Beatrix Campbell



Profile:


Full name: Beatrix Campbell

Area of interest: Politics, class and gender

Journals: The Guardian

Email: contact page (BeatrixCampbell.co)

Website: Guardian.co / Beatrix Campbell | Beatrix Campbell.co.uk

Blog: Comment is free...

Agent:

Networks:



Biography:
Education:

Career: biography (BeatrixCampbell.co)
 * Academich honours: Honorary Doctor of Letters, Salford University; Honorary Doctor of Letters, Oxford Brookes University; Honorary Doctor of Letters, Open University; Simon Fellowship, Manchester University

Current position/role: columnist


 * also writes/has written for: The Independent; Marxism Today

Other roles:

Other activities: writer and documentary maker

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:

TV/Radio:
 * Regular contributor to Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s nightly flagship arts & current affairs programme Late Night Live (listing). Her spoken essays on current issues in Britain followed by discussion with the host Phillip Adams generated many fans in Australia

Controversy/Criticism:
 * Seen But Not Heard (The Rochdale and Nottingham Satanic ritual abuse controversy), Marxism Today, November 1990
 * Paul Lewis: "Satanic abuse" case families sue council for negligence, The Guardian, 12th January, 2006

see also:
 * Jeremy Laurance's reporting of an "SRA" case
 * List of UK satanic ritual abuse allegations (Wikipedia)

Awards/Honours:
 * Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize, 1984, for Wigan Pier revisited
 * Fawcett Society Prize: The Iron Ladies
 * 300 Group: Campaigning Journalist of the Year
 * Listen to the Children, Dispatches documentary, Independent Television Producers First Time Producers award

Scoops:

Other: Formerly married to journalist and folk musician Bobby Campbell; later a partner to Judith Jones (former leader of Nottingham Social Services Team Four)



Books & Debate:

 * Wigan Pier revisited : poverty and politics in the eighties OCLC009955905, 1984
 * The iron ladies : why do women vote Tory? OCLC59812182, 1987
 * Sweet freedom : the struggle for women's liberation OCLC14905958, with Anna Coote, 1987
 * Unofficial secrets : child sexual abuse, the Cleveland case OCLC021117629, 1988
 * Diana, Princess of Wales : how sexual politics shook the monarchy OCLC039505382, 1988
 * After Thatcher : a class of her own OCLC40235864, with Judith Jones, 1991
 * Boys will be boys OCLC222697014, 1993
 * Goliath : Britain's dangerous places OCLC028719624, an analysis of urban crime and violence, 1993
 * Stolen voices: the people and politics behind the campaign to discredit childhood testimony OCLC41581610, 1999 (withdrawn - no longer available)

Latest work: Agreement: The state, conflict and change in Northern Ireland OCLC226978910, on the Good Friday Agreement, pulished May 2008 (Lawrence & Wishart Ltd)

Speaking/Appearances: see - News (BeatrixCampbell.co)

Current debate: Who owns the progressive future? organised by Soundings journal and Comment is Free, 1st December 2008 

The Guardian:

 * no regular column: Comment is free... blog

Column remit: society and values; gender issues; sexuality

Section:

Role:

Pen-name:

Email:

Website: Guardian.co / Beatrix Campbell

Commissioning editor:

Day published:

Regularity:

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2010

 * to kick out sexism'' - Football has dealt with racism on the terraces, but still ignores sexism among the players - 6th September
 * blame the baby boomers'' - David Willetts takes the over-50s to task over our current woes, but they are not the culprit – Thatcherism is - 22nd February
 * killing into context'' - Premeditated murder heightens our sense of moral revulsion. But surely Francis Inglis deserves pity, and a fairer judgment - 23rd January



