The journos are taking over in thinktank land,’ notes a hair-raising piece in the August edition of Prospect. With Madeleine Bunting recently ensconced at Demos and Edward Mortimer a strong contender for the empty director’s chair at Chatham House, the possibility of a hack invasion of wonk world is certainly an alarming prospect.
But the trend inevitably begs the question of which other journos might be suitable for a position in the upper echelons of wonkery. With his distrust of central government, the former Times editor and Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins would feel very much at home at the New Local Government Network. And fellow Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee would more-than-ably fill the comfortable slippers currently occupied by Sunder Katwala at the Fabian Society. But who to keep alive the flame of common sense at our curmudgeonly friends Civitas? Step forward the Daily Mail’s very own Melanie Phillips …
Conference season beckons, and thoughts in wonk world inevitably turn to canapŽ selections and the cheaper vintages. But, if the food and drink on offer at this year’s Labour conference fringe fails to satisfy, perhaps the intellectual fare will. Demos is offering a stimulating series of events this year, on subjects ranging from ‘holistic policymaking’ to parenting. And, so our Tory friends don’t miss out, the thinktank will be putting on the same programme of events, but with different speakers, at this year’s Conservative conference as well.
Among the Demos fringes at both conferences is an event entitled Teenage Kicks: Celebrating the Unsung Heroes of Urban Renewal. It aims to challenge ‘the dominant rhetoric that young people have a destructive impact within urban areas.’ Among those tackling the issue on Labour’s side will be minister for the third sector and Progress’ very own vice chair, Ed Miliband. However, according to the Demos website, at the time of writing it had yet to confirm any Conservative speakers for the event. A sign that David Cameron’s instruction to ‘hug a hoodie’ is not going down so well with the rest of his party, perhaps?
Meanwhile, wonk world is reeling from the massive hike in prices associated with this year’s Labour shindig in Manchester. Reports reach us of advertising budgets being slashed, and thinktanks having to cut back on the normal run of receptions, events and exhibitions they are able to put on.
We know the Labour party’s current financial situation is in a less-than-healthy state. But should the costs have to be born quite so heavily by those very thinktanks and non-profit organisations that do so much each year to ensure the conference is a success?
To more cerebral matters, and the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen gave a thought-provoking speech on the politics of identity at the ippr’s inaugural annual lecture in July. Less well received, however, were the opening remarks by the ippr’s director, Nick Pearce. Introducing his guest, Pearce suggested that Sen’s achievements in the field of development economics lived up to the old Marxist mantra, ‘Philosophers have always tried to interpret the world, the point is to change it.’ But the distinguished professor disagreed. ‘That is one of my least favourite quotes from Marx,’ he said. ‘To seek to change the world without interpreting it first is a very dangerous enterprise.’ Pearce grimaced like a politics student who had just been given a 2:2.