Anthony Browne

Anthony Howe Browne (19 January 1967) is a former Policy Director to the Mayor of London, former director of Policy Exchange and former head of government relations for Morgan Stanley for Europe, Middle East and Africa. In September 2012 he took over the role of chief executive at the British Bankers Association from Angela Knight.

Browne was appointed the UK government's Chair to the Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) in December 2017.

Biography

From 1988-89 Browne worked as a Business analyst for management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton. From 1989-92 he worked in various media jobs, including diarist for the Daily Telegraph's Peterborough column and producer for television production company Uden Associates. From 1992 to 1997 he worked for BBC TV and Radio news, including working on the Money Programme and Business Breakfast. He was promoted to become business reporter, economics reporter and acting economics correspondent for main TV and Radio programmes, including the Today programme, World at One, One O'Clock and Nine O'Clock News.

From 1997 to 2002, Browne worked at the Observer as economics correspondent, deputy business editor, health editor and environment editor. In 2002 he joined The Times as the newspaper's environment editor, Brussels correspondent, and chief political correspondent. During his time at The Times, Browne became embroiled in controversy over his comments on VDare, an anti-immigration US web forum, affiliated to the Center for American Unity.

He holds a degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University. He is married with two children and lives in North London.

In a 2002 Times article he wrote:

The only political party of which I have been a member is Labour, and the danger of giving encouragement to the racist British National Party is a strong reason to stay silent. But what is happening now is so extreme and so damaging, and the determination of pro-immigrationists to suppress debate and smear critics so fearsome, that silence is no longer an option.

He subsequently wrote about the article on VDARE:

It was bubbling around inside my head making me toss and turn in the small hours, and then at 4 A.M. it exploded out in 2,500 words: a cri de coeur about what uncontrolled immigration is doing to Britain, and the almost ruthless determination of the pro-immigrationists to distort facts, smear opponents and stifle debate. Having researched the article for three months for a pamphlet, the facts just poured out of my fingertips.

In a January 2003 VDARE article Browne wrote:

It isn’t every day that the interior minister of a mature western democracy publicly announces that his policies are leading to the collapse of social order and uncontrollable widespread communal violence, things more usually associated with places like Gujarat (and northern Nigeria.)

But last week David Blunkett, Britain’s Home Secretary, warned that society is “like a coiled spring” where the tensions and frustrations could spill over into “the disintegration of community relations and social cohesion,” with such widespread vigilantism that Britain could “tip into a situation we could not control.”

VDARE's James Fulford said of this piece: "This one was actually an article we commissioned and paid for, the links, et cetera, added by me, and with some editing by Peter Brimelow, as usual." The article was also posted at David Horowitz's Frontpagemag.

Browne was also criticised over an August 2005 article which stated:

The support of Islamic fascism spans Britain’s Left. The wacko Socialist Workers Party joined forces with the Muslim Association of Britain, the democracy-despising, Shariah-law-wanting group, to form the Stop the War Coalition. The former Labour MP George Galloway created the Respect Party with the support of the MAB, and won a seat in Parliament by cultivating Muslim resentment.

Browne had been the Times' chief political correspondent for less than a year when he left to join the right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange in 2007. Browne was Director of Policy Exchange for just over a year. According to ConservativeHome's ToryDiary 'During his time at PX there was a doubling of staff numbers but a concern that the think tank became too close to Project Cameron.'

Browne was appointed as Policy Director to the Mayor of London on 21 July 2008. The Guardian remarked: 'Browne's appointment – the fourth from Policy Exchange to get a top job in the Tory party – marks a further high watermark in the influence of Policy Exchange on future Tory policy.'

Mayor of London Gifts and hospitality register (as at 26 March 2010)

