Francis Beckett's journalism
Francis Beckett writes regularly on education, politics, industry, the theatre and contemporary history for the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Daily Express, BBC History, the New Humanist, the Jewish Chronicle, the Tablet, and several other publications.
From The Guardian:
HOW THE SON OF A BRITISH COMMUNIST BECAME A LEADING WASHINGTON CONSERVATIVE
She fled first Britain, then Russia, her son making his home in the US capital. But the journey of the Utley family, writes Francis Beckett, went much further than that: it crossed the political extremes of the 20th century
Friday November 4, 2005
The Guardian
Jon Utley is a wealthy American businessman, a pillar of Washington society and of the Republican party. He lives in a splendid penthouse apartment in Georgetown, with a huge roof garden and a swimming pool, where he and his wife host some of Washington's most glittering political parties. He believes the Republican party has lurched to the left under George W Bush, and needs to be reclaimed for true conservatism.
An apartment on K Street, where the most influential lobbyists live and work, is a very long way from the cramped Moscow flat where Utley was born 71 years ago; but what happened in that flat is what made Utley the rightwing ideologue he is today. When he was two years old, the KGB came in the small hours and took his father away. For the next two weeks, the little boy rummaged round the flat, looking behind every piece of furniture for him. (see full article at (see full article at http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/
0,,1627410,00.html)