Peter Oborne is instantly recognisable in manner and appearance as a public school Sherborne-and-Cambridge Tory, a church-goer (married to a vicar), probably an enthusiastic amateur cricketer (he wrote an admired biography of Basil D’Oliveira too). What makes him unusual, however, not just among journalists, is his powerful sense of right and wrong. It is what prompted him to leave his eminent perch at the Daily Telegraph this week and denounce its perceived lapse from former standards in covering the HSBC scandal.
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It is easy to imagine the late Paul Foot, a fellow romantic but on the far left, applauding Oborne’s stand. Investigative journalism survives in Fleet Street, including at the Telegraph, but whistleblowing is rarer. Like Foot, Oborne is not always right, he sometimes overstates his case and “hypocrisy” can be an easy target. But his polemical range has been eclectic and magnificent. In print and on TV he has denounced Robert Mugabe, the pro-euro lobby (and the pro-Israel lobby), blamed our ills on postmodern relativism, defended Iran and the Human Rights Act, even said a good word for Ed Miliband. A courageous troublemaker then. Always in short supply.