Michael Binyon has been a leader-writer, columnist and foreign correspondent for The Times since 1971. For 15 years he was based overseas, reporting for the paper from Moscow, Washington, Bonn and Brussels before returning to London to be diplomatic editor and then becoming the chief foreign leader-writer in 2000.

After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in English and Arabic, he spent a year teaching English for the British Council in Minsk, USSR, in 1967 and in 1968 began as a reporter on The Times Educational Supplement. He moved to the BBC Arabic Service in 1970 and in 1971 became a founder reporter on The Times Higher Education Supplement.

He speaks French, German, Russian and some Arabic, and is a frequent broadcaster on BBC radio and television, Times Radio, and Monocle24 radio. He has also broadcast on French, German, Russian, Canadian and several Arabic radio and television stations.

A winner of two British journalism prizes, he wrote “Life in Russia” in 1983 and was awarded an OBE in 2000. He was master of the Leathersellers company in 2008-9 and on the board of the Stationers company from 2014-2020. He formally retired from The Times in 2009 but has continued to write regularly for the paper and for other publications.