Want fewer ads?

Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet (born 2 July 1939), known simply as Ferdinand Mount, is a British writer and novelist, columnist for The Sunday Times and commentator on politics, and Conservative Party politician. He was head of the policy unit in 10 Downing Street in 1982-83, during the time when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, and wrote the 1983 Tory general election manifesto. He is regarded as being on the One Nation or 'wet' wing of the party.

He attended Greenways Prep School in Wiltshire, and was later educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1993 he succeeded his uncle as 3rd Baronet, but he does not use the title.

For 11 years (1991-2002) he was editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Today, he is a regular contributor to Standpoint magazine.

He has written novels, including a six-volume novel sequence Chronicle of Modern Twilight centred on a low-key character Gus Cotton; the title alludes to the sequence A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight by Henry Williamson, and another sequence entitled Tales of History and Imagination.

He lives in Islington. He inherited the Mount baronetcy from his uncle William in 1993. His son Harry Mount is also a journalist and his cousin Mary Cameron is mother of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party.

According to 'Experience' by Martin Amis, Mount gave up the title in the 1990s.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ferdinand Mount", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0