Alistair Moffat

Alistair Murray Moffat (born 16 June 1950, Kelso, Scotland) is an award winning writer and journalist, former director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Rector of the University of St Andrews.[1]

Education

Moffat was educated at the University of St Andrews , graduating in 1972 with a degree in Medieval History . While at St Andrews Moffat earned first team caps in both rugby and cricket, also playing basketball and athletics.

Moffat was also active in student politics throughout his time at St Andrews, playing a leading role in the rectorial campaign of John Cleese,[2] who went on to become one of St Andrews' best loved rectors.[3]

After graduating from St Andrews in 1972, Moffat went on to earn degrees from the University of Edinburgh and the (then) University of London (MPhil).[4] While at Edinburgh Moffat continued his involvement in student politics, campaigning with Gordon Brown, the second student elected rector of the University of Edinburgh.[5][6] Moffat and Brown went on to campaign on a number of social and political issues including gay rights and the 1979 Edinburgh South by-election.

Career

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Moffat found early success after university, becoming Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976. Moffat's five-year tenure saw the festival grow into the largest arts festival on the world. This was unveiled in the Scottish Parliament on 3 September[7]

STV

Moffat left the Fringe in 1981 and joined STV, where he rose to become programme director, Chief Executive of Network Production and finally Chairman of STV.[8] While at STV Moffat won a number of awards for his work, notably several Royal Television Society awards and a BAFTA for his documentary on the Lockerbie Bombings . In 1989 he was appointed to the NSG, the group that controls UK wide scheduling for ITV, commanding a budget of £750 million. He left STV in 1999 to focus on writing.

Writing

During the 1970s and early 1980s Moffat wrote a number of papers focusing on education policy.[9] His approach, recommending a renewed focus on primary education as the key to widening participation at secondary and higher levels, has since formed parts of the education manifestos of all three major parties in Britain .

Moffat's writing since 1999 has been focused mainly in the field of social history. Beginning with The Edinburgh Fringe (1978), he has written over twenty books including the bestselling Tyneside, The Reivers and The Wall, all of which have since been remade as television series.[10]

Career after STV

Since leaving STV in 1999, Moffat has served as Director of the Borders Book Festival and Lennoxlove Book Festival, both of which he also founded. He has also maintained his interest in education, serving as Director of "Book Nation", a Scottish national literacy initiative, working alongside Sir Robert Winston and Margaret Drabble to improve literacy in Scotland.

On 28 October 2011, Moffat was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews. He was appointed for a three-year term, his period of office spanning the university’s 600th anniversary celebrations which ran from 2011 to 2013.[11]

BritainsDNA

Moffat is the chief executive of the company BritainsDNA, which does genetic analyses of the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA of customers who are interested in their ancestry. On the BBC Today Programme, Moffat made numerous inaccurate statements, including that the company has discovered Eve's "grandson", that prices were "heavily subsidised", and that 97% of men surnamed Cohen share a common genetic marker.[12] These statements were later retracted by the chief scientist of BritainsDNA.[13] In the meantime, two geneticists at University College London, David Balding and Mark Thomas, as well as other UCL colleagues, have attacked both these statements and genetic ancestry companies in general.[14] Thomas in particular has suggested that the entire field of interpretive phylogeography, on which much of such genetic testing is based, has no scientific basis and is little more than genetic astrology.[15] However, Martin Richards, Professor of archaeogenetics at University of Huddersfield, and Vincent Macaulay, reader in statistics at the University of Glasgow, have contested these claims.[16]

Sometime after the interview on the Today Programme, Balding and Thomas wrote a series of emails to Moffat and his business partners. The content of messages has never been published and is disputed between the various parties. However, it is known that Moffat wrote to the Provost of UCL to attempt to get Thomas and Balding to retract comments made in these communications and that Moffat issued a threat to sue if they were repeated. Balding and Thomas alleged that these threats were made to silence their criticism of the underlying science.[17] Moffat and his business partners claim that Thomas and Balding made a series of highly defamatory comments and never impinged on their academic freedom.[13]

Britain's DNA is one of a group of commercial companies providing DNA ancestry testing, set up by Moffat in 2012 and 2013; Scotland's DNA (the first), Ireland's DNA and Yorkshire's DNA.

