Cristina Odone is an Italian-born journalist who came to prominence as a liberal editor of the Catholic Herald. She worked as a reporter with The Times and was a television reviewer for the Daily Telegraph before being brought in as deputy editor of the New Statesman in 1998.
A practising Catholic, she says: "The chattering classes' favourite sport continues to be the baiting of Christians." She has defended religious belief for questioning "some of the nostrums of the 20th century".
Odone has warned against the Italianisation of British politics in which "no matter what their posturing or allegiance, all representatives of the people, once in power, become representatives of their own interests".
In the Erotic Review, she wrote of her "fantasy" - a leopard skin-clad Peter Mandelson on a desert island. She has written two novels: A Perfect Wife, a scathing account of "happy-clappy" Christianity, and The Shrine, set in "the peaceful Italian village of San Lorenzo, where time seems to stand still". In a Good Housekeeping list of the top 100 influential women in the UK, she came 68th, ahead of The Queen and Baroness Thatcher.
