Minette Marrin



Profile:
Full name: Minette Marrin

Area of interest: Society, family, education, crime

Journals: The Sunday Times

Email: [mailto:minette.marrin@sunday-times.co.uk minette.marrin@sunday-times.co.uk]

Personal website: MinetteMarrin.com

Website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/minettemarrin

Blog:

Representation: [mailto:jonnyg@curtisbrown.co.uk jonnyg@curtisbrown.co.uk]

Networks:



Biography:
About: Minette Marrin is a journalist, broadcaster and fiction writer. Formerly a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, she is now a columnist for the Sunday Times. More here

Education:

Career: BBC TV traineeship; co-presented ‘Saturday Review’ arts programm (a forerunner of the Late Show); columnist with Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph; has written for the Spectator, the Guardian, the Far Eastern Economic Review, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Observer

Current position/role: Sunday Times' columnist


 * also writes/written for: First Post, Standpoint Magazine, Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Guardian, The Spectator, The Sunday Telegraph

Other roles: broadcaster and fiction writer

Other activities: Contributed to 'Women in Hospital Medicine, Career Choices and Opportunities', a report of a working party of the Federation of the Royal College of Physicians', 2000/01; Trustee of The Home Farm Trust, 1996/2005; Member of the Ethics Committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists, until 2006; Member of the Centre for Policy Studies Council

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Minette Marrin discusses her change of heart about the feminist movement Fifth column

TV/Radio: Regularly contributions to TV and radio

Video:

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours: Granta short story competition; Vogue Talent Competition; Shortlisted for Columnist of the Year - Press Awards, 2004

Scoops:

Other:



Books & Debate:

 * The Eye of the Beholder OCLC 18871349, 1989

Latest work:

Speaking/Appearances:

Current debate: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/people/m/minette-marrin 

The Sunday Times:
Column name:

Remit/Info: Society, family, education, crime

Section:

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:minette.marrin@sunday-times.co.uk minette.marrin@sunday-times.co.uk]

Website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/minettemarrin

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Sunday

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length:



Articles:

