Congratulations to Neil O’Brien, currently running Open Europe, for being appointed the new Director of Policy Exchange.
Neil replaces Anthony Browne, who is off to work for Boris Johnson.
It’s a great appointment. Neil brings considerable intellectual and communication skills to the job. (And, by way of an aside, as a child of Huddersfield he will be northern-friendly!).
PX is in a strong position – financially and staff-wise. It recently appointed, for example, the very able James Bethell as Head of Communications, for example. Its challenge is to retain strong links with the party but to be more independent-of-mind, particularly on economic policy. The decline of the IEA has left the Conservative Party without adequate input on competitiveness issues. As a centre right think tank, the plight of the UK economy should be at the top of Neil’s in-tray.