Articles: 2009

 * Julie Bindel'' - Transgender activists who seek to ban her from speaking are wrong – we need to hear Julie Bindel on gender politics - 1st February
 * persecution of NHS whistleblowers'' - The government says it supports whistleblowing, yet excuses are still being made when they are sacked and humiliated - 11th December
 * restart the clock on Gary McKinnon'' - Enough is enough: the hacker's medical diagnosis means extradition would be disastrous. Alan Johnson must act now - 14th November
 * Tories don't do progressive'' - Red Toryism can't hack it because it promotes civil society at the expense of the state, it's not green and it rejects feminism - 29th September
 * Lee Dugard and the kidnapper's narrative'' - Perpetrators of kidnapping and sexual crime tell themselves a story – and detection depends on community intelligence - 28th August
 * we can hope to halt the tragedies of the future'' - Naming Baby P’s killers helps us understand what produced them - 12th August (writing in The Independent)
 * it should happen to an author'' - Philip Pullman and fellow writers are up in arms about a new child protection scheme for school visitors. What's their problem? - 17th July
 * 'sorry' isn't enough'' - David Cameron's apology over section 28 is inadequate – on gay rights, his party has been cynical and craven - 3rd July
 * I accepted my OBE'' - Being conferred a Queen's honour means my country needs me – a republican with politics rooted in Marxism and feminism - 17th June
 * indecent court case'' - A chief constable is facing jail for refusing to return confiscated disks thought to contain child abuse images - 30th May
 * too need a truth commission on child abuse'' - While Ireland has faced up to the scale of society's mistreatment of children, Britain is stuck in denial and blame - 23rd May
 * for a fairer, greener deal'' - The march against the G20 has inspired an extraordinary coalition of groups – and hope for a new kind of globalisation - 28th March
 * with a forked tongue'' - The equality commission doesn't deserve to exist if it won't champion women's equality over corporations and capital - 17th March
 * not pickets, united miners'' - Scargill's moral high ground was squandered by his low level politics – picketing was a pessimistic view of solidarity - 15th March
 * for the truth about Pat Finucane'' - Britain is still dissembling over its collusion in the murder of a lawyer in Northern Ireland 20 years ago - 17th February
 * Northern Ireland needs truth, not money - Instead of compensation, victims of the Troubles need Britain to admit the extent of its complicity in the violence - 28th January
 * Black and white reversed out - A new Runnymede study shockingly exposes how society has 'racialised' the working class as a dangerous white other - 22nd January



Articles: 2008

 * The shame we will not name - Thousands of children like Shannon Matthews are neglected and abused in the UK, and still we shy away from early intervention - 6th December 2008
 * Sexism and the city - Licensing lap dancing clubs legitimises the threat of violence against women - 4th December 2008
 * Right thinking? - The future isn't necessarily blue – the crisis of capitalism suggests we might not be heading in a Conservative direction after all - 2nd October 2008
 * A slow-sinking mutiny - The Brown plotters could be surfing the economic tsunami and pushing a progressive social agenda. They may rue their timidity - 19th September 2008
 * Banged Up by Blunkett - As home secretary, David Blunkett was tough on crime. Is his new reality series an admission that he may have got it wrong? - 9th July 2008
 * Rottweler in a twin set - Mary Whitehouse wasn't some prim housewife - like Margaret Thatcher, she was a ruthless political operator who found it a useful disguise - 29th May 2008
 * Back to the future? - Experiments in a new kind of social democracy were cut short by the rise of New Labour. Now that movement has failed, we should revisit them - 24th May 2008
 * Royally let down - So we know the causes of Diana's death, but one question remains: why is 21st century Britain even a monarchy? - 8th April 2008
 * Fiction in the archives - The new breed of self-congratulatory New Labour diaries are too insular and over-censored to be enjoyable. Jonathan Powell's elitist history is no different - 1st April 2008
 * Who do we blame?Compare and contrast the stories of Shannon Matthews and Madeleine McCann - and what we see is a narrative of nasty class prejudice - 14th March 2008
 * Are we surprised? - New research shows that social exclusion is the raison d'etre of grammar schools and faith schools: they accelerate elitism and stall secularism - 2nd February 2008
 * This exposes Britain not as peacemaker, but perpetrator - Now it's official: the state sponsored death squads for years in Northern Ireland and this collusion prolonged the war - 23rd January 2008
 * Source of inspiration - Simone et moi: De Beauvoir was a celebrity, not because of her love life but because she belonged to an intelligentsia which no longer exists - 8th January 2008



Articles: 2007

 * The non-entity party - Labour has little stomach for parliamentary reform and no wonder: it was the party of patronage. Now it has nothing - 31st December 2007
 * Fighting talk on the Haze - The Moral Maze is never a nice gig, but the abuse directed at me after my last appearance provoked an unusually 'robust' response - 7th December 2007
 * Culture victims - In exploiting the rape crisis for political capital, Cameron has ignored a wealth of new research - 13th November 2007
 * A bum rap - The man who pinched the Channel 4 reporter's bottom reveals the creepy double standards of our society's 'respect' for women - 2nd August 2007
 * Snatching defeat - Disadvantaged children may lag behind before they start school but, contrary to Tony Blair's opinion, Sure Start hasn't been a complete failure - 11th June 2007
 * Noblesse disobliges - The malicious snobbery of court gossip about Kate having been too 'common' for William shows we are still a nation destructively obsessed with class - 16th April 2007
 * It's a guy thing - The rise of knife and gun culture isn't about black communities. It is about boys - 13th April 2007
 * The unbearable heaviness of knowing - David Southall's predicament reveals that - 20 years after the Cleveland cases - we still cannot accept the realities of child abuse - 21st February 2007
 * This exposes Britain not as peacemaker, but perpetrator - Now it's official: the state sponsored death squads for years in Northern Ireland and this collusion prolonged the war - 23rd January 2007



