Toby Young quits another top job

SCANDAL-HIT writer Toby Young yesterday quit a second government-linked role.

The 54-year-old resigned as director of the New Schools Network, which campaigns for free schools, having already been forced off the board of the new universities regulator, the Office for Students.

He had come under fire for articles he had written praising ‘progressive eugenics’. He had also made crude comments on social media about women. In a statement the NSN, which is almost wholly funded by the Government, said Mr Young had decided to step down as media attention concerning his ‘continuing presence at the helm of NSN’ had ‘become a distraction from the vital work it is doing’.

Mr Young, who set up a free school in Hammersmith in 2011, had been in his £90,000-ayear post at the NSN since January 2017.