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Andrew Pierce (born Patrick Connolly) is a British journalist, editor, author, broadcaster and political commentator.


Early life

Pierce was born in Bristol to an Irish Catholic mother and an unknown father. He spent the first two years of his life in Nazareth House, a Catholic orphanage in
Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
, and was adopted by a family from
Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...
and brought up on a council estate there. His adoptive father worked on the assembly line at British Leyland, a former state-owned car factory. Pierce was educated at St Joseph's Roman Catholic School, now known as
St Joseph's Catholic College St. Joseph's Catholic College (formerly St Joseph's Comprehensive School) is a secondary school in Swindon, England. The school opened in 1958 and was the town's first Catholic school, offering education to students aged 11 to 16. Today it re ...
, a state comprehensive school in Swindon. He did not go to university.


Career in journalism

Pierce is a former assistant editor of both '' The Daily Telegraph'' and '' The Times'' newspapers, and the former political editor of the latter. He is a columnist and consultant editor for the ''
Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'', which he joined in 2009. Pierce presented a Sunday morning political radio show on the commercial radio station
LBC 97.3 LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment, Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed Commercial broadca ...
from 2008 until he left in 2012. That radio programme was in the latter years presented as a double-headed show with Kevin Maguire from the '' Daily Mirror''. Pierce and Maguire continue their double act reviewing, previewing and dissecting the media and politics on the BBC, ITV and Sky News. He started presenting a Saturday Breakfast show on LBC Radio from 22 March 2014. In 2014, the ''Daily Mail'' had to pay damages to Kirsten Farage after Pierce falsely claimed in a column that she had been a mistress of Nigel Farage, then the leader of UKIP, while he was still married to his first wife. In May 2018, the ''Daily Mail'' paid £11,000 towards the legal costs of the writer Kate Maltby after the publication of an article by Pierce about the claims of sexual harassment Maltby made against the politician Damian Green. The article was removed from the ''Mail''s website without the publication having made an admission of fault. He is currently a presenter on GB News.


Personal life

Pierce was raised, and remains, a Catholic. He is gay and was chosen by '' The Observer'' in 2005 as one of the "gays who shape our new Britain". He strongly supports civil partnerships, and lives in a long-term civil partnership, per the Civil Partnership Act 2004. He opposed the introduction of same-sex marriage. In a BBC documentary in 2018 about Greg Owen and the court case '' National AIDS Trust v NHS Service Commissioning Board'', Pierce strongly criticised the idea of taxpayer-funded PrEP, a preventative medication to protect against contracting
HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immu ...
: "That's what this is about: indulging gay men who don't want to use a condom. Well that's outrageous. Why should the taxpayer subsidise a reckless sex life of people in the gay community?"


Iris Prize

The
Iris Prize The Iris Prize, established in by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBT film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex a ...
Festival is a five-day public event in Cardiff, Wales, which includes screenings of the 30 short films competing for the Iris Prize. The Iris Prize is supported by the Michael Bishop Foundation and is the world's largest LGBT short film prize giving the winning filmmaker £30,000 to make their next short film in the UK. Iris-produced shorts include ''Burger'' (2013), directed by Magnus Mork List of films at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, and ''Followers'' (2015), directed by Tim Marshall, both of which were selected for the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Andrew Pierce became Patron of the Iris Prize in 2007, and in 2013 became its first Chair. During his tenure as chair of the Iris Prize, Pierce has overseen a number of key developments in the festival. In 2014 at a launch reception Pierce announced a new strand at the Iris Prize Festival, Best British Short, and helped secure a sponsorship deal with Pinewood Studios Group totalling £14,000 in post-production sound for the winning filmmaker. In January 2015 it was also announced that the Iris Prize would be increasing from £25,000 to £30,000.


Selected publications

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References


External links


Andrew Pierce on TwitterAndrew Pierce on LBC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pierce, Andrew Living people 1961 births British male journalists British people of Irish descent English Roman Catholics British gay writers British LGBTQ journalists LBC radio presenters LGBTQ Roman Catholics English LGBTQ writers GB News newsreaders and journalists Journalists from Bristol 21st-century English LGBTQ people