Peregrine Worsthorne

Peregrine Worsthorne (1923-2020) was a journalist, writer and broadcaster. He was a ‘high Tory’ and a staunch defender of aristocratic government. He thought having a ruling class which was rich and hereditary was a good thing. The longer-established, the better. But his views were unpredictable and he was never dull. When asked what he wanted as his desert-island luxury, he chose LSD.

He was a leader writer and foreign correspondent for the Times from 1948-1953. In 1961 he joined the Sunday Telegraph as its first deputy editor and was editor from 1985 to 1989, remaining as a columnist until 1997. He also contributed to the New Statesman and to the online magazine The First Post. He was the author of The Socialist Myth, 1972, Tricks of Memory, 1993 and In Defence of Aristocracy, 2004. He died in October 2020, aged 96.