 * didn’t need a politician to mentor my Norland nanny'' - Across the country there are many people who quietly try to help people get on — yet they don’t need to be given a title - 28th August 2011
 * say you’ll flee higher taxes, Mr Filthy? We call your bluff'' - The mega-rich may have everyone else over a barrel for now, but perhaps it’s not long before they belong to the controllable classes - 21st August 2011
 * wallowing in Norway’s grief – it was not our tragedy'' - The obsession of the media and public with every detail of the Norwegian massacre is sickening, it's reminiscent of Dunblane - 31st July 2011
 * solved: ship the poor out of their costly homes and sell them'' - There is evidence to suggest that residents of social housing may do better without it — but selling it is a political impossibility - 24th July 2011
 * it, Clegg — you must choose between your kids and country'' - The Cleggs should stop complaining about their work-life balance and give up their huge ambitions for a while — or hire a nanny - 17th July 2011
 * useless don’t deserve jobs just for being British'' - There seems to be two Britains. One is full of hard-working young people, but then there is the other, the Britain of those who can’t - 3rd July 2011
 * Bully wants to snatch granny’s sip of sherry'' - No doubt there are geriatric problem drinkers — but that does not justify this puritanical mass bullying - 26th June 2011
 * eviction notice to the well-heeled Labour traitors'' - Frank Dobson’s council flat demands are yet another example of the greed of Labour politicians which is one of life’s many mysteries - 19th June 2011
 * your church from the lords’ house archbishop'' - Rowan Williams's attack on the government made it plain that the Church of England no longer belongs in Britain's political establishment - 12th June 2011
 * blame, carers are free to go on being cruel'' - This week's care home scandal has demonstrated that cruelty to the vulnerable and the elderly demands urgent redirection - 5th June 2011
 * flawed NHS is a self-inflicted wound'' - Reform of the NHS is politically nearly impossible because of the inflexible, deeply held beliefs about it that much of the public holds - 29th May 2011
 * gasp of the seigneurs'' - Both Ken Clarke and Dominique Straus-Kahn owe their current predicaments largely to the same thing — an indifference to women’s feelings - 22nd May 2011
 * betray the liberty of women'' - There is no universal human right to dress and behave like a sluttish streetwalker touting for sex, without occasionally being taken for one - 15th May 2011
 * family rules giving immigrants easy entry'' - It is understandable that a refugee fleeing from oppression and shock needs his close family, but the rules are too generous - 8th May 2011
 * Kate got a behaviour prenup?'' - It would be disastrous for the monarchy if Will and Kate's marriage were to end in divorce, which is why a prenup would have been a good idea - 1st May 2011
 * grey cuckoos’ life or death decision'' - Given the unbearable pain and loneliness many elderly people face, the taboo against suicide or assisted suicide seems incomprehensible - 17th April 2011
 * teachers can make education better'' - We may be about to see a new education spring of revolutionary reform from a strike by educators in Lancashire - 10th April 2011
 * love is binding enough'' - Some grandparents are wonderful, others are monstrous. It would be disastrous for all to have automatic rights of access to their grandchildren - 3rd April 2011
 * immoral pretence at an ordinary life for people like Josie'' - It is a high-minded and wrong-headed state of denial to refuse to acknowledge the serious problems caused by learning disabilities - 27th March 2011
 * is bare, save for those fantasists on the left'' - It is disgraceful and wrong for an opposition frontbencher to accuse the government of deliberately driving ethnic minorities out of London - 20th March 2011
 * angels of scrounging will claim us all'' - For too long, the better-off have been rather relaxed about scrounging, seeing it as the price of a civilised state - 13th March 2011
 * royals only — save us from Andrew'' - His antics are not good for the House of Windsor but, luckily for it and for us, there is little chance of his succeeding to the throne - 6th March 2011
 * minds will thwart mixed-race adoption'' - Michael Gove’s efforts to make it easier to adopt children from different ethnicities are justified, but do not address a range of issues - 27th February 2011
 * Cameron — the other lot want that big idea'' - The big society is a great idea, an expression of what has traditionally been best in the Conservative party and in the human spirit - 20th February 2011
 * pretend all poor students are up to university'' - The coalition should forget university access and concentrate all its energies instead on this country’s failing school system - 13th February 2011
