Nora Beloff

Leah Nora Beloff (24 January 1919 – 12 February 1997) was an English journalist and political writer. She worked for The Observer for three decades, from 1948 to 1978, and became a political correspondent in 1964, making her the first woman in such a role for a British newspaper.

Beloff was born in Kensington, London to Simon Beloff and Marie Katzin. Her parents were of Russian–Jewish background, and her siblings included the historian Max Beloff, Baron Beloff, the psychologist John Beloff, the biochemist Anne Beloff-Chain and the headmistress Renee Soskin. She attended King Alfred School and read history at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, graduating in 1940.

After graduating from Oxford, Beloff worked for the British Foreign Office in 1941, joining its political intelligence department. She moved to Paris in 1944 to work for the British embassy, and stayed in Paris after World War II to work for Reuters. She worked for The Economist (1946–1948) and then The Observer as a Paris-based correspondent. She left Paris to cover the Cold War for The Observer from Washington, D.C. (1949–51), and Moscow. Her work first attracted significant attention during the Algerian War, when she reported on the torture of two women rebels, Djamila Bouhired and Djamila Boupacha, by French soldiers.

In 1964 she returned to London following her appointment as a political correspondent for The Observer; this made her the first woman political correspondent of a British newspaper. In this role, she often wrote critical pieces about the Labour Party, and Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson consequently petitioned The Observer to dismiss her. She remained in this post until 1976, and then worked as a special correspondent. Beloff left The Observer in 1978 after 30 years due to disagreements with its new editor, Donald Trelford.

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