AIBU to question Danny Kruger's Oxford background and charity funding?

[LostinLondon2025]

I’m curious about Danny Kruger, previously Conservative, now Reform, and apparently considering re-joining the Tories now that Nigel Farage has been caught out hiding the £5m he was given by a Thai Crypto billionaire to - hmmm - relax reporting rules on Crypto

I gather Danny did his DPhil at Oxford. Unusually, I can find no note of his college anywhere, nor the title of his DPhil, nor who funded it. Does anyone know?

I also have questions about his teaching at the Blavatnik School of Government. I happen to know the stipendiary pay there is unusually low - about £17k-£20k at the time he was there - and it’s therefore not the impressive intellectual flex that a lot of people think it might be. Quite a lot of rich foreign graduates use the Blavatnik for CV points. Was Danny, not foreign, being financially supported by his mother, the famous Bake Off host Prue Leith, during this time?

Who donated to Danny’s White City estate charity? Anyone who lives in Shepherd’s Bush will tell you he’s not a popular man and nor is his wife. Would you not expect those local people that they helped to be full of praise and gratitude?

I’m not a journalist, but my spidey senses are tingling here.

What misandrist insults have MPs been subjected to?

Exactly, they should all be subjected to scrutiny. People need to know who and what they're voting for.

It seems that Danny Kruger's qualifications are probably real, so the OP's particular concerns can perhaps be set aside. That doesn't change the fact that he has obnoxious views, of course.

I don't know if the stories are true about him wanting to defect back to the Tories. It wouldn't surprise me but I can't imagine Badenoch wanting to have him back!

We definitely need much more scrutiny on Farage in particular and Reform in general. I know some people won't care what comes out because they like the racist rhetoric and don't give a toss about corruption. But the reality of Farage and Reform need to be exposed.

I’m not a leftie, as it happens. I’m probably a small ‘c’ Tory who got the hump when Rishi was ousted.

My friends and I are indulging in speculation because Danny Kruger lives in our neighbourhood, has a few major things in common with us, yet is somehow completely unknown to us and holds views that are totally abhorrent to us, and he might yet be Prime Minister if he is chosen by Reform to replace Nigel.

I want to know who or what has given rise to his misogyny and Christian extremism, and who is bankrolling his rise and rise. Once upon a time he was living on a local council estate with three kids despite millionaire parents, and now he lives in a £2m house with another in his constituency.

Things just don’t make sense, which is why my friends and I are idling away a hot bank holiday Googling in the garden.

(Pandora Delevingne was our other local celebrity. Cheeky moo did up her house to the nines, never lived in it, then fucked off to somewhere far more bougie).

I think he knows full well that he won't be re-elected in his current seat as a Reform candidate. East Wiltshire is Tory through and through with, if anything, a slant towards the central/LibDem end of the spectrum.

Which of his views are abhorrent?

On a hot day you're googling Danny Kruger! I'm sure he would be honoured.

@Holdinguphalfthesky If they are derided with unkind or piss taking names, which they are - Farage and Trump receiving the worst abuse -why is that different for female MPs? I remember Suella Braverman being called some vile names on here. This isn't about misogyny it's about whose party respective politicians represent, whis is while Rachel from accounts is more insulting than her in party not pushing for its first female leader.

He’s an odd fish. When you look at his politics he just seems to shift according to whatever will get him elected.

The only thing he seems to be consistent about is that women do not have bodily autonomy in matters of abortion and he seems to dislike the 1960s because of the social freedoms that stemmed from that time. He is a throwback.

The belief in women’s lack of bodily autonomy is one of the reasons I find his politics so chilling, @ByGraptharsHammer . I find it hard to believe that Nigel Farage (a man who recently addressed National Treasure Michal Hussain as “love” in a professional altercation) thought long and hard about his beliefs in this matter before Danny came along. Or worse, the US Christian fundamentalists who may have underwritten their trajectory.

US Christian Evangelist involvement in politics is something that we can’t really see yet in the UK. In the US it is huge - Trump does prayers in the mornings and gets the entire evangelical vote which is massive.

The UK has never replaced Victorian style Christian morality since we effectively scrapped it in the 1960s. Kruger wants something like that, I think. But we aren’t that religious any more!

What's this Guardian article that people are on about?

I've had a look and I found a few, but I can't find anything that looks alarming

Talk to me about the “misandristic” language male politicians are subjected to?

His views are odd considering his mother's past personal life.

