Peter Whittle (politician)

Peter Robin Whittle AM (born 6 January 1961) is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster. He is the founder and Director of The New Culture Forum think-tank and host of So What You're Saying Is..., a weekly cultural and political interview show on YouTube.[2][3]

For the mathematician, see Peter Whittle (mathematician).

Peter Whittle

AM
Whittle in 2017
Leader of the Brexit Alliance in the London Assembly
Assumed office
13 December 2018
DeputyDavid Kurten
Preceded byOffice established
Deputy Leader of the
UK Independence Party
In office
28 November 2016 – 18 October 2017
LeaderPaul Nuttall
Steve Crowther (Acting)
Preceded byPaul Nuttall
Succeeded byMargot Parker
UKIP Spokesperson for Culture and Communities
In office
24 July 2014 – 18 October 2017
LeaderNigel Farage
Diane James (Designate)
Paul Nuttall
Steve Crowther (Acting)
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byDavid Meacock
Leader of UKIP in the London Assembly
In office
6 May 2016 – 22 January 2018
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byVacant
Independent Member of
the London Assembly
as the 2nd Additional Member
Assumed office
6 May 2016
Preceded byStephen Knight
Personal details
Born (1961-01-06) 6 January 1961
Waterloo, London, England
Political partyIndependent (2018–present)
Other political
affiliations		UK Independence Party (until 2018)
Brexit Alliance (2018–present)
ResidenceLondon, England
Alma materUniversity of Kent
CommitteesMember of the London Assembly Audit Panel,
Member of Confirmation Hearings, Police & Crime and GLA Oversight Committees[1]
WebsitePeter Whittle on Twitter (@prwhittle)
New Culture Forum website
So What You're Saying Is... (YouTube channel)

Whittle has been a London Assembly Member (AM) since the Assembly elections of May 2016 and currently serves as Chairman of the Audit Panel.[4][5][6] He has been Leader of the London Assembly's Brexit Alliance Group since December 2018, when he resigned from the UK Independence Party (of which he had previously been Assembly Leader) in protest at Gerard Batten's leadership.[7][8]

Whittle was UKIP's candidate for the 2016 London mayoral election, which was held at the same time as the Assembly elections. He served as the party's Deputy Leader between November 2016 and October 2017 and was a prominent, if unsuccessful, candidate in the 2017 UKIP leadership campaign.[9][10]

Whittle resigned as UKIP's London spokesman on 22 January 2018, following Henry Bolton's refusal to stand down following a vote of no confidence in his leadership by UKIP's National Executive Committee.[11]

Career

Whittle was born in the General Lying-in Hospital in Waterloo, London, one of Great Britain's first maternity hospitals.[12] Shortly after his birth Whittle's family moved across South East London, from Peckham to Shooter's Hill. Whittle attended the John Roan School, a grammar school for boys founded in 1677, making it one of the oldest state schools in the country. After John Roan, Whittle studied at Orpington College and the University of Kent (BA History and Politics).[13][14] Between 1991 and 2003 he worked as a TV producer and director of arts and factual programmes for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, including a prolonged stint at the long-running TV arts series The South Bank Show, as well as USA Network and Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States of America, living for five years in Los Angeles.[15][16][9]

As a journalist he was an arts and film critic for national and international publications including The Times, The Sunday Times and the Los Angeles Times, as well as a columnist for Standpoint magazine (for which he wrote "Whittle's London").[13][17] Starting with regular contributions as a cultural commentator and critic on BBC Two's Newsnight Review (later The Review Show) in the 2000s, Whittle has made extensive appearances on the broadcast media, most notably on programmes such as Question Time and The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, and Start The Week, Any Questions and The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4.[18][19][20][21][22][23]

In 2006 Whittle founded the New Culture Forum, a think tank whose mission is described as "challenging the cultural orthodoxies dominant in the media, academia, education, and British culture in its widest sense."[24] Speakers at NCF events, including for its annual keynote Smith Lecture, have included Martin Amis, Dame Vivien Westwood, Jeremy Hunt MP, Michael Gove MP, Nigel Farage MEP, Justin Webb, Sir Anthony Seldon, Petroc Trelawny, Ed Vaizey MP, Melanie Philips, Brendan O'Neil and Owen Jones.[25] Writers for the New Culture Forum have included Douglas Murray, Julie Bindel, Ed West, and Dennis Sewell.[26]

Whittle became UKIP's cultural spokesman in 2013[10] and stood for Eltham at the 2015 general election, coming third with 15% of the vote, a vote share surpassing both the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.[14]

In September 2015, Whittle was selected as the UKIP candidate for Mayor of London, as well as topping the party list for election to the Greater London Assembly.[9] Openly gay, Whittle was the only LGBT candidate selected by any of the parties for the 2016 Mayoral election.[27]

