Harry’s Place

he’s written his own bio:

http://www.richard-reeves.com/about.asp

“Richard is an essayist for the New Statesman magazine and editor-at-large and columnist for Management Today, for which he writes a monthly column. He is also a regular contributor to The Guardian, Observer and Prospect magazine as well as a range of national radio and television programmes. In 2005, he was a presenter of the four-part BBC2 series, Making Slough Happy.

In 2006, Richard was selected by The Guardian as a ‘Thinker to Watch’ and was featured in the paper’s regular ‘Ideas Interview’. He is also a former Columnist of the Year and Young Financial Journalist of the Year. Richard is the author of Happy Mondays – putting the pleasure back into work (2001) nominated as a Sunday Times business book of the week and described by Theodore Zeldin as a ‘wonderful book - optimistic, wise and thoughtful.’ Other publications include CoCo Companies - Work, Happiness and Employee Ownership (2007), Papering over the Cracks, Rules, Regulation and Real Trust (2006, with Edward Smith), ‘Good work and professional work’ in Production Values (2006, with John Knell), and The Politics of Happiness (2003).

Current European Business Speaker of the Year, Richard speaks to commercial audiences on a range of topics, including happy business, leadership, employee engagement, working time, gender equality and the future of work. Richard also works with John Knell in an intellectual joint venture, Intelligence Agency, for a range of corporate and public sector clients.

Richard is a former Director of Futures at The Work Foundation, Society Editor of The Observer, principal policy adviser to the Minister for Welfare Reform, Economics Correspondent and Washington Correspondent of The Guardian, research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, one of the UK’s premier think-tanks, and a postgraduate researcher at the University of London.”

and

“Richard Reeves is one of the fastest-rising stars on the speaking circuit. He energises, provokes, amuses - as well as delivering genuine leading-edge thinking on the key business issues of the day. Richard’s varied background, spanning senior executive positions, central government, top-rank journalism and academia, gives his presentations a unique blend of experience and breadth of vision. He consistently hits the highest marks for both content and delivery: a rare double.

The Guardian dubs him ‘Britain’s leading expert on workplace trends’. The Daily Telegraph worries that his ideas are ‘utopian’. Those who hear him say they’ve had a ‘wake-up call’. He is my audiences as ‘inspiring’, ‘highly entertaining’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘fascinating’. Richard is certainly challenging. He is provocative. He is thoughtful. But he’s never dull. ”

http://www.sfb.co.uk/speakers/richard_reeves/longbio

Been reading his John Stuart Mill book - may I also recommend the Shorter Stuart.

think-tank focused

or perhaps it a:-

A Fucked Honk Stint

A Knock Shifted Nut

Think Aced Of Stunk

So this chap writes for the New Statesman, The Guardian and The Observer. Might as well give the car keys to Osama now then, eh?

Goodness me, that was quick.

Does Demos not go in for all that tedious equal opportunity stuff, where they advertise jobs, seek out references, check credentials and interview a range of candidates? Will the Guardian write an editorial taking Demos (which is after all funded substantially by us taxpayers) to task for carelessness and incompetence in its recruitment procedures?

Oh, and could you do something about the right wing racist using the fake Islamic name and posting anti-semitic slurs about Jack Straw. Giving a fake Hebrew/Ashkenazi name is a typical ploy of the BNP and its fellow sewer rats, not the Islamists.

Had the Board of Trustees made a habit of hanging around on Wednesdays with a ready made appointments panel agenda in hand, in case the post of Director came up for appointment yet again? Or has Catherine Fieschi led us up the garden path, and been simply working out her notice for the last two months or something?

This is a step in the right direction for Demos. I’ve attended a few things that Reeves has presented for the Work Foundation, and found them compelling. He certainly “energised, provoked and amused”, but he had some good ideas too. Also, unlike several former members of the Demos team, he’s not up his own arse (although the gushing website bio tends to suggest otherwise, he really isn’t!)

Yehudith, if I were a right-wing racist anti-Semite, I’d post right-wing racist anti-Semitic drivel for you to lap and smear others with.

