Geoff Mulgan
Initially worked at the Greater London Council, he was a 1986-87 Harkness Fellow (which reinforces Anglo-American links) at MIT, and has led Demos since 1993. Mulgan's CV doesn't mention that he joined the British American Project (BAP) in 1996.
In the 1980s Mulgan was in Comedia which (with Roger Liddle's Pieda), discreetly advised city administrations, spreading a politicised cultural 'redevelopment' purge of 'old-fashioned' left-wing people in positions of power in an effort to 'modernise'. From 1990-92 Mulgan was special adviser to Gordon Brown when he was shadowing the Department of Trade and Industry, and became 'the Clinton campaign's link to Labour, which involved lots of telephone calls with the Americans - mainly advising them how not to repeat our mistakes.'(1)
Demos aimed to transpose the mishmash of Marxism Today's 'fetishised' Thatcherism into Labour policy. Mulgan was part of a 1995 'secret committee' led by Mandelson 'to examine policy changes', which met with Blair on alternate Fridays. The group contained no MPs, preferring Roger Liddle and Derek Scott (both former SDP), Patricia Hewitt (not then an MP), and TV producer Michael Wills. Here Mandelson and Liddle urged Blair to use the SDP as a party model. (2)
As Demos' 'policy entrepreneur' Mulgan was 'seconded' to concoct a consensus around key issues. Typically this connected markets and the future as a matter of inevitability, as determinism; or conflated Daniel Bell's end of ideology dictum with a British (Atlanticist) version of neo-Conservatism.
His appointment to the PM's Policy Unit converted Demos' experiments into new shibboleths surrounding 'social exclusion' largely to coerce NGOs dealing with the poor. He is the first person to go from political adviser to civil servant as Director of the Cabinet Office's Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) and Forward Strategy Unit. (3)
The PIU reviewed the UK's energy policy at a 4 July 2001 seminar: Mulgan introduces, hands over to Chair, Kevin Tebbit (MOD). Then there are presentations by Sian Davies (the Henley Centre, which has several Demos members), Bob Tyrrell (Demos) and Ged Davis (Shell, a Demos funder) and closing comments from Mulgan. Lunch everyone? (4)
He's also a trustee of the Political Quarterly (with BAP's Richard Holme) and Prospect magazine. There is an American Demos and an American Prospect (with the Congress for Cultural Freedom's Daniel Bell on board).
Mulgan is a Trustee of Crime Concern, the Prudential's (£750,000 Home Office-funded) adjunct to their 'Corporate Social Responsibility' initiatives. The board includes: Princess Anne, Lords Brittan, Carr, Hunt and Merlyn-Rees, Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy (Kingfisher plc), Michael Hastings (BBC), Nathaniel Sloane (Accenture), Matt Baggott (Deputy Chief Constable, West Midlands Police), Liz Wicksteed (Home Office) and Sir Stanley Kalms (Treasurer of the Conservative Party). (5)
Demos brought over several free-market ideologues including Philip Bobbitt (LBJ's nephew). He was Reagan's legal counsel from 1980-81, on the Select Committee/cover-up on Iran/Contra and Director for Intelligence at the NSC 1997-98. Demos also advertised an April meeting with George Soros.
Notes
3 Independent On Sunday 24 January 1993
4 Guardian 15 July 1995
5 http://www.shef.ac.uk/~perc/Polpaps/MULGAN.pdf
6 http://www.strategy.gov.uk/2001/futures/attachments/agenda/Agenda%20Strategic%20Futures.pdf
7 http://www.crimeconcern.org.uk/pages/newstext.asp?newsID=4.1.79
