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The Tablet 100: Catholics bringing a distinctive slant to politics, society, business, arts and culture

Brendan Walsh, Editor - The Tablet - Sat, Nov 11th 2017

THE TABLET 100: CATHOLICS BRINGING A DISTINCTIVE SLANT TO POLITICS, SOCIETY, BUSINESS, ARTS AND CULTURE 

It has to be admitted that there is something faintly preposterous about the idea of a “top Catholic”: one of the things a good Catholic education teaches is that few things matter less than what the world thinks of us, or the number of glittering prizes we have on our sideboard.

The Tablet 100 is a portrait of a relatively small religious community that gives a distinctive slant to our society and culture. This is more than just a list of interesting people doing interesting things. Some are well known for their faith commitment; some wear it more lightly and tentatively. But there are important values held in common, a shared sensibility: a protectiveness towards the dreams of others, and perhaps the understanding that how the cards fall in this life is not all that matters.

Damian Green, the Prime Minister’s trusted confidant, whom we have put at the top of our list this year, has spoken of his political philosophy being guided by “the idea that we as individuals flourish as part of a community”; Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, both start from the same place, even if they might end up somewhere very different.

That Catholic sensibility is seen in the eminent psychiatrist Sheila Hollins’ work for people with learning difficulties. It is seen, too, in arresting moments such as Jacob Rees-Mogg reflecting in an interview with the Financial Times on the infinite mercy of God.

The edges of the Catholic Church will always be blurry. Jimmy McGovern’s powerful television series Broken, about a troubled inner-city parish priest, was suffused with Catholic themes of mercy and redemption, yet McGovern himself, a cradle Catholic, told us earlier this year: “I’ve lost my faith … though I am open to it returning.” He’s not on our list. Perhaps he should have been.

Brendan Walsh, Editor

 

1. Damian Green
First Secretary of State
His post as First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office makes Green, in effect, Deputy Prime Minister and the second most important person in the government.

Theresa May turned to him after this year’s disastrous general election result. She needed someone she could trust at her right hand, and her friendship with Green goes back to their student days at Oxford. Green, a vocal Remainer

before the EU referendum, is supportive of May’s Brexit strategy and enthusiastic about her policies on housing, industrial strategy and social justice. In 2015 he said of his faith in an interview with The Tablet: “It is so much a part of me that I don’t consciously think, ‘Is this a way to approach a particular political issue?’”

Green, a cradle Catholic born in Barry, Glamorgan, grew up in Reading, Berkshire. He held a number of ministerial posts at the Home Office when May was Home Secretary. Now he is being described as Theresa May’s “Willie” – a reference to Margaret Thatcher’s long-serving deputy Willie Whitelaw. His fortunes are certainly tied to May’s and are equally fragile: should she topple, he will probably fall, too.

2. Baroness (Sheila) Hollins

Psychiatrist of disability; adviser to Pope Francis on safeguarding
Baroness Hollins is a crossbench peer, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a member of Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Her daughter Abigail Witchalls was stabbed and left paralysed in 2005 while out walking with her young son, and her son Nigel has learning difficulties. She has two other children.

Hollins was appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2014. Talking to commissioners off the cuff about the abuse of children by Catholic priests, Pope Francis admitted, “The Church became aware of this too late.” Hollins said afterwards: “I believe the Pope gets it.”

She is the creator of the pioneering “Books Beyond Words” series for those with learning disabilities. One book in the series is co-authored by Nigel Hollins and his friend Hugh Grant. “All our books involve input from people with a learning disability, and Hugh and Nigel were a great team,” Hollins told The Guardian earlier this year.

She is also Professor Emeritus of the Psychiatry of Learning Disability at St George’s, University of London, and Honorary Professor of Spirituality, Theology and Health, University of Durham.

3. Andy Burnham

Mayor of Greater Manchester
Burnham now has far more clout than he had as shadow home secretary. He has powers over housing, planning, transport, policing and fire services. He has vowed to end rough sleeping in Manchester by 2020 and promises a crackdown on private landlords with a cap on rents. He has said the Church’s social teaching is “powerful and strong and right”.

Burnham was born in 1970 in Liverpool, the middle son of a telephone engineer father and GP receptionist mother. He was elected MP for Leigh, Greater Manchester, in 2001 and served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Culture Secretary and Health Secretary under Gordon Brown. He stood for the Labour leadership in 2010 and in 2015.

