Charles Leadbetter

Charles Leadbeater describes himself as an "authority on innovation and creativity" He is currently;

Senior Research Associate at the think tank Demos

Visiting senior fellow at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts

Partner in Participle

He also advises a number of organisations on innovation including BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, Ericsson, and Channel Four Television

He experience includes:

Senior Advisor to Tony Blair at the 10 Downing Street Policy Office

Special Advisor to the European Commission

Advisor to the government of Shanghai

Advisor to the Department of Education for personalized approaches to learning

He also worked as a journalist for the Financial Times and the Independent as well as contributing to Marxism Today during the 80s

Books

Living on Thin Air

Up the Down Escalator

In Search of Work

Background

In his book up the down escalator Charles Leadbeater argues that a major problem facing society is chronic pessimism. This he claims stops up from embracing the benefits of globalization and modern technology and that the negativity of the anti globalisers such as Naomi Klein are creating a self fulfilling prophesy. His solution to this is to embrace the changes of globalization. Creating a “personalised society” where every individual has control over the services they access. He ignores that not every body will have the same opportunities to access these services and that some of the problems of globalization will wish them away.

The influence of his ideas is strong Tony Blair whose was advised by leadbeater and was defiantly an optimist took to calling people who disagreed with him about his public sector reforms pessimists. Leadbeater influence can also be seen in other Demos projects such as the Scotland 2020 project