Key information

History of key topics

Writes frequently about party politics, government Crisis’, public perception of politicians, fitness,
health, socio-economic trends, history, schools, foreign affairs, and in particular the Iraq war.
Was quick to comment on the state of the Labour party as a result of the Blair/Brown saga, and
stated that Tom Watson’s (apparent) attempt to bring the date forward on Blair’s resignation, was
particularly damaging to the party. Recent topics (Dec 06) include international hangings, red-
light reform and an analysis of the Conservative Social Justice Policy Group’s ‘Breakdown
Britain’ report.

Additional information and activities

Writes for a piece a week for The Times on top of his column. These can be book reviews,
interviews, features and travel. He won the ‘WHAT THE PAPERS’ SAY’ award for the best Writer about
broadcasting in 1998 , The Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2001 and the WTPS Columnist of
the year in 2003. His book ‘Paddling to Jerusalem’ was published by Harper Collins in 2006.

Aaronovitch is the son of the late economist and communist Sam Aaronovitch, and brother of the
actor Owen Aaronovitch and scriptwriter Ben Aaronovitch. He studied Modern History at Balliol
College, Oxford from October 1972 until April 1974, when he was expelled for failing the German
part of his History exams. He completed his education at the University of Manchester,
graduating in 1978 with an upper second BA (Hons) in History. While at Manchester, he was a
member of the 1975 University Challenge team that lost in the first round after answering every
question with the name of a revolutionary (“Trotsky”, “Lenin”, “Karl Marx” or “Che Guevara”).

Writes a weblog, found at http://timesonline.typepad.com/david_aaronovitch/

Previous/other positions

Previously a Researcher for ITV’s Weekend World. In 1988, he was Founding Editor of BBC’s
On the record. He moved to print journalism in 1995, becoming Chief Leader Writer, Columnist and
Critic with The Independent and Independent on Sunday. In 2003 began writing columns and
features for The Guardian and Observer, and in 2005 for The Times.

Conferences/Speaking/Broadcast

He addresses many conferences and meetings .He has been a presenter on many T.V
programmes including Have I got News For You, Sex on T.V (Channel 4), On Air (BBC2), Think
Tank and Argument(BBC1), Witness to History (BBC4). His radio work includes Pick of the
week, and a series on Romans, Normans and Vikings. He also presents or contributes to radio
and television programmes, including the BBC’s Have I Got News For You and BBC News 24.
On 26 Sept 2006 Five showed an episode of the documentary series Don’t Get Me Started
written and presented by Aaronovitch.