If I were really a blathering, frothing right-wing anti-Semite then that would make me self-loathing. I do not, and never have loathed myself.

The fact that your namesake, Judith, married Esau, a Baal worshipper who sold his birthright should give you cause to reflect. Esau’s descendants eventually sporned Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah. Given that the Qur’an and the collection of traditions known as Ahadith contain literally thousands of anti-Semitic rants and bigoted stories about Jews, I find your i’sm sir of choice, Judith, rather revealing.

You seem to know an awful lot about the BNP and the way that, like a slithering amorphous multicellular polytentacled mass, it employs as you call them ‘Hebrew/Ashkenazi’ names to baffle and confound. Again, if I were a Jew, I would be unlikely to recognise your description of a ‘Hebrew/Ashkenazi’ name.

Your use of the noun phrase ‘Islamic name’ clearly demonstrates that you wouldn’t know ‘one’ if it jumped up and shouted ‘Shibboleth’ at you. What is an Islamic name?

My trusted colleague, Imam al-Huthi, resents your accusation of anti-Semitism. If you knew him better, then you would be all the more supportive of his campaign for equality for British Zaydiyyah. You can find out more by popping along to his inaugural anti-occultation event, next Thursday at the Island theatre, Eastern Ave., Ilford. It’s sure to be a great day out.

Meanwhile, may I suggest that you refrain from worshipping Baal in the meantime. Sacrificing babies to 80ft owl effigies will not gain you any kudos with ‘I am’. I’ll be speaking to Him later, but for now I can guess that He’s rather disappointed with you. You can’t form a loving relationship based on false worship. Just give him a call later, it’s easy: freephone 0800 BLESSED BE HIS NAME.

I’ll pray for you.

Imagine my name were Rangdale Sinjun Platypus and I were the Home Secretary. In a new posting on a blog, a fellow by the name of Alfred Smugworth Platypus is mentioned as the Chairman of the board of trustees for a well known policy institute. Would an interested party be within his rights to appeal to other interested parties to confirm whether aforesaid Mr Platypus is a relative of the Home Secretary?

I rather like Harry’s Place, and my privileged anonymity. If I choose to use a plethora of psedonyma for admittedly spurious reasons then that’s my eccentricity talking. I’m fully aware of the rather archaic ability of any webmaster to source my IP, subnet and a whole host of other goodies should he so wish…

Shalom

Everyone with a memory knows that Jack and Ed Straw are brothers. My memory goes back to 1972 when Jack was President of the National Union of Students. A demo about student grants was meeting up in Hyde Park. Ed was also on the NUS Executive and had control of the public address system (power!).

A (small) crowd of IMG characters wanted to divert the march to go past the National Coal Board in support of striking miners. The leadership weren’t having any of that, but Ed took half a minute to tell us all what the IMG characters were chanting.

Who is the above charmer? Gilad Atmon? Tony Greenstein?

I thought Richard Reeve was in a US prison for trying to blow up an airliner with his shoes :)

I wonder if Skippy is going to dog Fieschi in any pubic role she takes, the way the cat shadows Galloway. Except Galloway is so brazen he has just shrugged the cat off like water off a duck’s back. (Enough mixed animal metaphors -ed)

pubic role? dog her? mixing more than animal metaphors…

I wonder if the decision to put Reeve into the Directorship is a move to try and ensure that Demos survives in the very likely event of a Tory win at the next election. Reeve’s “promoting happiness” theme is one which has been taken up as one of the planks of David Cameron’s platform (which is actually totally vague in terms of specific legislation).

After all, it looks as if at least half of their funding comes from the DCFS and other government agencies. I find it difficult to imagine a Tory administration agreeing to large grants for a left of centre think tank with a track record of employing kooky Directors keen to get into alliances with Islamists.

Could be a smart move. Not sure it’ll deliver the continued funding, though.

Judy

I am sure you are right as I have been musing over the intended target for the phrase;

‘Demos has a strong brand and a storied history. I am honoured by the chance to be part of its future.”