Andrew Roberts

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Andrew Roberts (born 1963) is a British historian and journalist. He took a first class honours degree in Modern History at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he is an honorary senior scholar. [1]

MI6

While at Cambridge, Roberts was approached to join the 'FCO Co-ordinating Staff', a euphemism for [MI6]. He went through the selection process, but decided not to join. [2]

Monckton connection

In an 'author's note' to his 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.[3]

'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.[4]

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.'[5]

Redwood advisor

It is reported that 'in the 1995 Conservative Party leadership election, Roberts ... was a close aide and spokesman for John Redwood.'[6]

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.[7]

Affiliations

Contact

Resources

Notes

  1. Andrew Roberts - Curriculum Vitae, accessed 30 December 2007
  2. MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, by Stephen Dorril, Touchstone, 2002, p.783.
  3. Christopher Monckton, The Aids Report: An examination of public health policy on AIDS, London: Policy Search, 14 Tufton Street, Westminster, SW1, May 1987.
  4. Henry Porter CHURCHILL'S CHILDREN; Out with Major, Europe, the Welfare State and political correctness - waiting in the wings are the 21st-century Tories whose gameplan for the future has little truck with the present. Henry Porter talks to The Group The Guardian (London) February 22, 1995 SECTION: THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. T2
  5. Mail on Sunday (London)February 5, 1995, Top-level conspirator who'll never be found HISTORIAN: Roberts DIRECTOR: McHallam CONSERVATIVE: Pearce; HOW ULSTER LEAK PLOTTERS BEAT SECURITY TO PROTECT SECRET SOURCE OF LEAK, BYLINE: Adrian Lithgow, SECTION: Pg. 6
  6. Jonathan Rutherford 'Enoch Powell's Island Story', in Forever England: Reflections on Race, Masculinity and Empire London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2008, p. 138
  7. Jonathan Rutherford 'Enoch Powell's Island Story', in Forever England: Reflections on Race, Masculinity and Empire London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2008, p. 138