For obvious political reasons, David Cameron had to run a mile from Policy Exchange’s report on northern cities. But as John Rentoul argues in an excellent column in The Independent on Sunday, the report was actually right about certain things:  the striking thing about the Policy Exchange report is that its analysis is broadly correct. It specifically said that Liverpool, Roc...

The right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange has been forced into a humiliating climbdown over its report, ‘The Hijacking of British Islam’, for making allegations in the report that it now admits were unsubstantiated. In late 2007 Policy Exchange published the report, reported in the right-wing press without any further fact-checking, that around a quarter of Mosques and

The right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange has been forced into a humiliating climbdown over its report, 'The Hijacking of British Islam', for making allegations in the report that it now admits were unsubstantiated. In late 2007 Policy Exchange published the report, reported in the right-wing press without any further fact-checking, that around a quarter of Mosques and Muslim centres of t...

If you want a sense of what the next Conservative government will sound like then just have a read of the latest report from Boris Johnson's new Policy Director and Policy Exchange wonk Anthony Browne. The report entitled 'Has there been a decline in values in British society?' (you can guess the answer) is part of the Joseph Roundtree Foundation's 'social evils series', in which think tank wonks...

The Tories and the media have missed the big story about Cities Unlimited, the Policy Exchange report on regional development policies. (You can download a PDF copy of it from the think tank's website.) As James Graham pointed out this morning, the report's lead author Tim Leunig is a Liberal Democrat. Indeed, during my days on the party's federal policy committee he was something o...

Could the media row with the Tories over the ‘Cities Unlimited’ report have been deliberately engineered by the Policy Exchange to help avoid any risk of an investigation by the Charity Commission. The Smith Institute has had a pretty uncomfortable year, partly thanks to Guido, with the Charity Commission breathing down its neck regarding its relationship with the Labour party. The Policy

Press tarnish Tories with Policy Exchange report One cannot help but think that the national and local press are having a bit of fun at the expense of david Cameron and the Conservative Party over the rather daft Policy Exchange report that recommended that we all head for the greener pastures of Oxfordshire. Purely a case

David Cameron today called the latest report from Policy Exchange 'insane'. As well he might. But for the modern Conservative Party, the only thing insane, was to say this stuff out loud. Because for the think tank, the ranks of which make up a large chunk of the new Tory establishment, these views are nothing out of the ordinary. The report which basically suggests that government should concentr...

David Cameron today called the latest report from Policy Exchange 'insane'. As well he might. But for the modern Conservative Party, the only thing insane, was to say this stuff out loud. Because for the think tank, the ranks of which make up a large chunk of the new Tory establishment, these views are nothing out of the ordinary. The report which basically suggests that government should concentr...

The Policy Exchange report on northern cities has thrust the world of think-tanks into the spotlight—I’ll stand a round for any reader who can tell me when the last time the Daily Mirror devoted its lead editorial to a think-tank report was—and there has been a lot of talk about Policy Exchange’s relationship with the Tories but it is worth noting that the think tanks the T...