Burnham says he drifted away from the Church under Benedict XVI, partly because of Catholic teaching on sexuality but also because he found the Pope’s talk of a smaller, purer Church “terrifying”. He is an admirer of Pope Francis, whom he has described as warm and humble. He has sent his children to Catholic schools because he says he still believes in the values and grounding given by a Catholic education. His elder brother, Nick Burnham, is the principal of Cardinal Newman College in Preston, one of the highest-ranked sixth-form colleges in the United Kingdom.

Burnham and his Dutch-born wife, Marie-France van Heel, have three children. He is an avid supporter of Leigh Rugby League Club and Everton FC.

4. Sue Gray

Director general, Propriety and Ethics Team, Cabinet Office
Only the keenest political observers know of Sue Gray’s existence but she is one of the most powerful players in Westminster. Her role is to ensure that officials, ministers and those around them play by the rules. She will, for instance, scrutinise political memoirs and wield a red pen if necessary.

Gray operates with the utmost discretion, rarely committing delicate matters to paper or email. The former Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin is on record as saying that she is more powerful than the Prime Minister and that “nothing moves in Whitehall unless Sue says so”.

In the 1980s, Gray took a career break to run a pub – the Cove Bar, near Newry – with her husband. She lives in Essex and is active in her home diocese of Brentwood.

5. Mark Carney

Governor of the Bank of England
The UK is looking to the Canadian more than ever as he is tasked with weathering the storms caused by Brexit. Mark Carney frequently invokes the common good and has talked about the importance of building an economy that works for all. He will hold the top job at the Bank until June 2019 and may choose a more lucrative post after that, though friends insist he is dedicated to public service. Some even speak of him as a future Prime Minister of Canada. Carney was educated by the Jesuits at St Francis Xavier High School in Edmonton, Alberta, and then studied at Harvard and Oxford before embarking on a career in finance. Married with four daughters, he lives in north London.

6. Tony Gallagher

Editor-in-chief, The Sun
The editor of Britain’s bestselling newspaper has been described as “ferocious” and “the journalists’ journalist”.

Tony Gallagher joined The Sun in 2015; he was editor of The Daily Telegraph from 2009 to 2014 and is the first journalist to have edited both a broadsheet newspaper and a tabloid.

As deputy editor at the Telegraph, he had the scoop of the decade when he led the exposure of MPs who had fiddled their expenses. After being ejected from the editor’s chair in 2014 he took a job as a kitchen porter at Moro, a fashionable restaurant.

Gallagher was educated at Finchley Catholic High and is a practising Catholic. He is married with three children and supports West Ham United. “I blame my father for West Ham,” he told a football fanzine in 2010. “He worked in the East End so it became my club of choice. Now that I have children, I have passed the affliction to them, using the Jesuit principle of indoctrinating them young.”

7. Jacob Rees-Mogg

Conservative MP for Somerset North-East
Old-Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg is a poster boy for his party’s most fervent Eurosceptics.

At the height of “Moggmania” this summer, he was spoken of as a possible challenger to Theresa May, though his opposition to gay marriage and condemnation of abortion – even for victims of rape – has dampened down some of the excitement. Asked by The Financial Times if he would try to impose his views on abortion on others, he said he would not, adding, “I’m not seeking to re-create Iran in the United Kingdom.”

Rees-Mogg is ambitious and has a ruthless streak as well as courage and self-deprecating wit. Accosted at the Conservative Party Conference and told to “f*** off and die” he replied politely: “And if I do, will you please pray for my immortal soul?” He married Helena de Chair, an Anglican, at Canterbury Cathedral in 2007 in a service that included a Tridentine Mass. The couple’s sixth child, Septimus, was born in July.

8. Frances O’Grady

General Secretary, Trades Union Congress 
Frances O’Grady has spoken of the influence of her Catholic upbringing in forming her view about the dignity of work. Growing up, she met “very good priests who were clearly left-wingers” as well as nuns from whom she learned about the injustices of apartheid in South Africa.

She believes strongly that organised religion should make common cause with the trade union movement. In 2013 she tackled Cardinal Vincent Nichols on the subject: “We were taught it was a Catholic duty to join a union, but you don’t hear that said very often nowadays. Maybe we should hear it a bit more.”