Great Tapestry of Scotland

Moffat was co-chairman and historian for the Great Tapestry of Scotland, a community arts project which produced the embroidered tapestry, designed by Andrew Crummy with contributions form around 1000 stitchers from across Scotland. It was unveiled on 3 September 2013 at the Scottish Parliament.[18]

Personal life

Moffat met his wife Lindsay while both were students at the University of St Andrews, they were married in 1976 in the university's ancient St Salvators Chapel, a privilege and tradition commonly reserved only for alumni, staff or their offspring.[19] The couple have three children, two of whom also attended St Andrews.

From 2009 - 2011 he served at the invitation of James Naughtie, the Chancellor of the University of Stirling, as Chancellor's Assessor on Stirling's University Court.[20] He resigned the position in October 2011 on being invited to run for Rector of the University of St Andrews, an election which he won on 28 Oct 2011.[11]

He remains a passionate rugby supporter and regular attender of his national team's games. On one occasion, he refused to buy Tony Blair tickets for the Calcutta Cup (which he was attending with Gordon Brown) because Blair suggested he would support England rather than his native Scotland .

References

  1. ↑ "BritainsDNA.com". Alistair Moffat. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  2. ↑ United Kingdom. "University of St Andrews - Scotland's first university, founded 1413". St-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  3. ↑ Twiss and Chennell, "Famous Rectors of St Andrews", (Alvie, 1982), p208
  4. ↑ "Senate House Libraries catalogue". University of London. Retrieved 2014-07-09.
  5. ↑ "The University of Edinburgh". Ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  6. ↑ Rosenbaum, Martin (15 July 2005). "Brown's first taste of power". BBC News. Retrieved 25 May 2013. In 1972 he became the second student to be elected Rector.
  7. ↑ "Alistair Moffat :: Authors :: Birlinn Ltd". Birlinn.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  8. ↑ "Home | STV | Scottish television | Scotland's digital media company | STV". Stv.tv. 1975-10-25. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  9. ↑ http://www.jstor.org/login:asdkjvbasdifu38574
  10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20110623012435/http://www.moffatbooks.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk:80/thewall.htm. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. 1 2 http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2011/Title,76643,en.html
  12. ↑ "Today - Uncovering British 'deep ancestry'". BBC News. 2012-07-09. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  13. 1 2 http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2013/01/response-to-exaggerations-and-errors-in-the-promotion-of-genetic-ancestry-testing.php
  14. ↑ http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2012/12/exaggerations-and-errors-in-the-promotion-of-genetic-ancestry-testing.php
  15. ↑ Thomas, Mark (2013-02-25). "To claim someone has 'Viking ancestors' is no better than astrology | Mark Thomas | Science". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  16. ↑ Richards, Martin (2013-04-08). "It is unfair to compare genetic ancestry testing to astrology | Science". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  17. ↑ "Editorial: The right to speak out". Nature 496 (7444): 137. 11 April 2013. doi:10.1038/496137a. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  18. ↑ Susan Mansfield and Alistair Moffat (2013)The Great Tapestry of Scotland Birlinn Books ISBN 978-1-78027-160-6
  19. ↑ http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/Wedding%20Guidelines%20July2011.pdf
  20. ↑ "University of Stirling - UK Universities - Academic Excellence in Scotland". Stir.ac.uk. 2014-02-10. Retrieved 2014-03-04.

University of St Andrews (www.st-andrews.ac.uk) Birlinn Books <http://www.birlinn.co.uk/author/details/Alistair-Moffat-63/>

Academic offices
Preceded by
Kevin Dunion		 Rector of the University of St Andrews
2011—2014 		Succeeded by
Catherine Stihler
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 09, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.