John Witherow was born in South Africa and was brought up here and in Australia. He started in journalism with the BBC in Namibia when he was 19 and  later  continued his career with Reuters in London and Madrid. He then joined The Times, where he was the paper's correspondent in the Falklands War. From there he went to The Sunday Times,  Britain's biggest selling quality newspaper. He became Editor in 1995. Under his editorship the paper has led the way in advocating reform of Parliament. It exposed the cash for questions scandal in the 1990s and more recently cash for honours (leading to the Prime Minister being questioned by the police) and cash for amendments in the House of Lords.