O’Grady, one of five children, was born in 1959 in Oxford to Irish Catholic parents. Her father was a shop steward at British Leyland’s Cowley plant. She joined the Labour Party aged 15 and did a range of jobs in retail and the voluntary sector before becoming a full-time union official. She became general secretary of the TUC in 2013, the first woman ever to hold the post. The mother of two adult children, she lives in north London.

9. Antonio Conte

Manager, Chelsea Football Club
Antonio Conte, who took Chelsea to the Premier League title last season, says he prays before every match and took his players to meet the Pope when he was manager of Juventus. He was born in Lecce in southern Italy, and his ambition and work ethic were apparent in his childhood as an altar server. He told The Sun he liked to organise the other servers and was always angling for the priest to choose him to carry the big candles at Mass. He also spoke of the importance of forgiveness as a football manager, though he stressed that a player in the wrong must first “understand the error of their ways”.

A combative midfield player, Conte picked up five Serie A titles and a Champions League trophy with Juventus. In 2011, enmeshed in a match-fixing scandal, Juve appointed him as their coach. He went on to lead them to three consecutive Serie A titles, before taking charge of the Italian national side, steering them to the European Championship quarter-finals in 2016. Aged 48, he is married with a daughter.

10. Ruth Hunt

Chief executive of Stonewall
Ruth Hunt has led Europe’s biggest LGBT rights organisation since 2014. She credits two teachers at her Catholic schools, Christ the King in Cardiff and St Cyres in Penarth, South Glamorgan, for showing her acceptance and understanding as a lesbian, for strengthening her Catholic faith and for helping her believe she was Oxford material.

Hunt has said she found it harder to come out as a Catholic than as a lesbian. Yet at Stonewall she has sought to build bridges with the Church. A regular Mass-goer, she told The Tablet she is bemused by those Catholics who insist there is no space in the Church for lesbian and gay people. Born in Cardiff in 1980, she studied English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and was elected president of the Oxford Student Union. She joined Stonewall in 2005 as a senior policy officer. As chief executive, she has tackled homophobic bullying in school and is spearheading a campaign for trans equality.

11. Jane Livesey CJ

General Superior of the Congregation of Jesus
From her base in Rome, Sr Jane Livesey leads a congregation of almost 2,000 sisters in 23 countries. The education of young women and girls is a key ministry of the order founded in 1609 by Yorkshirewoman Mary Ward on the model of the Society of Jesus.

Bolton-born, she is one of four children of an accountant and a headteacher. Her brother Tim Livesey was appointed chief executive of the Christian charity Embrace the Middle East this summer.

Having started university to read law, Livesey gave it up after a year to enter the Congregation of Jesus in 1974. She was headmistress of St Mary’s, Shaftesbury between 1985 and 1998, and Provincial of the English Province from 2003 before her election as General Superior in 2001.

She can be outspoken about the shortcomings of the Church, which she says she “loves, but sometimes drives me mad”.

12. Sir James MacMillan

Composer
Sir James is an internationally renowned classical composer and conductor. His musical language is richly textured with influences from his Catholic faith, Scottish folk music and his social conscience. He once described the high point of his career as a composer: “Writing a piece for the unveiling of a statue of the founder of Celtic FC. My heart filled with pride.”

In 2014 MacMillan founded an annual music festival, the Cumnock Tryst, which takes place in his native Ayrshire and brings some of the world’s greatest musicians into local venues, churches and halls.

13. Gabriele Finaldi

Director, National Gallery
One of eight children and a father of six, Gabriele Finaldi joined the National Gallery from the Prado Museum in Madrid, where he was deputy director. He was born in Barnet in 1965 and brought up in Catford by an Italian father and half-Polish mother. He was educated at Dulwich College and the Courtauld Institute of Art, playing keyboard in a jazz band to help support himself.

14. Baroness (Patricia) Scotland QC

Commonwealth Secretary General
Winning the top job at the Common­wealth is the latest in a string of firsts for Patricia Scotland. She was the first black female QC, the first woman to serve as Attorney General and the first woman to be appointed a deputy High Court judge. Controversy has never been far away. When Attorney General in 2009, she was fined £5,000 for employing an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper. More recently she has refuted claims of lavish spending on her official residence in Mayfair.

Scotland was born in Dominica in 1955, the tenth of 12 children. She obtained a London University law degree and never looked back. Tony Blair gave her a peerage in 1997 and she went on to serve as a Labour minister in the Foreign Office, Home Office and Lord Chancellor’s Department. She is the joint Patron of Missio, the Church’s official support organisation for overseas mission.

