James Purnell

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James Purnell MP is a well connected zionist and free marketeer. He is a leading member of the new generation of Labour MPs, often referred to as the "Primrose Hill Gang". Other prominent members include Ed Miliband and David Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls and Pat McFadden. Despite being a leading Blairite, Purnell is popular amongst supporters of Gordon Brown too, and his pre-ministerial CV includes a stint as a PPS at the Treasury. He is a Labour Party MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, first being elected at the 2001 general election. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford.

In 2004, in the government changes following the resignation of David Blunkett, he was appointed an Assistant Government Whip. Following the Labour Party's third successive General Election victory in 2005, he was appointed to the position of Minister (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State) for Media and Tourism (covering broadcasting, creative industries, tourism and licensing) in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. In 2006 he was moved to be Minister for Pensions, replacing Stephen Timms. He was the minister in charge of seeing through the legislation that liberalised England and Wales' alcohol licensing laws.

Before entering Parliament, he had for many years worked as a special advisor to Number 10.

The Guardian reports:

Few people outside Westminster would be aware that, despite being only 35, Purnell has been at the heart of the most influential media policy decisions of the past decade. The blueprint for a converged media and telecommunications regulator was set by Purnell in his mid-20s incarnation as research fellow for the Institute for Public Policy Research; the policy foundations for the BBC's leading role in the digital age were laid when he worked for Birt as the BBC's head of corporate planning in the mid 1990s; and the legislation that set up Ofcom, cleared the barriers to a monolithic ITV and paved the way to digital switchover, was a product of his work and that of Ed Richards when they were Downing Street advisers.
Now, mirroring the path from ideas to implementation taken by Richards when he switched from a senior position at No 10 to a senior position at Ofcom, Purnell has completed the transition from thinker to doer. "For me it was wanting to move from an advisory role to doing something," he says of his decision to stand for parliament. [1]

Affiliations

History and links

James Purnell Purnell's progress

James Purnell had a hand in all the key media policy decisions of the past decade. Now the man who thought up Ofcom at 24 has landed a key role in the government. In his first interview he tells Matt Wells how Blair, Birt and Sky+ changed his life

Monday May 23, 2005 The Guardian

James Purnell, minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport James Purnell, minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Photograph: Martin Godwin


If you are a young, energetic MP with ambitions to get a touch on the tiller of power, the offer of a junior post at the ministry of fun might not initially seem like the best starting point. But for James Purnell, former No 10 policy aide, former John Birt strategist, and present occupant of the "one to watch" column in Westminster observers' notebooks, the position of minister for broadcasting at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is but the latest stage in a logical career trajectory.

Article continues Few people outside Westminster would be aware that, despite being only 35, Purnell has been at the heart of the most influential media policy decisions of the past decade. The blueprint for a converged media and telecommunications regulator was set by Purnell in his mid-20s incarnation as research fellow for the Institute for Public Policy Research; the policy foundations for the BBC's leading role in the digital age were laid when he worked for Birt as the BBC's head of corporate planning in the mid 1990s; and the legislation that set up Ofcom, cleared the barriers to a monolithic ITV and paved the way to digital switchover, was a product of his work and that of Ed Richards when they were Downing Street advisers.

Now, mirroring the path from ideas to implementation taken by Richards when he switched from a senior position at No 10 to a senior position at Ofcom, Purnell has completed the transition from thinker to doer. "For me it was wanting to move from an advisory role to doing something," he says of his decision to stand for parliament. "I wanted to be in a situation where I was helping to set the framework, and I believed strongly that what Gordon Brown and Tony Blair had done transforming the Labour party was important, but it was also important that other people came in and took that on so it became an embedded change rather than a passing fashion."

Unlike some previous occupants of junior ministerial posts at the DCMS, Purnell is a man on his way up - and he clearly intends to stamp his mark on the job. In the next few weeks, he will make a keynote speech that will outline his vision for a creative Britain. It is an area with which he is familiar, having sat on the creative industries taskforce set up in 1997 amidst the wave of euphoria that greeted the first post-Thatcher Labour victory - a well-intentioned attempt to capitalise on the creative successes in Britain that ended in Cool Britannia derision when hordes of pop stars were paraded incongruously in Downing Street. "What we did with Cool Britannia in 1997 was the right policy but the wrong message," he says. "It would be good if we could do it again, but without the parties."

Purnell has already made a statement with his job title: unlike his predecessor, Lord McIntosh, who was minister for broadcasting, Purnell's job description has been updated to minister for the creative industries. "They are a massive part of the economy and I think Britain should be confident about that - 10-15% of our economy comes from the creative industries. It's a great success story. The tragedy would be if in 20 or 30 years' time we talk about these areas in the same way we do about shipbuilding or coal mining, areas where we used to be pre-eminent but then got overtaken."

