Francis Wheen

Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Wheen was born into an army family and educated at two independent schools: Copthorne Preparatory School near Crawley, West Sussex, and Harrow School in north west London.

Running away from Harrow at 16 "to join the alternative society," Wheen had early periods as a "dogsbody" at The Guardian and the New Statesman and attended Royal Holloway College, University of London, after a period at a crammer. At Harrow, he was briefly a contemporary of Mark Thatcher who has been a subject of his journalism.

Wheen is the author of several books, including a biography of Karl Marx which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1999, and has been translated into twenty languages. He followed the biography of Karl Marx with a "biography" of Das Kapital, which follows the creation and publication of the first volume of Marx's major work as well as other incomplete volumes. Wheen had a column in The Guardian for several years. He writes for Private Eye and is currently the magazine's deputy editor. His collected journalism, Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies, won him the Orwell Prize in 2003. He has also been a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard.

In April 2012, Wheen suffered the loss of his entire book collection, his "life's work", and an unfinished novel, in a garden shed fire.

Wheen broadcasts regularly, mainly on BBC Radio 4, has made many appearances on The News Quiz, in which he has often referred to the fact that he resembles the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith. He has also several times been a guest on Have I Got News for You.

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