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Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster.
Wheen is the author of several books, including a biography of Karl MarxPaul Foot "Cheers, Mr Revolution", The Guardian, 9 October 1999 which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1999, "Recipients of the Prize 1969 – 2010", Deutscher Memorial Prize website and has been translated into twenty languages. He followed this with a notional "biography" of Das Kapital, which follows the creation and publication of the first volume of Marx's major work as well as other incomplete volumes. Wheen had a newspaper column in The Guardian for several years. He wrote for Private Eye and became the magazine's deputy editor. He retired from Private Eye in October 2022, though he still occasionally contributes.
His collected journalism, Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies, won him the Orwell Prize in 2003. He has also been a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard.
In April 2012, Wheen suffered the loss of his entire book collection, his "life's work", and an unfinished novel, in a garden shed fire.O'Brien, Liam, "Bonfire of the first editions: author loses life's work in garden shed fire", The Independent, 16 April 2012.Jones, Julia, "They Took His Life and Threw it on a Skip", opendemocracy, 12 May 2012.
Wheen wrote a docudrama, The Lavender List, for BBC Four on the final period of Harold Wilson's premiership, concentrating on his relationship with Marcia Williams. First screened in March 2006, it starred Kenneth Cranham as Wilson and Gina McKee as Williams. In April 2007, the BBC paid £75,000 to Williams (then Baroness Falkender) in an out-of-court settlement over claims made in the programme.Tryhorn, Chris, "BBC pays out over Wilson drama", The Guardian, 4 April 2007.
Wheen supported NATO's Kosovo intervention in 1999, signed the Euston Manifesto for a realignment of progressive politics and supported the second Iraq War."...columnists such as Nick Cohen, Francis Wheen and Christopher Hitchens, who argued for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as an act of anti-fascist solidarity with the opposition activists and trade unionists of Iraq." Martin Bright "The Politics Column", New Statesman, 24 April 2006. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
In late 2005, Wheen was the co-author with David Aaronovitch and blogger Oliver Kamm, both contributors to The Times, of a complaint to The Guardian after it published an apology and correction in respect of an interview with Noam Chomsky by Emma Brockes which had been published at the end of October 2005;Brockes, Emma. "The Greatest Intellectual?", The Guardian, 31 October 2005; the article has since been withdrawn from the Guardians website, but it remains available at chomsky.info . Chomsky had complained that the interview was defamatory in suggesting that he denied the 1995 Srebrenica massacre by his defence of a book by Diana Johnstone. The Guardian referred the matter to an external ombudsman, who detailed his reasons for rejecting the three men's argument that the correction was itself wrong. See John Willis "External ombudsman report", The Guardian, 25 May 2006
Wheen was intensely critical of Foreign Office minister Baroness Anelay's failure to condemn the torture of Raif Badawi by the government of Saudi Arabia in 2016. Wheen maintained that Anelay's approach was motivated by her wish to sell arms to the Saudi régime.
In 2014, Wheen waived his right to anonymity in order to speak about being a victim of Charles Napier, one-time treasurer of the defunct Paedophile Information Exchange, after the former teacher was convicted of sexually abusing 23 boys between 1967 and 1983. Wheen described his experience as less serious than that of other victims, and had only become aware of the scale of Napier's activities later.
Wheen was a close friend of the writer Christopher Hitchens.
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