The trouble with Toby Young – whose history of sexist and homophobic writing has forced his resignation from the Office for Students, the newly created university regulator – is that, aged 54, he still has arguments with his late father in his head. He is the son of Lord Young of Dartington (originally Michael Young) who composed the 1945 Labour election manifesto, set up the Consumers’ Association and Which? magazine, pioneered an Open University prototype, and wrote the dystopian satire The Rise of the Meritocracy. Young senior, quite unlike his son, was diffident, ascetic, thoughtful and averse to the media spotlight. The household was driven by such compassion and high moral purpose that several homeless people were usually invited to Christmas lunch.
The youthful Toby embarked on an adolescent rebellion that never ended. He became frivolous, amoral – at one stage, he was more or less addicted to both alcohol and pornography – obsessed with celebrity gossip and extremely right-wing. He joined the school of what he calls “journalistic provocateurs”, found mostly in newspapers and magazines such as the Daily Telegraph and Spectator. Claiming to speak for the toiling masses, these writers outrage respectable opinion by mocking and denigrating women, homosexuals, disabled people, ethnic minorities and anybody on benefits.
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