Date	Detail	Donor/Provider
07/10/2008	Localis Board Dinner (House of Lords)	Localis
08/10/2008	Anthony leaving do from Policy Exchange	Policy Exchange
13/10/2008	Lunch	Francis Elliot, Deputy Political Editor, The Times
14/10/2008	Gala Dinner	Policy Exchange
15/10/2008	Dinner- Corporation of London for new Chairman of Policy Committee	Sir Michael Snyder
21/10/2008	Lunch	Martin Ivens- Deputy Editor Sunday Times
21/10/2008	Dinner	Lionel Barber- Editor of Financial Times
04/11/2008	Dinner	Lord Birt
02/12/2008	Dinner	Portland PR
08/01/2009	Dinner	City of London Corporation
09/01/2009	Lunch	Evening Standard
21/01/2009	Dinner	Think London
28/01/2009	Transfer from Davos Airport to Apartment, Horlaubenstrasse 2c, 7260 Davos Dorf	Barclays Capital
29/01/2009	Hospitality received at Bombardier Dinner, Davos, Switzerland	Bombardier
28/01/2009	Hospitality received at Barclays Capital Dinner, Davos, Switzerland (in support of Mayoral speaking engagement)	Barclays Capital
30/01/2009	Hositality received at Google reception, Davos, Switzerland	Google
30/01/2009	Hospitality received at Business Leaders Lunch, Hotel Belvedere, Davos, Switzerland	CBI
30/01/2009	Hospitality received at UBS Dinner, Davos	UBS
26/02/2009	Dinner	Finsbury PR
23/02/2009	Business Question Time Dinner	LCCI
09/03/2009	Dinner	The Independent
10/03/2009	Dinner	Assura
16/03/2009	Lunch with Chinese Investors	Think London/Deloitte
18/03/2009	Lunch	Google
24/03/2009	International Trade Dinner provided by London Chamber of Commerce and Industry	London Chamber of Commerce and Industry
01/04/2009	Roundtable dinner with Reform and Oliver Letwin	Dinner sponsored by Ernst and Young
27/04/2009	London First dinner with Conservative MPs	London First
28/04/2009	Lunch with LDA Board Member	Edmund Lazarus
03/06/2009	The London First Economic Development Strategy Consultation Dinner hosted by Macquarie Group	Macquarie Group
16/06/2009	Dinner with David Willets MP and London Skills and Employment Board members, hosted by Prudential plc	Prudential
16/05/2009	Hospitality received from Confederation of British Industry	Confederation of British Industry
04/06/2009	Dinner and debate "After the Banking Crisis" hosted by The Times	The Times
17/06/2009	Dinner with Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress Alderman- hosted by the City of London Corporation	City of London Corporation
25/06/2009	Dinner hosted for all participants at Job Creation and Workforce Development conference in New York	Mayor of New York
10/07/2009	Lunch at Magdalen	Peter Morgan – BT
13/07/2009	Dinner at Marylebone Cricket Club	London Excellence
14/07/2009	Dinner at Hotel Russell	Institute of Education
15/07/2009	Lunch at National Portrait Gallery	Daily Telegraph
05/08/2009	Lunch at Loch Fyne	The Institute for Public Policy Research
11/08/2009	Dinner at Coq D'Argent, No 1 Poultry, London EC2R 8EJ	CitiGroup
12/08/2009	Lunch at Magdalen Restaurant	Sunday Times
04/08/2009	Lunch at Inn the Park	The Times
4-7/09/2009	Delegate package for Worldskills Calgary 2009 (comprising accomodation, pre- booked meals, transfers to the airport and competition site, guided tour of the competition site and pass for the closing ceremony)	Worldskills London 2011
06/09/2009	Cowboy Hat	World skills Calgary
21/09/2009	Lunch at Clifford Chance offices	Stuart Popham- Clifford Chance
05/10/2009	Dinner at the Pacific Restaurant, Manchester during Conservative Party Conference	Institute for Public Policy Research
06/10/2009	Attendance at Conservative Party conference dinner as guest of CH2M Hill	CH2M Hill
07/10/2009	Dinner at Adobe Restaurant, Manchester during the Conservative Party Conference	Reform

Affiliations

• Policy Exchange
• New Culture Forum
• Civitas
• Localis
• BBC
• The Times

External links

• Anthony Browne - Policy Exchange profile

• Arun Kundnani the editor of Race & Class in a (2008) essay " How are thinktanks shaping the political agenda on Muslims in Britain? argues that Policy Exchange, the Social Affairs Unit and the Centre for Social Cohesion are driving the political agenda on Muslims in Britain while think tanks on the left are largely silent on the matter.

There is also a section in the essay which puts forward the idea of a reviving or recasting of the cold war:

What Browne's, Moore's and Gove's comments illustrate is the attempt to justify illberal policies in the name of defending 'liberal' western values against an alien 'totalitarian' threat. This is the paradoxical project that is now the major theme of centre-Right thinking on multiculturalism and the 'war on terror'. Indeed, the debate on multiculturalism has become a part of what many regard as a new 'cultural' cold war to promote a 'moderate' (i.e. pro-western) Islam across the globe - and particularly in Europe. This is a model that has been endorsed by Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has spoken of a new cold war against 'Muslim extremism', fought through the 'soft power' of cultural influence. The role of thinktanks would then not only be to supply political parties with policy suggestions but also to popularise the idea of 'Islamism' as an existential threat to the West that requires a hardline, Cold War-style response. As Dean Godson, a research director at PX who has strong links to well-known Washington neoconservatives, wrote in 2006: 'During the Cold War, organisations such as the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office would assert the superiority of the West over its totalitarian rivals. And magazines such as Encounter did hand-to-hand combat with Soviet fellow travellers. For any kind of truly moderate Islam to flourish, we need first to recapture our own self-confidence.'

It also adds that:

Encounter, of course, was covertly funded by the CIA. But Godson's suggestion has been taken up with the launch of Standpoint magazine, published by another thinktank, the Social Affairs Unit (SAU). Its editor Daniel Johnson explicitly sees Standpoint as a 21st-century version of Encounter, except with Islamism replacing communism as the threat to western civilisation. By uniting around the formula of the 'defence of the liberal West against the Islamists', the magazine has been able to incorporate pro-Iraq war 'liberal' writers, such as Nick Cohen and Julie Burchill, with neoconservatives. Michael Gove serves on the magazine's advisory board, as does Gertrude Himmelfarb (one of Gordon Brown's favourite historians and wife and mother of the leading US neoconservatives Irving and William Kristol).

The references of the essay contain links to some of the debate over other think tanks', such as [Demos] attitude to aspects of the debate:

Martin Bright, 'Hamas at Olympia', New Statesman (10 July 2008). Nick Cohen, 'Demos and IslamExpo', Harry's Place (16 July 2008).

The Social Affairs Unit contains two former members of the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies, Antonio Martino and John O’Sullivan, which had strong ties to both the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Information Research Department and Encounter.