Articles: 2006 / 1995

 * Uneven Stevens - The Diana inquiry has focused - futilely - on killing the conspiracy theories, but has glossed over the ugly truth of what killed the princess - 14th December 2006
 * Learning from lesbians - Parenting is a question of rights and responsibilities, not gender or biology - 10th April 2006
 * Embarrassment of riches - It was like winning the lottery. But when women health workers won a colossal £300m equal pay claim last year, few cared to share in their celebrations. Why, asks Beatrix Campbell - 18th February 2006
 * For real equality, we must look to Northern Ireland - Sex discrimination was outlawed 30 years ago. But New Labour's distaste for feminism has seen the gains fizzle out - 14th November 2005
 * Throw away the key - The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons - 6th July 2005
 * Village people - When the gay community, with council backing, breathed new life into the heart of Manchester, other cities began to see the business sense in chasing the pink pound. But the area's growing popularity brought with it straight invaders ... As Manchester gets back in the pink again, Beatrix Campbell reports on the lessons learned - 7th August 2004
 * An infantile disorder - Treated like a child by Number 10, the Labour party has forgotten how to think for itself - 26th July 2004
 * At the mercy of the mob - Two years ago the world watched in horror as loyalists terrorised Catholic schoolgirls at Holy Cross school in Belfast. Now one mother forced to flee her home after death threats is suing the authorities for failing to protect the children. Beatrix Campbell reports - 1st December 2003
 * False security - The case of Rosemary Nelson raises uncomfortable questions about state sponsorship of terrorism - 18th September 2003
 * Terrorism sponsored by Britain - So, Brian Nelson, secret agent and loyalist assassin, is dead. More than anyone else he symbolised the symbiotic relationship between the British security state and loyalist death squads - the radioactive core of the report Sir John Stevens will present to Northern Ireland's chief constable Hugh Orde this week - 15th April 2003
 * The Geoff Hoon shield of defence - New Labour has dodged debate about its US deal on Fylingdales - 31st January 2003
 * Royal secrets and lies - The Queen acted to protect not Paul Burrell, but herself - from the contents of Diana's wooden box - 4th November 2002
 * Divas of desire - Princess Diana wasn't a saint - she was a sexual and political icon like Marilyn Monroe or Eva Peron - 12th August 2002
 * State killings must be investigated - The Irish peace declaration shows Britain now accepts its responsibility - 10th August 2001
 * A Death Foretold - Rosemary Nelson was a solicitor in Northern Ireland and a marked woman. Everyone knew that loyalist killers were out to get her, yet nothing was done to prevent it. Beatrix Campbell reveals that investigators into her murder have four suspects - one of them a British soldier. Was there collusion between paramilitaries and police? - 19th May 2001
 * Stolen lives - Beatrix Campbell on the 'sisters' who are challenging Australia to admit to its forced separation of Aboriginal families - 17th May 2001
 * Give us this day - It's an age-old question: who works harder, men or women? The female homemaker/male provider stereotype is long gone; both now spend hours at the workplace. But is the gender divide in domestic matters really a thing of the past? Five couples kept time diaries to find out - 10th February 2001
 * A feminist republican - We continue our campaign for a referendum on the monarchy with a blast from Beatrix Campbell - 11th December 2000
 * Men are the problem - Special report: policing crime - 25th October 2000
 * Missing the target - It is mothers who are being affected by Jack Straw's community service orders, not rioting 'yobs' - 3rd July 2000
 * Re-making Ireland - It is time the Northern Ireland secretary remembered that peace involves a new kind of politics - 9th March 2000
 * Big boys don't cry - When a man claimed his son had been raped by an older woman, why would no one listen? - 28th February 2000
 * The head of a billion Catholics faces calls that he should resign - His decrepitude, conservatism and attitude to women are diminishing his support - 13th January 2000
 * Whose dome is it anyway? - Why haven't they sold the Dome outside the south-east? It needs a national image change, says Beatrix Campbell - 16th November 1999
 * Royalty - Weekend's comprehensive review of the modern age - 11th September 1999
 * Suddenly, in Lurgan - What was done to secure Rosemary Nelson's security? Nothing at all - 17th March 1999
 * Homeward on the wings of an angel - It was dawn and the bus was flying up the A1 towards the Tyne Bridge bearing our big, beautiful boy - 23d April 1996
 * The Princess and the pain - Forget the future of the Monarchy, divorce, the constitution. The most important thing Diana did, says Beatrix Campbell, was to give countless silent women a voice - 23rd November 1995

