John Plunkett looks into the past of new Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, to discover what we can expect from Margaret Thatcher’s “toy boy”.
John Whittingdale’s eclectic tastes mark him out as an unlikely-sounding cabinet minister. The newly appointed secretary of state for culture, media and sport is a devotee of Star Trek and Thunderbirds and a heavy metal fan known to sing karaoke versions of Smoke on the Water and Bat out of Hell.
The Conservative MP is also a horror fan including the so-called “torture porn” of Hostel director Eli Roth. “I quite like really nasty films,” Whittingdale once told journalists. “Hostel is undoubtedly the most unpleasant film I have ever seen,” he said, while Roth’s Netflix series Hemlock Grove “made An American Werewolf in London look like Mary Poppins”.
His cabinet elevation was entirely unexpected, not least by him, said friends, and fulfilled a long-held ambition. First elected to parliament in 1992, the 55-year-old is hardly in the first flush of his parliamentary career, a one-time Tory rebel who started out as a bag carrier for Margaret Thatcher... Keep reading on The Guardian
John Whittingdale’s eclectic tastes mark him out as an unlikely-sounding cabinet minister. The newly appointed secretary of state for culture, media and sport is a devotee of Star Trek and Thunderbirds and a heavy metal fan known to sing karaoke versions of Smoke on the Water and Bat out of Hell.
The Conservative MP is also a horror fan including the so-called “torture porn” of Hostel director Eli Roth. “I quite like really nasty films,” Whittingdale once told journalists. “Hostel is undoubtedly the most unpleasant film I have ever seen,” he said, while Roth’s Netflix series Hemlock Grove “made An American Werewolf in London look like Mary Poppins”.
His cabinet elevation was entirely unexpected, not least by him, said friends, and fulfilled a long-held ambition. First elected to parliament in 1992, the 55-year-old is hardly in the first flush of his parliamentary career, a one-time Tory rebel who started out as a bag carrier for Margaret Thatcher... Keep reading on The Guardian