Background
Rentoul was born in India, where his father was a minister of the Church of South India.
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John Rentoul
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Educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he studied History and English at King"s College, Cambridge and worked on an oil rig before becoming a journalist on Accountancy Age.
Career
Rentoul was a journalist on the New Statesman between January 1983 and May 1988, latterly as Deputy Editor, and a political reporter for British Broadcasting Corporation"s On The Record between 1988 and 1995. He became a political correspondent of The Independent in 1995 and the chief leader writer at The Independent from January 1997 before becoming chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday in 2004. He has described having "slavish admiration" for Tony Blair.
He is also a visiting professor in Contemporary History at Queen Mary, University of London.
His biography of Tony Blair has passed through several editions. Fellow journalist Martin Bright has said Rentoul "remains one of the most incisive political columnists writing today, even though he has lost his access to the highest levels of power".
In 2011, Total Politics said Rentoul "is probably the most high-profile defender of Tony Blair’s record in the British media, in a year when the mere mention of the former Prime Minister’s name provoked boos at the Labour Party conference. Rentoul was critical of Editor Miliband"s leadership of the Labour Party, and regarded Liz Kendall as the best candidate to replace him in the 2015 Labour Party leadership election.
He also maintains a daily blog.
He is related to Sir Gervais Rentoul, the Conservative Member of Parliament who was the founding Chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Politics
His column in The Independent on Sunday has become one of the last bastions of pure, unadulterated Blairism".
