When Think Tanks Go Bad: Policy Exchange and agenda-setting

I toyed with the idea of a career in academia for a brief time but decided it wasn't for me owing to its often detachment from the 'real world'.

I find that taking original ideas and applying them - or seeking to understand how they can be applied - to the real world is a more rewarding approach.

This is why I have a lot of time for think tanks: quasi-academic institutions that recognose the power of ideas to shape the real world around us.

Last Friday's Guardian had a fascinating profile of the think tank du jour, Policy Exchange; current favourite thinkers for the Conservatives.

Policy Exchange has "enjoyed a dizzy rise to prominence" according to Staniforth and LabourHome's Mark Hanson, in parallel with the rise of the Conservatives return to the political landscape.

But the Guardian article gives me some cause for concern as Policy Exchange's standards seem to be slipping - or perhaps more fairly, being shaped - in relation to the Tories' rise.

Firstly, there was the extremely worrying piece of research that claimed a number of British Mosques were publishing Islamic extremist literature which was revealed as dubious - if not entirely fabricated by Newsnight:

 

Then there was the bizarre report on UK regional development which recommended (according to the media) many people living in northern cities (e.g. Bradford, Liverpool) should simply move to southern cities (e.g. Oxford, London) as regional regeneration had failed.

There are also a number of other worrying examples flagged by Mark over at his PR Media blog and the Guardian profile, includiong PE's views on welfare ("make's people lazy") and transport ("build more roads").

Of course, I recognise a large part of this may revolve on ideology; some of PE's ideas may not marry with my own personal perspective.

However, I would like to think I am rational enough to stand by policy recommendations based on "comprehensive academic research" (which is how PE described its extremist Islam report).

Take a look at the Guardian's profile and make your own mind up.

Technorati tags: Policy Exchange, Guardian, think tanks, politics, policy