15. John Studzinski

Financier and philanthropist
The vice-chairman of Blackstone, a global investment company, John Studzinski has been a major donor to a range of charitable causes centred on human rights, the arts and homelessness. However, “Studs” is not happy just to write out cheques. At The Passage, the homeless centre established by his friend and mentor Cardinal Basil Hume, he often turns up to help serve meals.

His faith was forged in the Polish community of Peabody, Massachusetts, north-east of Boston. His home in Chelsea, London, has a private chapel with candlesticks that used to belong to St Ignatius of Loyola. In 2016 he was appointed a non-executive director of the Home Office, advising the department on business plans, recruitment and succession planning. A vice-chair of Human Rights Watch, he recently chaired a Business Against Slavery summit with Home Secretary Amber Rudd and business leaders.

16. Ciaran Martin and Paddy McGuinness

Cyber security chiefs
The chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, Ciaran Martin is aware of the irony that as a Northern Irish Catholic not so long ago he would not have been allowed inside GCHQ, of which the NCSC is an important part.

He is tasked with defending government, business and the public from the threats posed, as he puts it, “by the simple fact that the whole world is getting more digital”.

As deputy national security adviser, Ampleforth-educated Paddy McGuinness advises the Prime Minister on counter-terrorism, cyber security and intelligence policy.

17. Dame Colette Bowe

Chairman of the Banking Standards Board
Experience as a civil servant, consumer champion and senior economist have made Colette Bowe the perfect fit to run the body charged with promoting high standards in the banking industry. Bowe is a cradle Catholic from Liverpool who says the nuns at her convent school were tough, resourceful and fantastic role models. She is chairman of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and serves on the boards of the UK Statistics Authority and the Nuffield Foundation.

18. Louise Richardson

Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford
Louise Richardson was the first woman and the first Catholic to hold the post of Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews.

In 2016 she became the first woman to become Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.

Richardson is an expert on the growth of terrorist movements. She recently blamed a “mendacious media” and “tawdry politicians” for making a link between university tuition fees and the pay of senior academics. She has also ruffled feathers by saying that Oxford’s college system causes duplication and wastes resources.

Richardson grew up in Tramore, one of seven children. She attended St Angela’s Secondary School and the Ursuline Convent, Waterford. She read history at Trinity College, Dublin, then continued her studies at the University of California and Harvard.

19. Tom Tugendhat

Conservative MP for Tonbridge, Edenbridge and Malling
Though only an MP since 2015, Tom Tugendhat is often spoken of as a future leader of the Conservative Party. Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that his fellow Catholic would be a “much better candidate” for Tory leader than him.

It is a measure of how highly he is regarded by his peers that Tugendhat was elected chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He quoted St Thomas More in his maiden speech and wrote at length to Christian constituents who questioned his support for same-sex marriage.

Aged 44, he is the son of a former High Court judge, Sir Michael Tugendhat, and nephew of the former MP and European Commissioner Christopher Tugendhat (now Baron Tugendhat). He grew up in Sellindge, near Ashford, and London, attending St Paul’s School. He studied theology at Bristol University where he worked at a homeless shelter in the impoverished area of St Paul’s. He went on to do a Masters in Islamic Studies at Cambridge and learned Arabic in Yemen. He and his wife, Anissia, have two children.

20. Baroness (Nuala) O’Loan

Crossbench peer
The former Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman was a tireless investigator into police corruption during the Troubles. She is part of an independent panel monitoring the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s investigations into Ulster Volunteer Force murders. She recently criticised Americans who say they are pro-life but who oppose gun controls.

21. Paul Polman

Chief executive, Unilever
The leader of one of the world’s largest consumer companies, Paul Polman was born into a Dutch Catholic family. He considered becoming a doctor or a priest before joining Procter & Gamble in the US.

At the Anglo-Dutch Unilever he wanted to do “what is right for the company but also what is right for society”. Under him the company has, according to The Economist, become the “poster child for sustainability”.

22. Sarah Teather

Director, Jesuit Refugee Service
A Lib Dem minister in the coalition government, Sarah Teather became director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in 2016. Human rights issues were a thread through her time as Children’s Minister (2010-2012) and MP for Brent East and, later, Brent Central. She joined the Catholic Church from the Church of England while a student at Cambridge. She decided to leave Parliament in 2013 after doing the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.

