Ascherson was born in Edinburgh on 5 October 1932,[2] son of a Naval officer of Jewish ancestry and a mother from a London family of Scottish descent; his elder half-sister (by his father's first marriage) was the artist Pamela Ascherson.

[4] Before going to university, he did his National Service as an officer in the Royal Marines, serving from July 1951[5] to September 1952.

[4] The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm was his supervisor at Cambridge and described Ascherson as "perhaps the most brilliant student I ever had.

[2] Instead, he chose a career in journalism, first at The Manchester Guardian and then at The Scotsman (1959–60; 1975–79), The Observer (1960–75; 1979–90) and The Independent on Sunday (1990–98).

Ascherson, like Sillars an enthusiastic supporter of maximalist 'Home Rule', provided much favourable coverage of the new party, but the SLP was riven by internal dissension and was wound up after the 1979 general election.

[8][9] Twenty years later, in the first election for the Scottish Parliament, he stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the West Renfrewshire constituency but was not successful.

Neal Ascherson's first wife was journalist Corinna Adam; the couple first met at Cambridge University and married in 1958.