Paul Barker was born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, 24 August 1935, the son of Donald Barker and Marion Barker (née Ashworth). He was educated at Hebden Bridge Grammar School, Calder High School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He married Sally Huddleston in 1960, with whom he had one daughter and three sons.

He learned Russian while doing his National Service with the Intelligence Corps, 1953-5, and, on graduating from Oxford, spent a year as a lecteur at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, 1958-9. He began his career as a journalist at The Times, 1959-64, and then The Economist, 1964-5. He joined New Society briefly as a staff writer, in 1964, returned as deputy editor, in 1965, and became editor, in 1968. He remained as editor of New Society until 1986. Two years later it merged with the New Statesman. He continued his career as a freelance journalist, broadcaster and author. He was Chairman of the Trustees of the Institute of Community Studies and a Senior Research Fellow of its successor body the Young Foundation.

He died on 20 July 2019.

His publications include "The Freedoms of Suburbia" (2009); "Hebden Bridge: A Sense of Belonging" (2012); and two detective novels, "A Crooked Smile" (2013) and "The Dead Don't Die" (2014).