Madeleine Bunting

Madeleine Bunting is an English writer. She was formerly an associate editor and columnist at The Guardian newspaper.

Born in Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, Bunting was educated at Richmond Convent, North Yorkshire, and Brighton, Hove and Sussex VI Form College, followed by Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge, and then Harvard University, where she reads History, and won a Knox postgraduate fellowship to study Politics and teach.

After a period working for Brook Productions (1988–89) Bunting joined The Guardian newspaper, taking up posts as a news reporter, leader writer, religious affairs editor, associate editor and regular columnist.

Bunting was appointed director of the London-based think tank Demos in June 2006 and took up her position at the beginning of September. The following month she resigned, owing to differences with the trustees over the direction of the organisation. Bunting returned to her old position at The Guardian and wrote a history of an area where she grew up. The Plot was published by Granta in 2010.

Madeleine Bunting is known for her advocacy of religious belief from a liberal position and her rejection of atheism, claiming that new atheists' antipathy to religion makes it impossible for them to criticise it effectively.

However, Madeleine Bunting has been very critical of abuse committed within the Catholic Church in Ireland and elsewhere in the world. Bunting believes the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church is irreversibly compromised.

Bunting was formerly married to Patrick Wintour of The Guardian.