 * easy fix for unmarried couples'' - There is already a simple way for heterosexuals to have the legal privileges and protection of marriage. That is to get married - 6th February 2011
 * save the World Service, we need dynamite'' - Both the BBC and the government are starting from the wrong place. The World Service does not need to be cut. It needs to be expanded - 30th January 2011
 * not a phobia — it’s rational to fear Islam'' - Baroness Warsi's inflammatory comments were unfair. Britain is strikingly tolerant towards Muslims, despite some understandable anxieties - 23rd January 2011
 * we have two kinds of elderly'' - As the elderly work for longer, two classes of old people will emerge — those that employers want and those that employers don’t - 16th January 2011
 * allowing white girls to become 'easy meat''' - The silence surrounding the sexual crimes of British Pakistani Muslims against hundreds of white teenage girls is reverse racism - 9th January 2011
 * the charity establishment and real giving will bloom again'' - It isn't enough to simply talk about cutting red tape, we must root out our country's pointless bureaucracy and burn it in the name of the big scociety - 2nd January 2011
 * can’t end without the notion of stigma'' - You cannot target the neediest in order to raise them out of poverty if you refuse to target anyone at all for fear of stigmatising them - 4th December 2010
 * does encourage 'breeding''' - Howard Flight may have phrased his opinions in an unfortunate manner, but his argument about 'breeding' had some validity - 28th November 2010
 * MPs are too timid to act on immigration'' - It does matter whether or not white Britons become a minority, and our current government must have the courage to address this problem - 21st November 2010
 * be – a benefits system that’s fair'' - It is unfair that people who struggle to work are often little better off, or even worse off, than people on benefits, who avoid work because it doesn’t pay - 14th November 2010
 * injustice that shelters in housing benefit'' - By what right should people entiled to housing benefit have better, more expensive accommodation than hard-working people? - 31st October 2010
 * comic novel crushes the puritans'' - We all bleed, but we all burp and take pratfalls too, stumblebum clown and countess alike. Comedy is an acceptance of all of life - 17th October 2010
 * truth about schools from a repentant leftie'' - Gove said we now have the best teachers we have ever had. What he bases this on, apart from political courtesy, I don’t know - 10th October 2010
 * thing we daren't say – racism is declining'' - Multiculturalism and positive discrimination have been divisive. They have promoted a culture of anxiety and resentment about race - 3rd October 2010
 * the antenatal class and shame gymslip mothers'' - Any inadequacy in antenatal care for pregnant schoolgirls should be made good by the existing agencies whose job it is - 26th September 2010
 * needs to fire bad teachers'' - People have been saying for years that special educational needs have been misused to excuse bad teaching and underachievement in schools - 19th September 2010
 * taming of the Mad Men'' - The guest list at the Saatchi's party this week demonstrated the extent to which ad men have become members of the establishment - 11th September 2010
 * has proved religion is revived'' - The furore caused by Stephen Hawking's new book has demonstrated that religious indifference may well be a thing of the past - 5th September 2010
 * must ban first-cousin marriage'' - Closely related first cousins face greater than normal risks of having babies with serious recessive genetic disorder - 29th August 2010
 * magic circle of networking must be broken'' - All public figures should declare all the parties they go to. They might become more careful of the company they keep - 8th August 2010
 * the lost boys of privilege'' - Today’s lost boys are practical enough to cook a bit but otherwise it seems pure luck that they can cope at all, given their general incompetence - 1st August 2010
 * vows are obsolete'' - I think prenups should be compulsory, as well as legally binding: everyone should have to make one of some kind, not necessarily about money - 25th July 2010
 * a graduate tax just plain dumb?'' - Vince Cable's idea for a graduate tax is yet another of the statist insanities which have brought many universities low - 18th July 2010
 * we are honest, billions have a case for asylum'' - And how many of these entirely deserving asylum seekers can we actually take in? - 11th July 2010
 * class, we'll throw away our lunchbox poison'' - The failure to combat the appalling spread of obesity starts at home, and emanates from a lack of aspiration amongst parents - 27th June 2010
 * Diane, you are Labour's Palin'' - Just because Diane Abbott is a woman and black, she has been forced by her own party into a position that is humiliating - 13th June 2010
 * pay can’t be defined'' - There is no such thing as a just price. That is what my O-level history teacher said years ago, shocking me - 6th June 2010