23. Kevin Hyland

Government Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner
Appointed to this new post in November 2014, Kevin Hyland was formerly head of the Metropolitan Police Human Trafficking Unit. He was a key figure in founding the Santa Marta Group, a partnership between the Church, international law-enforcement agencies and civil society.

24. Dame Finola O’Farrell

High Court judge
Finola O’Farrell was appointed to the construction and technology division of the High Court in 2016. She was educated at St Philomena’s Catholic High School for Girls in Carshalton, south London.

25. Prof Sir Leszek Borysiewicz

Chairman, Cancer Research UK and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus, University of Cambridge
Born in Cardiff of Polish refugee parents and known to his friends as “Borys”, Sir Leszek was knighted in 2001 for his research into vaccines. He recently joined the board of

UK Research and Innovation, which oversees all the research councils. He stood down as Cambridge vice-chancellor at the beginning of this month.

26. Fraser Nelson

Journalist
Editor of The Spectator since 2009, Fraser Nelson is one of the most prominent right-leaning commentators of his generation – and an enthusiastic supporter of Boris Johnson’s ambitions to lead the Conservative Party. A Scottish Catholic, he takes a keen interest in church affairs.

His deputy at The Spectator, Freddy Gray, is also a Catholic, as is former editor Charles Moore.


27. Sir Michael Hintze
Hedge-fund manager and philanthropist
Founder and chief executive of CQS, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, Michael Hintze is a major donor to Catholic causes. In 2014 Pope Francis appointed him to the board of the Vatican bank.

28. Sir Tom Devine

Historian
Regarded as Scotland’s leading historian, Tom Devine has emerged as the intellectual heavyweight behind the current wave of Scottish nationalism. He made headlines during

the 2014 referendum by backing independence.

Born in Motherwell and educated at Stirling University, he is director of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies and a senior research professor at Edinburgh University.

29. Anna Rowlands and Judith Wolfe

Theologians
This summer, Anna Rowlands was appointed St Hilda Associate Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Practice in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University and Judith Wolfe became Professor of Philosophical Theology in the School of Divinity at St Andrews University. Rowlands is a political theologian and expert on Catholic social teaching

who has worked on theology and migration for over a decade. Wolfe specialises in the interactions of theology and European philosophy.

30. Tony and Cherie Blair

Former Prime Minister; Barrister

Tony Blair is reviled by many in the Labour Party and beyond for taking the UK to war against Iraq. But he continues stead­fastly to battle for his legacy and the causes he believes in. He is currently fighting a rearguard action to keep Britain in the European Union.

His wife, known profes­sionally as Cherie Booth, is a barrister and lecturer. The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, founded in 2008, provides training and support for female entrepreneurs in the developing world.

31. Urs Ernst Schwarzenbach

Financier and philanthropist
Estimated to be worth in excess of £1bn, Swiss-born Urs Ernst Schwarzenbach made his money from InterExchange, a foreign exchange dealership he set up in 1976. He has donated to many Catholic causes, including refurbishment work at the English College in Rome. In 2016, the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor consecrated a chapel at his home, built in the English classical style.

32. Dame Elish Angiolini

Principal, St Hugh’s College, Oxford
Born to working-class Catholic parents in Glasgow, Elish Angiolini, a barrister, was Lord Advocate, Scotland’s chief legal officer, from 2006 until 2011. She was also the first female Procurator Fiscal and Solicitor General in Scotland. She took up her Oxford post in 2012.

33. Nigel Newton

Chief executive, Bloomsbury Publishing
Born in San Francisco in 1955, Nigel Newton read English at Cambridge before joining Bloomsbury, for which he signed J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series in 1997, now the company’s biggest earner.

He is a member of the lay community of Worth Abbey in West Sussex, and a trustee of the Catholic Trust for England and Wales.

34. Peter Saunders

Anti-abuse campaigner
Peter Saunders is a leading advocate for abuse survivors alongside Irishwoman Marie Collins. The founder of NAPAC (the National Association for People Abused in Childhood), he walked out of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2016, complaining that the Vatican wants only “compliant survivors”. A cradle Catholic, he sees his mission as to “heal” the Church of abuse.

