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

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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