When describing his vision, Purnell talks about "modern Britain" a lot. It is a touchstone New Labour phrase - and Purnell is a quintessentially New Labour figure. More than that, he is a product of that curious world of professional politicians, advisers and lobbyists whose names, careers and even personal relationships can seem interchangeable to the casual observer. He was best man to Tim Allan, another former Blair aide who went on to become director of corporate affairs at BSkyB; he worked on media policy in Downing Street when Richards was working on the 2001 manifesto; he played football with another adviser-turned-MP, Andy Burnham; and was at Oxford at the same time as recently deposed education minister Stephen Twigg and newly-promoted housing minister Yvette Cooper.

The swirl of special advisers, to which he was linked, became synonymous with the dark side of the New Labour machine: the radical website Red Star Research puts the case for the prosecution bluntly. "Several advisers have been friends with senior Labour party figures for many years, others are partners of millionaires or bosses and all come from a self-perpetuating middle-class elite that thrives on patronage, using it to bypass the grubby world of democracy and slip into positions of power and influence."

Purnell bats away the criticism, saying one of the reasons that he moved into elected politics, and away from the shadowy world of strategy and policy advice, was to realise his ambitions to make a difference to people's lives. "Politics is a difficult business. There are skills that you need to do the job - but that doesn't mean I'm not passionate about changing the world, about building a modern social democracy."

At least Purnell can claim not to have bypassed the grubby democratic world. Since 2001 he has been MP for Stalybridge and Hyde - his most famous ex-constituent is Harold Shipman - a solidly safe traditional Labour seat in Greater Manchester.

Which is why, dressed in a crisply expensive suit and a deeply fashionable white shirt and sporting a trendy Make Poverty History wristband, he looks as if he would feel more at home in his smart St Martin's Lane flat than his constituency home in Broadbottom. Naturally, he begs to differ, citing his campaigns for secondary schools in local council estates as his proudest achievements as an MP. Although he retains one important link with the capital: he is an ardent, season ticket-holding Arsenal fan - which, after his team's FA Cup final victory at the weekend, will make the next visit to his constituency somewhat awkward.

Now, however, he is a member of the government, responsible for what is about to become a key area of policy - digital switchover. It is an issue in which Purnell has been immersed for more than a decade, so at least he is aware of the pitfalls. He knows, for example, that at some point policymakers and broadcasters are going to have to deal with the as-yet unknown number of "digital refusniks" - the poor and the elderly who do not want or think they cannot afford digital. But he is also aware that BSkyB, in particular, will vigorously oppose any attempt to subsidise the switchover. "We have to operate within the state aid framework and we are not planning a mass, government-funded distribution of set-top boxes or anything like that."

So, while the government cannot escape the fact that the BBC-backed Freeview system is the best way to fill in the final few, ministers cannot be seen to favour any one platform. "We get hundreds of letters every month from people saying we can't get Freeview, and we are not in favour of any particular platform, we are platform neutral, but we want to be able to offer people a choice there," he says, diplomatically.

Purnell is clearly a digital optimist: he thinks technology like the BBC's digital media player and Sky+ will help viewers and listeners sift out quality from the dross in the digital age. He is a fan of both: using the BBC radio player to listen to Gilles Peterson and Sky+ to navigate his TV viewing. "Sky+ changed my life," he says, somewhat overstating the point.

While Purnell is a fan of Sky technology, his relationship with the BBC is more of an issue, as charter review negotiations reach their final phase. He was vigorously opposed to Greg Dyke's stance on the David Kelly affair, becoming one of Labour's Hutton obsessives. Today, he declines to "pick over the scars" of Hutton, tactfully praising Dyke instead for inspiring his staff and his strategic success in backing Freeview. He is also astute enough not to be drawn on the competency of the current management at the BBC.

On Birt, however, you get the sense that Purnell is torn. On the one hand, he is keen to praise his former boss: "I worked with John Birt for three years and I learned a lot from him. I think people will look back and give him much more credit for what he did at the BBC than they do now. It's easy to forget there were people in the Conservative administration who were dead set on privatising the BBC and he saw that off." But Purnell is conflicted: Birt, now a policy adviser in Downing Street, was on the opposite side of a row with Tessa Jowell, Purnell's boss at the DCMS, over a plan to share out the licence fee for public service television to broadcasters other than the BBC. Jowell won, and Purnell is careful to put clear blue water between him and Birt: "I work for Tessa now, and I work for the government."

Fortunately, Purnell is a big supporter of the licence fee. "It's not perfect - it's a bit like democracy - it's the best system in the absence of any other." He is convinced it can survive into the digital age - perhaps beyond the review that Ofcom will conduct halfway through the next charter, around the point of digital switchover. But he is also clear that the BBC must respond to the demands of its audience - his first public visit as a minister was to the corporation's digital station 1Xtra, aimed at young black listeners; a favourite radio show is Zane Lowe's programme on Radio 1. Lowe is one of the new breed of presenters who have turned around the fortunes of the BBC's pop station.

