Barbara Nancy Hosking, CBE, FRSA, FRTS (4 November 1926 – 21 March 2021) was a British broadcaster and civil servant.
[3][4] Hosking began her career in broadcasting as a local correspondent for the BBC and the Western Morning News between 1945 and 1947.
She then worked in the Broadcasting Section of Labour Party until 1965 and then in press officer posts in the Civil Service until 1977,[2] during which time she served as an aide to the Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, the latter of whom she befriended.
[2] Outside of her working life, she was briefly a Labour member of Islington Borough Council (1962–64), President of the Media Society (1987–8) and a trustee of the Charities Aid Foundation, the 300 Group and the National Literacy Trust.
[2] Hosking spoke out about elitism in British society and government; in a 2017 interview with The New Statesman, she argued that "We are still much too class-ridden".