He was brought up in an atheist household but seems to have converted to a fairly conservative version of Christianity when he met his wife.

He’s a devout Christian. He’s pro-life. There are plenty of people who share his views.

I don’t know anything about his living arrangements but I do know that there are evangelical Christians who want to witness to the inner cities and therefore live in areas that you wouldn’t expect them to.

But as he’s defected from one party to another and hasn’t had the decency to trigger a by-election, I don’t think you have too much to worry about OP. He’ll be out at the next election.

He's mates with Miriam Cates as well, another evangelical Christian.

What an odd thing to be doing on a bank holiday. Don't ye have hobbies?

He isnt anything to do with my constituency obvs but why would Prue Leith fans need to know she paid for her son's education?

Also are you saying everyone who goes to Oxford has to know everyone?

Based on the list of your contemporaries you mentioned, I wont be in a rush to push my daughter toward Oxford when its time, it sounds like something out of a nightmare.

I know nothing about this man, but I do care very much about women and girls having the right to decide for themselves whether to use contraception and whether to terminate a pregnancy. I am confident that the majority of the UK population, especially the female half, also support this. It would matter a lot to me if it looked as if the result of the next General Election might threaten that.

I also want to be confident that women will go on having protection from sex discrimination - the right to equal pay, maternity leave, maternity pay etc. If the Equality Act is abolished, which I believe Reform have said they want to do, will they replace those protections? I wouldn't bank on it. I also want protection in law to continue for people with disabilities, people from ethnic minorities, freedom of thought/speech/belief, LGB people and most of the other protections in the Equality Act.

Nothing tiresome in being concerned about these things, surely.

"Nothing tiresome in being concerned about these things, surely"

Very worried about these things

but we have to tackle Reform in a political way looking at their policies

Not go digging into individuals in the hope that we can discredit them

He doesn’t exactly chime with Farage who has been divorced multiple times. Pru Leith doesn’t agree with her son’s views either!

Some very right wing people want to order other peoples lives. Kruger is one of those. I don’t think most right wing voters share his views in the UK. They tend to be socially liberal people, in favour of low taxes but less on finger wagging.

He went to Lincoln College, where Rishi Sunak went. That's what I found on his wiki page.

I think that's a fair point. But where exactly should we draw the line? Should we only focus exclusively on policies without any reference at all to the honesty and integrity of those making those policies?

What about where there is a crossover? E.g. Nigel Farage accepting and failing to declare huge "gifts" from cr*pto billionaires when Reform is proposing policies which will massively benefit those same billionaires? Is it not reasonable to want to consider what outside influences might be driving the policies which each political party is proposing?

On this occasion, it seems that the OP's concerns about Kruger's qualifications were probably unfounded, but it isn't unreasonable for the OP to wonder who has been bankrolling his various activities to date. Because politicians' financial arrangements are not always as divorced from their policy positions as we might like them to be.

I think the policies need to be scrutinised and debated, of course. But I do also think that there is a place for scrutinising the people who are making the policies and what might be driving them.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack I would definitely start with policies first

Of course, if you find somebody who has done something wrong, then that should be highlighted like I don't understand why that reform guy who is actually in prison doesn't get more attention or coverage! Why is that?

The sensible line of questioning with Danny Kruger is that he's betrayed his constituents and he's also looking at very questionable policies that I think the vast majority of the country wouldn't want

So sunlight on the policies makes a lot of sense

Hopefully coming up to the election they will get that kind of sunlight because I actually think a lot of people vote without really understanding what they might be getting

I think the guardian tried to publish a really stupid article about Andy Burnham because he has an investment property

He hasn't actually done anything wrong and they weren't trying to imply that he has But for some reason they thought that was the basis of an article!

There's so much stuff that's a problem with our public services and where the hell all the money is going for a rich country, you'd think they'd have plenty of actual stuff to dig into

After I answered the question, which I just did out of idle curiosity cause I couldn't sleep, I did worry that I'd answered some trouble making journalist

But yeah, lots of things that journalists could be doing lots of worrying things in politics right now

But three years till the next election, hopefully that gives us time for things to be a bit less mad

Well, I certainly don't disagree with putting more scrutiny on the policies. That should happen. But I personally think there is a place for scrutiny of the individuals as well.

As for the former Welsh leader of Reform who was sent to prison for taking Russian bribes in exchange for making statements in the European parliament, I'm frankly amazed that there hasn't been more media attention on this.

"Never heard of this guy" - this thread isn't for you then, love, is it x