It is hard to miss James Orr — with his slicked-back mane of blond hair, booming voice and all the confidence of a Wykehamist and an Oxford Balliol graduate, he could easily play the quintessential stage Englishman in a stage adaptation of Agatha Christie. A hybrid of academic and ideologue, he may yet turn out to be one of the most influential behind-the scenes voices in establishing a UK version of American Christian conservatism, allied to the rise of Reform UK.
A buddy — intellectually and nowadays a family friend — of JD Vance and the ultra-Conservative thinker, Jordan Peterson, he hosts what he jokes is a “Conservative kibbutz”, holding seminars and entertaining students and visitors in the rambling gardens and dacha of his property on the Cam in Cambridge, where he’s an associate professor of religion.
