Richard D North, journalist, author, broadcaster and social commentator, has died aged 79.
North was The Independent’s first environment editor and one of Britain’s earliest Green commentators, before becoming one of the movement’s most vocal internal critics.
Labelled by the bestselling author and cultural commentator Peter York as “our very own P J O’Rourke”, he wrote widely on culture, conservation and politics for The Independent, The Listener, The Observer, The Guardian and The Times.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, North was a prominent figure in the environmental movement. A regular contributor to Vole – the pioneering magazine founded by journalist Richard Boston and funded by Monty Python’s Terry Jones – he became its final editor. His early books, including Wild Britain (1983), The Animals Report (1983) and The Real Cost (1986), explored Britain’s ecosystems and ethical consumption. He also wrote Fools for God (1987), a non-believer’s spiritual reflection on monastic life after time spent among monks on Mount Athos.
So principled was North in those years that, when he found himself seated next to Bob Marley on a train in 1980, he turned down an invitation to “hang out” in Jamaica – refusing to fly on environmental grounds, a decision he later regretted.
By the early 1990s, North had turned a critical eye on the movement he helped shape. His book Life on a Modern Planet (1995) challenged what he called the Greens’ “miserabilism” and argued that ecosystems were not fragile but resilient, capable of sustaining development under good governance. He accused mainstream Greens of fostering a “culture of contempt” towards progress. Though critics labelled him a turncoat, North insisted he remained a conservationist – one who believed human potential and environmental protection could coexist.
He delighted in contradiction. “Whimsically hippy at the edges,” as one colleague put it, North scorned “bossy liberals” while championing “tough love”, “reciprocated selfishness” and “meritocratic elitism”. Beneath his countercultural manner lay a belief in order, discipline and personal responsibility.
Later appointed media fellow at the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs and the Social Affairs Unit, North never offered blind allegiance. He called Margaret Thatcher “self-righteous, bossy, narrow-minded”, but conceded she was “more right than wrong”. He criticised her for undermining the authority of the professions, which he believed had weakened institutional life.
Among his later publications were Scrap the BBC! (2007), in which he proposed a mixed-funding model for public broadcasting, and a scathing pamphlet on Tony Blair’s “Messiah politics”. His self-published The Right-wing Guide to Nearly Everything (2012) was praised by historian Andrew Roberts as “witty, hard-hitting and politically sound”.
In later years, North appeared regularly on Newsnight, The Moral Maze, The Big Questions and Channel 4 News, defending the unfashionable: GM crops, nuclear power, the fur trade, field sports and Liberalism. His personal website, richarddnorth.com, preserves a vast archive of essays and thoughts.
North is survived by his wife Valerie, his three children Polly, Matthew and Emma, and their mother Anne.
