Toby Young

thumb|Toby Young Toby Daniel Moorsom Young, Baron Young of Acton (born 17 October 1963), is a British social commentator and Conservative life peer. He is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union, an associate editor of The Spectator, creator of The Daily Sceptic blog and a former associate editor at Quillette. A proponent of free schools, Young co-founded the West London Free School and served as director of the New Schools Network. Quotes The Oxford Myth (1988) Rachel Johnson (ed.) The Oxford Myth, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, ISBN: 9780297793489 It was as if all the meritocratic fantasies of every 1960s educationalist had come true and all Harold Wilson's children had been let in at the gate … Small, vaguely deformed undergraduates would scuttle across the quad as if carrying mobile homes on their backs. Replete with acne and anoraks, they would peer up through thick pebble-glasses, pausing only to blow their noses. Cited in "Toby Young quotes on breasts, eugenics and working-class people", The Guardian (3 January 2018). 2001 I didn't help matters by dipping into the Bolivian marching powder myself. It was like an X-rated episode of Men Behaving Badly. I didn't think the Groucho would mind if I wrote about this. After all, it's hardly a state secret that people occasionally take cocaine in the club. "I've been kicked out of the club", The Guardian (18 November 2001). Young's membership of the Groucho Club had been terminated. 2011–2013 [On his first New York City date in 1997 with his future wife, Caroline Bondy] The first thing that really impressed me was that she offered to get a round in. In the two years I'd spent in America, no woman had ever bought me a drink. New York women are strange in this respect. They expect to be treated like equals in the workplace, and heaven help the man who makes a sexist remark, but they hold fast to a courtship ritual that hasn’t changed much since the Declaration of Independence. When it comes to politics, they've all read Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. But when it comes to dating, it's strictly Jane Austen. "British women are the best", The Telegraph (8 May 2011). Inclusive. It's one of those ghastly, politically correct words that have survived the demise of New Labour. Schools have got to be 'inclusive' these days. That means wheelchair ramps, the complete works of Alice Walker in the school library (though no Mark Twain) and a Special Educational Needs Department that can cope with everything from dyslexia to Münchausen syndrome by proxy. If [then education secretary, [Michael] Gove is serious about wanting to bring back O-levels, the government will have to repeal the Equalities Act because any exam that isn't 'accessible' to a functionally illiterate troglodyte with a mental age of six will be judged to be 'elitist' and therefore forbidden by [Harriet] Harman's Law. "I am living proof that 'two-tier' exams work", The Spectator (30 June 2012). It wasn't my proudest moment. I asked who a particular MP [was] who one couldn't see the head of, but was sitting behind Ed Miliband and wearing an extremely low-cut dress… I committed the sin of noticing it and apparently this constitutes harassment in some people's views. Comments on Newsnight (31 July 2013) concerning his tweet: "Serious cleavage behind Ed Miliband’s head. Anyone know who it belongs to?" (2012). Cited in "Toby Young tweets: the comments that led to his resignation" Evening Standard (8 January 2018). Young's appointment in January 2018 to the board of the Office for Students, the university regulator, was followed by his resignation a few days later when publicity concerning his posts on social media made his position untenable. A tweet from 2009 ("What happened to [Claudia] Winkleman’s breasts? Put on some weight, girlie") was also among those to be cited. 2015–2019 My proposal is this: once this technology [genetically engineered intelligence] becomes available, why not offer it free of charge to parents on low incomes with below-average IQs? Provided there is sufficient take-up, it could help to address the problem of flat-lining inter-generational social mobility and serve as a counterweight to the tendency for the meritocratic elite to become a hereditary elite. It might make all the difference when it comes to the long-term sustainability of advanced meritocratic societies. "The fall of the meritocracy: Progressive eugenics" Quadrant, as cited in "Toby Young tweets: the comments that led to his resignation", Evening Standard (8 January 2018). I'm neither misogynistic nor homophobic. I'm a strong supporter of both women's rights and LGBT rights. Cited in "Labour demands Theresa May reverse Toby Young appointment due to his 'misogyny and homophobia'", The Independent (3 January 2018). After the announcement of his (briefly held) appointment to the board of the Office for Students. Ironic, when you bear in mind that the free enterprise system has lifted over a billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990, while [Nicolás] Maduro has urged starving Venezuelans to start cooking their rabbits.That's been the story of nearly every socialist utopian project, which we would do well to remember on this May Bank Holiday: it begins with a vision of the brotherhood of man and ends with people eating their pets. "Venezuela exposes just how far the Left will go to deny the true horrors of socialism" The Telegraph (1 May 2019). See also Eugenics Emil Kirkegaard Ed Dutton Linda Gottfredson John G. R. Fuerst Gerhard Meisenberg Lipton Matthews External links Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:Journalists from England Category:Editors from England Category:Theatre critics Category:Conservative Party (UK) politicians Category:British peers Category:Free speech activists Category:Activists from England Category:University of Oxford alumni Category:University of Cambridge alumni