Nick Butler
Nick Butler was Group Vice President for Policy and Strategy Development at BP from 2002 to 2006 and is a founder of the British American Project,[1] as well as being well connected in New Labour circles.
According to an article in the New Statesman,[2] Butler first suggested the British American Project in 1982, when he was a Labour Party insider of the old right and a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). Along with many others in the US and Britain who viewed the two countries' 'special relationship' favourably, he had become concerned about the growing tide of anti-American sentiment, particularly within his own party. This was the time of Greenham Common, CND and the battles over US deployment of cruise missiles in Europe. Vietnam and Watergate were fresh in everyone's memory.
The New Statesman article says that Butler's response was to propose a series of conferences, similar in format to the annual get-together of the Anglo-German elite at Konigswinter, developing personal relationships between the participants and broadening understanding. This rapidly gained backing from Chatham House, then from other establishment bodies, such as the Royal United Services Institute and the US embassy in London. But at this stage there seemed little prospect of funding.
The article goes on to say that "it was Sir Charles Villiers, the former chairman of British Steel, who overcame this obstacle by roping in two American anglophile friends of his, Lew van Dusen and Isadore Scott, who were able to secure $460,000 through the Pew Charitable Trusts, the second biggest grant-making body in the US."
Butler joined BP in 1977 after leaving Cambridge where he graduated with an honours degree in economics. He has worked in a series of economics and policy posts in BP since then and served as Group Policy Adviser from 1995 to 2003.
Butler was Chairman of the Young Fabians in 1979 and later treasurer of the Fabian Society. In 1982 he was a "member of the research staff" of the Royal Institute for International Affairs and Chairman of the Streatham Labour Party and the Labour Aid and Development Committee, according to a biographical note in a pamphlet he wrote for the Young Fabians in 1982.[3] He went on to become a speech writer for Neil Kinnock. He was a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party, standing for Lincoln in the 1992 and 1987 general elections.
Butler is co-Chair with Professor Paul Kennedy of the BP Programme at Yale and a member of the Middle East Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves as Chairman of the Centre for European Reform and as secretary of the Franco British Colloque. He has published books and a number of articles on international economic issues. Butler is married with one daughter.[4]
More recently Butler has moved to become the Director of the Centre for Energy Security & Sustainable Development at Cambridge. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Centre for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC (where BAP is based). He is Vice President of the Hay Literary Festival and a former member of the Advisory Committee of the Bar Association of England and Wales. He is also a member of the Faculty of the World Economic Forum.
An article in the Daily Telegraph about Butler's quitting BP in 2006 describes him as “a key conduit between the oil giant and Downing Street”[5]. The article adds that Butler's reputation has become "strained" by “leaks about conflict with BP's chairman, Peter Sutherland” and that he is “close to Jonathan Powell”, Tony Blair's then chief of staff. The Times rumoured that he was "used in a plot to oust a sitting MP" so that Ed Balls, the right-hand man of the then chancellor Gordon Brown, "could be assured of the nomination" for a safe Labour seat in Parliament.[6]
Affiliations
Notes
- ↑ Andy Beckett, "Friends in high places", The Guardian, 6 November 2004, accessed October 2008
- ↑ Duncan Parrish, "Right-wing conspiracy or right-on broker of the special relationship?", 17 May 1999, accessed October 2008. The same article is also available here
- ↑ Nick Butler, "The IMF: Time for Reform", Young Fabian pamphlet, No. 50, January 1982. ISBN 716320509
- ↑ "Nick J. Butler", BT website, accessed October 2008
- ↑ Katherine Griffiths, "Browne aide quits sparking Blair talk", 14 October 2006, accessed October 2008
- ↑ "'Plot' hands safe seat to Brownite", The Times, 6 May 2007, accessed October 2008
