George Osborne has recruited Neil O’Brien, the director of the leading centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, as an adviser. O’Brien will start work in the New Year with a particular focus on the next phase of coalition policy development. I also suspect that O’Brien will have a major influence on Tory thinking heading to 2015 and beyond. The Northern Lights report he commissioned at Policy Exchange is regarded in Tory circles as one of the most important assessments of the challenge facing the party in trying to win a majority.
I understand that Osborne has been impressed by the work that O’Brien has produced at Policy Exchange. At Policy Exchange, O’Brien has sought to craft a more economically focused centre-right agenda. The think-tank, which was in the vanguard of the modernising project, has in the last few years set about developing a policy agenda more suited to these straitened times with an emphasis on economic renewal, public service reform and a more hard-headed approach to welfare.
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