 * schools will mean better schools. Nothing unfair in that'' - What is truly unfair is stopping the creation of good new schools simply because a lot of children are still at bad old schools - 30th May 2010
 * rape suspects and justice becomes the victim'' -T he law should treat men and women equally dispassionately, or equally protectively - 23rd May 2010
 * comes the new austerity chic'' - Like the public services, most of us could be far more economical, as they used to say, and even feel better for it - 16th May 2010
 * Scotland loose to have a fair voting system'' - The election has convinced many that our electoral system needs reform: English and Scots can't vote together any more - 9th May 2010
 * tip for wanting it all is: don’t bother'' - Trying to excel on every front is impossible and is bound to drive almost any woman to distraction, if not to depression - 2nd May
 * now'' - – the army’s no place for you, Private Single-Mum - 18th April
 * has put a fatwa on our moral nerve'' - Religion has turned out to be different from what tolerant people of my monocultural childhood understood by it - 11th April 2010
 * is close to erasing minds'' - Individual recollections also contribute to folk memory, and there are things that cultures perhaps should not forget - 28th March 2010
 * can’t forgive the sins of your church'' - The church still gives the impression that its kiddie-fiddling priests are not half as Satanic as stuff like condoms and socialism - 21st March 2010
 * new university challenge is to unravel Labour’s mess'' - The Blair-Brown years have demonstrated that it is quite easy to bring down standards in universities - 21st March 2010
 * want an end to hectoring by feminists'' - Somewhere along the way feminism in this country has turned into something many women cannot identify with. I can’t - 14th March 2010
 * men, we need you to curb the welfare Amazons'' - What we need now in society is not feminisation, but a new masculinisation. Otherwise yet more men will become institutionally redundant - 7th March 2010
 * Brown is a dangerous weirdo'' - I am completely unpersuaded by Peter Mandelson’s oily account of the prime minister’s high-minded good nature - 28th February 2010
 * servants wallow at our expense'' - We have a centre-left establishment in the public service that gives every impression of being obsessed with inequality - 21st February 2010
 * betrays us all to deliver his Diana moment'' - Instead of pointing true north, Brown’s moral compass now seems to be jittering in the direction of ravening ambition - 14th February 2010
 * for the most imaginary friends'' - How cross some of my smartest acquaintances would be if it were suggested to them that they had only 150 Facebook friends - 7th February 2010
 * insidious triumph of the facelifting classes'' - It is bad enough getting old. What makes it worse is the constant pressure, these days, to deny it or disguise it - 31st January 2010
 * radicals - before they target us'' - Only by careful targeting of the few can we avoid indiscriminate, mass intrusion into the freedom and the privacy of the many - 10th January 2010
 * on the pills that make us smarter'' - Top scientists are popping pills to bolster their already bulging brains. Why not, if the drugs are safe and effective? - 3rd January 2010
 * Britain by doing nothing'' - One of this country’s most serious (and most expensive) problems is that there is too much that doesn’t matter going on - 27th December 2009
 * darling freeloaders may actually like us, you know'' - A student hovel or a broken sofa in a Brighton squat was far preferable to the most cosseting of suburban luxuries with mum and dad - 13th December 2009
 * the dangerous sport that will hurt you too'' - Is there something about being rich, highly educated and well travelled that makes toffs unfit for office? - 6th December 2009
 * may be bad but our regulators are worse'' - NHS policies bring to mind an interfering child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - 29th November 2009
 * most people with a learning disability should not have children'' - It is hard enough to be an adequate parent with supposedly normal intelligence. For someone of very low intelligence it is even harder - 22nd November 2009
 * degree a silly initiative'' - Tony Blair once declared that we are all middle class now; today he could almost as well say we are all professional - 15th November 2009
 * have lost their real purpose'' - Generally, we need fewer MPs, much less of their time and a great deal less of the expense of them. That is a cheering thought - 8th November 2009
 * multicultural Britain'' - To frame a radical social policy, just to embarrass and marginalise the opposition party, is grotesquely immature and irresponsible - 1st November 2009
 * mob were the BNP's best recruiters'' - To abandon reason and to adopt emotion in attacking Nick Griffin is entirely counterproductive, as we can already see - 25th October 2009