But press attention so far has not focused on Purnell's musical tastes: the Sunday Telegraph unearthed an article he wrote in 2003 as a backbencher, condemning the proposed London Olympics bid as the "wrong priority" for Britain. It was embarrassing -Purnell counts tourism in his ministerial brief - but he warned Jowell of the article on his appointment, and it would hardly be a surprise if the Labour press machine was behind the placing of the story in an effort to get the bad news out of the way as quickly as possible. (One of the first things he was given along with his ministerial red box was a Back the Bid badge, which has not left his lapel since.)

Ordinarily, it would be tempting to tip Purnell for a cabinet position in the not too distant future - but his Blairite credentials may count against him as the Brown age dawns. Yet you can already detect Purnell positioning himself for a post-Blair world - notice how he mentioned Brown first when talking about the Blair-led changes to the Labour party. "Politically the task for us is to try and win a fourth term - and create the kind of change that becomes very difficult for an opposition coming [to power] to reverse." As the Conservative party prepares to go to war with itself again, Purnell urges unity and clarity of purpose in Labour. "I think it's perfectly possible if we are united and clear about what we want to do, we can win 60 seats back at the next election." Is he seriously suggesting Labour post-Blair can return to power with a landslide? "If you look at places where people thought the Tories might win, the Labour vote came out quite strongly. It's where they thought the Tories weren't anywhere that they registered a protest vote." So has Labour replaced the Tories as the natural party of government? "Never take the electorate for granted." But is it a big change in the political landscape? "It's an earthquake - but politics can change quickly again," he adds.

So it does - and it will be fascinating to see where Purnell ends up when the Blair-Brown fight is finally over.

When James met Liz, Tim and Ed, and they all ended up working for Tony

After spending part of his childhood in France, James Purnell is enrolled at the Royal Grammar in Guildford, Surrey, where he becomes friends with Tim Allan. Also at school in Guildford is Liz Lloyd.

The paths of Tim and James diverge at university: Tim goes to study social and political sciences at Cambridge, while James reads politics, philosophy and economics at Balliol College, Oxford. There, James meets Yvette Cooper, now minister of state for housing; Stephanie Flanders, who went on to work for Bill Clinton and is now Newsnight's economics editor; Christy Swords, now director of regulatory affairs for ITV; and Lucy Walker, now a film-maker, to whom he is engaged.

After university, James and Tim both pitch up in the office of Tony Blair, a rising star in the shadow cabinet. (Liz arrives later, and is now Tony's longest-serving member of staff: she will become deputy chief of staff at No 10 when she returns from maternity leave.) After the 1992 election James goes to work for the media consultants Hydra Associates before becoming a research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research. There, he comes up with the idea (and name) for Ofcom. Appearing on the Today programme opposite Patricia Hodgson, then chief strategist for John Birt at the BBC, James impresses Patricia so much that she hires him.

As head of corporate planning, James works on Extending Choice in the Digital Age, the 1996 strategy paper that sets out John's plan to launch the BBC into the multichannel world. Early work on the plan is done by John's favourite consultants, McKinsey, but the then director general is less than impressed by the result and orders James to cancel his Christmas holidays to knock it into shape. Tim, meanwhile, is rising up the New Labour ladder and becomes deputy to Alastair Campbell, first in opposition and then at No 10. James and Tim are reunited when James joins Downing Street in 1997, as special adviser on culture, media, sport and the knowledge economy.

An avid Arsenal fan, James becomes a member of the Demon Eyes football team that counts another special adviser and future MP Andy Burnham as its top scorer; another teammate is Dan Corry, now special adviser to Ruth Kelly, the education secretary.

Tim leaves Downing Street in 1998 to become director of corporate communications at BSkyB; meanwhile another Birt protege, Ed Richards, controller of corporate strategy at the BBC, becomes part of the No 10 gang, working on preparation for the 2001 election manifesto.

James and Ed do the groundwork for the Communications Act of 2003, which establishes Ofcom and sets the framework for media and telecommunications policy in the digital age.

James quits No 10 to enter the selection process for the 2001 election, and is elected to the safe Greater Manchester seat of Stalybridge and Hyde. After the election, Ed succeeds him as Blair's media policy adviser.

James's first step towards government comes as parliamentary private secretary to Kelly, then financial secretary to the Treasury. In December 2004 he joins the whips' office. After the 2005 election, Tony calls - and James is left to settle into his swanky new office at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with good wishes from Tim and his other best friend, David Farr, the playwright.

External links

Notes

  1. ^The Guardian - Purnell's progress
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