35. Tinie Tempah
Rapper, singer, songwriter
Real name Patrick Chuk­wuemeka Okogwu, Tinie Tempah was born in London in 1988 to Nigerian parents. His middle name means “God has done more” in the Igbo language. He attended St Paul’s Catholic School, Plumstead, and his most recent album, Youth, is his third to make the UK Top 10 charts.

36. Kevin O’Hare and Michael O’Hare

Director, Royal Ballet; senior ballet master, Birmingham Royal Ballet
Both former principal dancers at Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, the O’Hare brothers relocated to Birmingham Royal Ballet, where Michael became ballet master. Kevin was appointed director of the Royal Ballet in 2012. The brothers were born to Irish parents in Hull.

37. Andrew Gower

Dotcom millionaire
The computer game RuneScape has made Andrew Gower a multimillionaire. Growing up in Nottingham, he was fascinated by Tolkien-style fantasy stories and board games. Gower attended the Becket School and studied computer science at Cambridge while working as a barman at the Catholic chaplaincy.

38. Dominic Jermey and Philip Parham
Diplomats

Dominic Jermey was Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan from 2016 to 2017, leading one of the UK’s largest embassy teams. He belongs to the Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes and is a Cafod trustee. Parham is ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

39. Mike Kane Labour MP

The Shadow Schools Minister is the organiser of Catholics for Labour. MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, he says a core aim of the group is to get Catholics to participate in the public sphere. Aged 48, he was born to Irish immigrant parents and worked as a labourer before training as a primary teacher.

40. Francis Campbell

Vice-Chancellor, St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Three years after taking charge of St Mary’s, the former British ambassador to the Holy See continues to make the Catholic university a centre for public debate and academic research.

Born in County Down, Northern Ireland, Campbell spent three years at St Joseph’s Seminary in Belfast. He cut his political teeth in the SDLP in the late 1980s, joined the diplomatic service in 1997 and worked at No.10 from 1999 to 2003, first as policy adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, and then as private secretary.

Campbell is also a member of the advisory panel of the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and a trustee of St Joseph’s Hospice, Hackney, and Forward Thinking, a pro-peace NGO and think tank.

41. Mark McGreevy

Group chief executive, Depaul International
Mark McGreevy is a former seminarian who leads a group of charities that manages more than 80 projects in six countries.

42. Chris Bain

Director, Cafod
Chris Bain has been director of this leading, £51m-turnover charity since July 2003. 

43. Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow

Founder, Mary’s Meals
A family pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Medjugorje in 1983 led to a renewal of faith and the setting up of Mary’s Meals by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow. The charity now serves a billion meals to impoverished children around the world.

44. Miriam González Durántez

LawyerThe Spanish wife of the former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg campaigns for women via her charity, Inspiring Girls International, which connects girls around the world with female role models. The couple recently spoke about the treatment for blood cancer of their eldest son, Antonio, to highlight the need for more research into the condition.

45. Julie Etchingham

Television journalist
A presenter and reporter for ITV’s News at 10, Julie Etchingham chaired the leaders’ debates during the last two general elections and the Brexit referendum. Born in Leicester in 1969 to teacher parents, she was inspired to become a journalist after reporting on World Youth Day in Poland in 1991. She is a patron of Anti-Slavery International and the homeless charity Anchor House, as well as a Cafod ambassador.

46.Baroness (Helena) Kennedy
Human rights lawyer
Born into a working-class, Labour-activist, Catholic family in Glasgow, Helena Kennedy QC sits on the Labour Party benches in the House of Lords. Barrister, broadcaster, campaigner for social justice and women’s equality, she has been principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, since 2011.

47. Lord (Peter) Hennessy

Constitutional historian and journalist
Hennessy, the Attlee Professor of Contemporary British history at Queen Mary, University of London, has worked extensively as a journalist and broadcaster. He was made a peer in 2010.

48. Rachel Billington

Novelist
A leading figure in the Longford Trust, which campaigns for penal reform, Rachel Billington is a regular contributor to Inside Time, the newspaper written for and by prison inmates. Her sister, Lady Antonia Fraser, is the author of histories, novels and biographies, and the widow of Harold Pinter.

49. Peter Frankopan
Historian
Peter Frankopan is a specialist in the Byzantine era whose bestseller The Silk Roads: A New History of the World looks east to find the roots of Western civilisation. Aged 46, a musician and sportsman, he owns a chain of boutique hotels. Educated&

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