On 12 October 2016, Whittle announced his intention to stand for UKIP leader following the resignation of Diane James after just 18 days; however, on reflection, he decided to stand for the position of deputy leader instead and was duly successful in this candidature. On 28 November 2016, it was announced that Whittle was the new Deputy Leader of UKIP, replacing Paul Nuttall, then newly appointed as Party Leader. Following the election of Henry Bolton as leader of UKIP in October 2017, Whittle left the role of deputy leader and was appointed UKIP spokesman for London affairs.[28] He resigned as London spokesman on 22 January 2018, following Bolton's refusal to stand down after a vote of no confidence in his leadership by UKIP's National Executive Committee.[11]

In December 2018, Whittle resigned from UKIP in protest at Gerard Batten's leadership.[7]

Whittle in the London Assembly

Now serving as an Independent Member of the London Assembly and Leader of the Assembly's Brexit Alliance Group, Whittle is currently Chairman of the London Assembly's Audit Panel as well as a Member of its Police & Crime Committee, GLA Oversight Committee and Confirmation Hearings Committee.[6] The Brexit Alliance Group is not a registered political party, but a grouping to satisfy GLA requirements - it consists of Whittle and David Kurten, who continued to be a member of UKIP until January 2020.[29]

In 2019 Whittle launched a weekly YouTube interview programme called So What You're Saying Is..., which he also hosts. The show aims to redress the balance which it claims is not provided by the mainstream media and is named after a phrase repeatedly uttered by Cathy Newman of Britain's Channel 4 News during a combative interview with the Canadian psychologist and professor of psychology Jordan Peterson. The interview, regarded by many commentators as symbolic of a wider problem amongst the mainstream media, became a viral phenomenon, with critics alleging Newman's preconceptions led her to misinterpret Peterson and alter his statements.[30][31]

Covering newsworthy cultural, social and political topics, So What You're Saying Is... features 30 minute discussions with experts, notable figures and others from the fields of journalism, academia, politics, activism etc. Guests and topics have included James Delingpole on conservatism, James Bartholomew on the campaign for a Museum of Communist Terror, Martin Daubney on masculinity and Robin Aitken on bias at the BBC.[32]

Books
  • Look at Me: Celebrating the Self in Modern Britain, London: 2008 (1st edn), 2018 (2nd edn).
  • Private Views: Voices from the Frontline of British Culture, London: 2009.
  • A Sorry State: Self-Denigration in British Culture, London: 2010.
  • Monarchy Matters, London: 2011.
  • Being British: What's Wrong With It?, London: 2012.
  • Reel Life: Peter Whittle at the Movies, London: 2014.

References
  1. "London Assembly Membership of Committees 2019/20" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 August 2019. Retrieved 14 September 2019.
  2. "New Culture Forum". Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  3. "So What You're Saying Is..." Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  4. "Results 2016". London Elects. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  5. "London Mayoral Election 2016: Labour dominate vote". BBC News. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  6. "Peter Whittle London Assembly". The London Assembly. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  7. Peter Whittle AM (7 December 2018). ""I have today resigned from UKIP. My letter of resignation can be read here.."". Twitter.com. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  8. "Ukip London Assembly members form new Brexit Alliance group". The Evening Standard. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  9. "UKIP selects Peter Whittle as London mayoral candidate". BBC News. 26 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  10. Banham, Mark (26 September 2015). "Ukip chooses Peter Whittle as London Mayor candidate ahead of deputy chair Suzanne Evans". International Business Times. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  11. Heffer, Greg (22 January 2018). "UKIP crisis as top figures quit and tell leader Henry Bolton to go". Sky News. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  12. "IMDb biography: Peter Whittle". Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  13. ‘WHITTLE, Peter Robin’, Who's Who 2017, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017
  14. "UKIP announces Mayoral candidate and list for GLA" (Press release). UKIP. 26 September 2015. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  15. Whittle, Peter (7 May 2008). Look at Me: Celebrating the Self in Modern Britain. London: Social Affairs Unit. ISBN 9781904863311. ASIN 1904863310.
  16. "New Culture Spokesman Peter Whittle". Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  17. "Whittle's London". Standpoint (magazine). Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  18. "Profile of Newsnight Review panellist Peter Whittle". Newsnight Review. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  19. "Question Time 09/02/2017". Question Time. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  20. "Andrew Marr Show 26/02/2017". The Andrew Marr Show. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  21. "Start The Week 28/03/2011". Start the Week. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  22. "Any Questions 03/12/2016". Any Questions. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  23. "The Moral Maze 14/07/2010". The Moral Maze. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  24. "New Culture Forum Facebook Page". Facebook. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  25. "New Culture Forum Events". New Culture Forum. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  26. "New Culture Forum Events". New Culture Forum. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  27. Duffy, Nick (26 September 2015). "UKIP picks gay candidate Peter Whittle to run for Mayor of London". Pink News. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  28. Walker, Peter (18 October 2017). "New Ukip leader Henry Bolton reveals frontbench lineup". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  29. "Ukip London Assembly members form new Brexit Alliance group". Evening Standard. 13 December 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  30. Doward, Jamie (21 January 2018). "'Back off', controversial professor urges critics of C4 interviewer". The Observer. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  31. "Security for British TV personality bolstered after interview with Jordan Peterson". Toronto Star. Canadian Press. 2 January 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  32. "New Culture Forum Events". New Culture Forum. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
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