 * children start school, teaching will be dire'' - The system has been brought low by poorly qualified, trained and motivated teachers, supported by their unions - 18th October 2009
 * Obama should never have accepted this tainted prize'' - It is both foolish and wrong of the President to accept the Nobel peace prize for something he has obviously not achieved - 11th October 2009
 * throw halos around Polanski'' - I wonder what Roman Polanski's showbiz friends would think if he penetrated their daughters. Actually, I don’t wonder. They'd go insane - 4th October 2009
 * lady Carol is a victim of Labour’s weasel mindset'' - If such a thing happened to my child, I would be tempted to tie up the headmistress and vicar and whip them senseless - 27th September 2009
 * tolerance has gone too far'' - The truth is that many religions have certain beliefs that are not merely irrational but sometimes dangerous and unacceptable - 20th September 2009
 * are all child abusers now'' - We are no longer innocent until proved guilty but guilty until certified innocent by the state - 13th September 2009
 * adoption will stop this evil'' - Perhaps it might really be best if babies who are at risk from disasterous mothers were compulsorily taken away at birth and adopted - 6th September 2009
 * nurses protected by silence'' - This bad and cruel nursing is completely unacceptable. Is there no one bold enough to do something? - 31st August 2009
 * nurses protected by silence'' - This bad and cruel nursing is completely unacceptable. Is there no one bold enough to do something? - 30th August 2009
 * pupils on all fronts'' - The Gordon Brown Academy is well meaning, industrious, although often arrogant and resistant to evidence. Unlikely to improve - 23rd August 2009
 * encounters have put me right off my bike'' - Bicycling seems to be suitable only for the reckless, nerveless unwashed and it’s a public menace too - 16th August 2009
 * aren’t equal to men'' - It is Harriet Harman’s misfortune that she is the sort of woman who gives feminism a bad name - 9th August 2009
 * not pushy parents we need, it’s pushy schools'' - What will save our schools is a recognition that the world is a painfully competitive place - 26th July 2009
 * can guard our freedoms'' - When eating in the street was strongly condemned, there was far less obesity, drunkenness and litter - 19th July 2009
 * hymn to him'' - Are men really necessary? If they are no longer needed for producing sperm, perhaps they are no longer needed at all - 12th July 2009
 * or career: young women cannot have it both ways'' - However much one wants children, for an ambitious woman there is never a good time to have a baby - 21st June 2009
 * tax on junk food will offset NHS cuts'' - I think what’s needed now is a quick fix or two – something simple and fast-working - 14th June 2009
 * greatest disgrace'' - Students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez died in agony because the system that should have protected them has collapsed - 7th June 2009
 * privacy and no power – there’s no way I’d be an MP'' - We are about to see the deliberate abandonment of privacy in a tragic overreaction to the current scandal - 31st May 2009
 * TV channel and three radio stations, that’s all the BBC needs'' - The BBC should do what commercial producers don’t do, can’t do, can’t do equally well or won’t do properly - at the moment it is doing too much - 24th May 2009
 * today’s left speaks it is right-wing bigotry we hear'' - Like poverty, it is always with us. It is just not often in this country that you see bigots bare their vicious teeth - 17th May 2009
 * to bulldoze this equality maze'' - Surely it would be better to rely on the earlier legislation, pre-Macpherson, and on the goodwill of public servants - 10th May 2009
 * friends like Harman, women don’t need enemies'' - What we need is MPs and cabinet ministers of the highest possible quality, regardless of sex or race - 3rd May 2009
 * the grip of this sneering world'' - Susan Boyle’s experience has all the symbolic power of a fairy story - 19th April 2009
 * Public opinion gets burnt to a crisp by the Chelsea Toaster - The proposal for Chelsea Barracks is a perfect symbol of the contempt in which the Establishment holds us - 12th April 2009 (see also: The Big Question: Why is Prince Charles angry about a development at Chelsea Barracks?)
 * the one bad bet a City tycoon is unable to shrug off'' - Brian Myerson has just failed to renegotiate his divorce settlement with his ex-wife - 5th April 2009
 * the fate of your marriage'' - The whole of marriage seems to me to be institutionally unstable: men and women change - 29th March 2009
 * buy into beauty even as the state wields its ugly stick'' - British postwar housing and inner cities, down to the bullying street furniture, are an international disgrace - 22nd March 2009
 * because mum is a writer'' - For a woman to cast out her adolescent son, and then to write a novel about it, is astonishing - 8th March 2009
