Ben Patrick Chacko (born 1984) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

who is the editor of the '' Morning Star''. After joining the newspaper in 2010, he became editor in 2015.

Early life

Chacko was born in Camden,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He was brought up in Cheltenham, and educated at the local

Pate's Grammar School en, That which is hidden shall be revealed , established = , closed = , type = Grammar school;Academy , religion = , president = , head_label = , head = Russel Ellicott , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = , chair = , founder ...

, and St John's College, Oxford, where he studied

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

. His father, Francis Chacko, who came to Britain from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

at the age of eight, is an actuary, while his Lancastrian mother Sarah (''née'' Willcock) is a

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

who studied for a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. His brother is the

tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

barrister Thomas Chacko, of Pump Court Tax Chambers. Chacko credits his conversion to

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

to a recommendation from his mother when he was a teenager that he abandon the ''

Socialist Worker ''Socialist Worker'' is the name of several far-left newspapers currently or formerly associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United Kingdom since ...

'' newspaper, published by the Socialist Workers Party, for something more genuinely "leftie", such as the ''Morning Star''. Chacko found the ''Star'' "a real revelation". By the age of 15, Chacko was attending meetings of the

Young Communist League The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX (name of country) originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International. Examples of Y ...

. He edited '' Challenge'', the journal of the Young Communist League and was a member of the student union council at Oxford.

Career

Chacko was appointed editor of the ''Morning Star'' in May 2015, the youngest editor of the paper since its founding editor, William Rust. He joined the paper as a sub-editor in 2010, and was subsequently deputy features editor, assistant editor and deputy editor before being appointed acting editor in July 2014. "''The Star'' is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media", said the Labour MP

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

at the time of Chacko's appointment in May 2015. "I look forward to working with Ben in promoting socialism and progress".

Political views

After leaving university, Chacko lived in China for a few years. The country, according to him, is evidence that "you can run a society without surrendering to the idea that the market is always right". Post-Soviet Russia, on the other hand, he describes as "a gangster capitalist state run by oligarchs". In summer 2015, he told Josh Glancy of ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

'': "We need a revolution in politics to overturn the power of private ownership... That doesn't mean you'd have people storming Buckingham Palace. It could be a revolution that is enacted by people in

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

as a result of a mass movement for change".

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chacko, Ben 1984 births Living people Date of birth missing (living people) English communists English newspaper editors English male journalists English people of Indian descent People from Camden Town People educated at Pate's Grammar School Alumni of St John's College, Oxford Morning Star (British newspaper) journalists Communist Party of Britain members Young Communist League of Britain members