The writer and broadcaster tells Peter Stanford that there was more than a love of tradition to his decision to convert to Catholicism
Tim Stanley’s grandmother was a professional clairvoyant, who practised – if that is the right verb – under the name Madame Clare out of a house “like a carnival tent” in south-east London. Her ability to foresee the future, though, didn’t stretch to predicting that her grandson – star Daily Telegraph columnist, BBC Radio 4 and Question Time regular and author of a new book in defence of tradition – would convert in his twenties to Catholicism.
She was pretty upset at the news when it was sprung upon her, he recalls. “She was convinced I had the second sight and all that stuff.” Does he? “I wouldn’t entirely rule it out. I’m not wholly opposed to that sort of thing. Growing up, I was surrounded by horoscopes, tarot cards and crystal balls.”
As he speaks, I briefly conjure up a mental picture of Stanley in the Moral Maze studio, with Michael Buerk and his terrier pack, head and shoulders draped by an elaborate headscarf reading tea leaves as the other panellists snap at the heels of their guests. But the man in front of me, dressed in the tweedy jacket of the academic he used to be before he made the switch to journalism, is busy throwing out real-life anecdotes that are better than my imaginings.
“My grandmother said, ‘How can you be a member of the Labour Party [he was back then, and stood unsuccessfully for it in the general election of 2005 in his home town of Sevenoaks] and a Catholic?’, which I thought was very odd, but reflects people’s assumption in the south of England about what a Catholic is. They think of Irish migrants. It was not something that ‘people like us’ do.”