass. D'Ancona is a different creature, surprising for his liberal stance on many issues. He talks passionately about community, the need for improvement in state education and even about the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. But his liberalism does not extend to Northern Ireland. Two weeks ago he was revealed as being associated with a group called the Friends of the Union. Through one of the group's members, David Burnside, a hard-line Unionist who is well connected in Whitehall, he obtained a document that, after publication in the Times, nearly blew up the peace process in Northern Ireland. He was roundly criticised by the press and by Number 10 for irresponsibility.

According to the Mail on Sunday the group was responsible for the leaking of a draft Framework Document in the early stages of the Irish peace process.

Last night it was becoming clear that a caucus of fervent Loyalists under the umbrella of a Unionist study group is closely associated with the leaker. It is made up of PR man David Burnside, D'Ancona himself; Dean Godson, a Daily Telegraph staff reporter; Paul Goodman, Northern Ireland correspondent on the Sunday Telegraph; Noel Malcolm, a historian and Daily Telegraph political columnist; Andrew McHallam, executive director of the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies; Charles Moore, editor of the Sunday Telegraph; Simon Pearce, a Conservative election candidate; company director Justin Shaw and historian Andrew Roberts. One of the group said last night: 'We didn't want the position when the framework document was published of being out in the cold as we were over the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. There was a coming together of minds over what should be done.'

Springbok Club

In November 2001, Roberts was guest of honour at a Springbok Club dinner to mark the anniversary of Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence. The Club's website gave the following account of the event:

The Springbok Club held a most successful dinner to mark UDI Day in November 2001, when we were most honoured to welcome Mr. Andrew Roberts, the acclaimed historian and author, as our guest of honour. Mr. Roberts gave an inspiring after-dinner speech in which he outlined the history of 19th century British colonial expansionism and the foundation of Rhodesia, detailing the events which made UDI inevitable in 1965, and bringing the story up to date by reminding everyone of the disasters of modern-day Zimbabwe. He finished his speech by proposing a toast to the Springbok Club, which he said he considered the heir to previous imperial achievements.

Roberts' attendance was strongly criticised by journalist Johann Hari:

When I first pointed out this connection, Roberts said he gave a "historical speech", hadn't realised the Springbok Club was a racist organisation, and didn't recall anyone saying anything racist. Wasn't the apartheid flag, and the fact they were there specifically to celebrate the anniversary of a white supremacist declaration, a hint?

Redwood advisor

It is reported that 'in the 1995 Conservative Party leadership election, Roberts ... was a close aide and spokesman for John Redwood.'

Writings and views

Jonathan Rutherford identifies Roberts as a successor to Enoch Powell's views on empire and the British geopolitical role:

In recent years a number of right-wing historians have adopted a Powellite, nationalist interpretation of postwar British geopolitics. Two in particular herald an attempt to assert a right-wing hegemony over the history of post war Britain: John Charmley in Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940-57, 1995, and Andrew Roberts in Eminent Churchillians, 1994. This right wing intellectual offensive parallels the fortunes of the Tory right.

Affiliations

• Atlantic Partnership
• Henry Jackson Society Project for Democratic Geopolitics
• Centre for Policy Studies
• Centre for Social Cohesion

Connections

• Susan Gilchrist - Second wife

Contact

• Website http://www.andrew-roberts.net

Publications

Books

• The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax, Wiedenfeld & Nicolson , 1991.
• Eminent Churchillians, Simon & Schuster, 1995.
• The Aachen Memorandum, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.
• The Authorised Life of Robert, Third Marquis of Salisbury, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999.
• Napoleon & Wellington, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002.
• Hitler & Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.
• A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.
• Masters and Commanders: How Churchill, Roosevelt, Alanbrooke and Marshall won the War in the West, Penguin, 2008.
• Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Penguin, 2009.

Selected articles

• History will show that George W Bush was right, Daily Telegraph, 14 January 2009.
• The charities are guilty, not the BBC, The Times, 26 January 2009.
• The obscenity of giving Ted Kennedy a knighthood, Daily Mail, 5 January 2009.

Resources

• andrew-roberts.net, Official website
• Wikipedia Andrew Roberts
• James O’Fee Friends of the Union, Impala Publishers Blog Page, 8 July 2006, accessed 28 April 2009.
• Right-wing group at centre of leak row, by Leonard Doyle/Steve Boggan, The Independent, 3 February 1995.