Peter Oborne
Every government has its
favourite think tank.
These sometimes shadowy and poorly-defined organisations provide the intellectual muscle and policy guidance which all prime ministers need. Maggie Thatcher favoured the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, while Tony Blair drew on Demos and the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Policy Exchange has long been David Cameron’s favourite. This organisation has helped to generate some daring ideas, particularly in the field of Whitehall reform.
Its recent chairmen include my colleague Charles Moore (accurately described in July by the writer Ed West as “the spiritual leader of Britain’s 15 million conservatives”) and Lord Finkelstein, the Times Columnist whose writings have a habit of reflecting government thinking with uncanny accuracy.
Now comes the news Policy Exchange has got a new chairman, in the shape of David Frum.
I once spent a day with David Frum in Beirut. We went, in the pouring rain, to the Roman ruins in Baalbek. He was a highly intelligent man and good company, though very dogmatic.
In Beirut he created the strong impression that he had come to the Lebanon to broadcast his own firmly-held opinions, rather than find out what was really happening on the ground.
Obviously we disagreed about almost everything.
Mr Frum is a Republican Party supporter and former speech writer to George W Bush. He was responsible for the notorious phrase in the president's 2002 State of the Union address: “axis of evil”.
This was the speech which set the United States off on its disastrous path of invasion and conquest whose consequences are still being felt today.
These sometimes shadowy and poorly-defined organisations provide the intellectual muscle and policy guidance which all prime ministers need. Maggie Thatcher favoured the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, while Tony Blair drew on Demos and the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Policy Exchange has long been David Cameron’s favourite. This organisation has helped to generate some daring ideas, particularly in the field of Whitehall reform.
Its recent chairmen include my colleague Charles Moore (accurately described in July by the writer Ed West as “the spiritual leader of Britain’s 15 million conservatives”) and Lord Finkelstein, the Times Columnist whose writings have a habit of reflecting government thinking with uncanny accuracy.
Now comes the news Policy Exchange has got a new chairman, in the shape of David Frum.
I once spent a day with David Frum in Beirut. We went, in the pouring rain, to the Roman ruins in Baalbek. He was a highly intelligent man and good company, though very dogmatic.
In Beirut he created the strong impression that he had come to the Lebanon to broadcast his own firmly-held opinions, rather than find out what was really happening on the ground.
Obviously we disagreed about almost everything.
Mr Frum is a Republican Party supporter and former speech writer to George W Bush. He was responsible for the notorious phrase in the president's 2002 State of the Union address: “axis of evil”.
This was the speech which set the United States off on its disastrous path of invasion and conquest whose consequences are still being felt today.
This brings me back to David
Cameron.
Isn’t it fascinating that the Prime Minister’s favourite think tank should have hired as its new chairman one of the most powerful propagandists for George W Bush’s disastrous war on terror?
Isn’t it fascinating that the Prime Minister’s favourite think tank should have hired as its new chairman one of the most powerful propagandists for George W Bush’s disastrous war on terror?
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