 * the filthy rich culture packing'' - Fred the Shred is not ashamed to demand huge sums of money from taxpayers on modest incomes - 1st March 2009
 * children can’t read, lives are ruined'' -If the word "institutionally" means anything, this country’s education system is institutionally unfit for purpose - 22nd February 2009
 * bares its appeaser’s teeth to unbending Muslims'' - Geert Wilders’s visit was a disastrously missed opportunity. Keeping him out will anger many of the silent majority - 15th February 2009
 * out, quangocrats – our patience is running out'' - If Britain throws billions at the public sector, with little result, then what would you expect? - 1st February 2009
 * best hope is that Barack Obama can resist the rabble-rousers'' - Mythologising, gabby ignorance and emotional incontinence. The president has been subjected to this in unprecedented volume - 25th January 2009
 * Charles leaves a Sooty stain'' - It is wrong to call a man Sooty, when that does or might refer to the colour of his skin - 18th January 2009
 * Rachida Dati went wrong'' - Pictures of France’s justice minister striding back to work only five days whipped up an astonishing flurry of reaction - 11th January 2009
 * hellish mindset of Cuba-enthusiasts'' - It is a rule of thumb that anyone given to praising Cuba under Castro is a person of poor judgment - 4th January 2009
 * and the odd literary law of geniuses with crazy politics'' - It struck me as a child that people with a way with words often sounded much cleverer than they actually were - 28th December 2008
 * we've more sense than money'' - The recession has reversed the phrase "cash-rich, time-poor" - a phrase that sums up the skewed priorities of our period of wealth - 21st December 2008
 * all around from the guardians of democracy'' - The apparatchiks of the European Union have one thing in common with serial rapists. They cannot accept that no means no - 14th December 2008
 * of a Down’s child must make painful choices'' - 30th November 2008
 * Smith wants a backdoor ban'' - Could any punter find out for sure that the prostitute of his choice is with him by her choice as well? - 23rd November 2008
 * in death our organs are not for the PM to snatch'' - 16th November 2008
 * birth control on unfit mothers'' - The cost of bad parents to an individual is terrible, but it is also very high to the rest of society - 9th November 2008
 * chance to return to what it’s good at'' - It would be a great national loss if the Ross-Brand scandal were used as an excuse to destroy Auntie by all those who would love to see her brought down - 2nd November 2008
 * given a dirty name'' - That is what Britons do. They belch, vomit, copulate and barge their way through public spaces - 19th October 2008
 * black police association - that's racism in action'' - Public disloyalty like this is unacceptable to any organisation; it is profoundly damaging - 12th October 2008
 * is our prize but teachers are tossing it away'' - Any self-respecting country would insist that all children learnt to speak the country’s language before anything else - 5th October 2008
 * child murderers may deserve pity'' - People who don’t have a disabled child may not understand how difficult and overwhelming it can be - 28th September 2008
 * mistakes of school sex education'' - The increase in sex education here in recent years has coincided with an explosion of unwanted pregnancies and STDs - 21st September 2008
 * ways to cut immigration'' - A vast army of state sector employees should be redeployed as social care workers - 14th September 2008
 * choice leaves McCain in shreds'' - In choosing a woman he doesn’t know or understand John McCain reveals a dishonourable lust for office - 7th September 2008
 * the fat alone – bullying won’t curb obesity'' - What prevents obesity is a good income, a good education and good opportunities. Prosperity, in short - 31st August 2008
 * mad, bad or just dangerous to know?'' - Few deny Gary Glitter should be on the sex offenders list but he's suffering media martyrdom - 24th August 2008
 * not religious, but there’s something about funerals'' - Funerals are a traditional rite of passage and even non-believers find that religion can rarely be removed from them - 17th August 2008
 * beat extremism we must dissolve religious groups'' - Separatist Muslim belief is growing among the young and the moderate, tolerant majority must be alarmed by this - 27th July 2008
 * us, minister, from your dreadful incompetence'' - The Sats fiasco is just one of many eye-stretching recent examples of government incompetence - 20th July 2008
 * is creating youths who have nothing to lose'' - For a young, vital, angry man an Asbo often seems better than Asda - 13th July 2008
 * sharia, yes, but never respect it'' - I feel that this constant demand for respect makes a great many people privately very resentful - 6th July 2008

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Links:

 * Extensive archive of articles at minettemarrin.com