Dean Godson

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Dean Godson is the Research Director for the Policy Exchange, a right-of-centre United Kingdom think-tank.

He is a graduate of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Between 1983 to 1984, he served as Secretary in the US Navy and in 1987-1989 as Special Assistant to John Lehman. Dean Godson also served as a Research Fellow in the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in 1990-1992. His political career includes Joint Deputy Chairman of Kensington and Chelsea Conservative Association. He is the author of Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Ulster Unionism. Mr Godson previously served as the Chief Editorial writer of the Daily Telegraph, the Associate Editor of the Spectator and Special Assistant to Conrad Black. After his departure from Hollinger, he has been the Research Director of the Policy Exchange, a right-of-centre think tank.

On sacking him from the Daily Telegraph, the editor, Martin Newland said of Godson and fellow-writer, Barbara Amiel (wife of Conrad Black): "It's OK to be pro-Israel, but not to be unbelievably pro-Likud Israel, it's OK to be pro-American but not look as if you're taking instructions from Washington." [1]

[edit] Neo-Conservatism

Dean Godson has a long history with neoconservatism, starting out as assistant to John Lehman, a signatory to the Project for a New American Century and Conrad Black. Bringing the ideas of neo-conservatism to the UK, Godson has compared Britain's 'late-imperial defeatism' with America's 'self-confident liberal interventionism.'

In his own words:

" the Cold War, organisations such as the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office would assert the superiority of the West over its totalitarian rivals. And magazines such as Encounter did hand-to-hand combat with Soviet fellow travellers. For any kind of truly moderate Islam to flourish, we need first to recapture our own self-confidence. At the moment, the extremists largely have the field to themselves."^[1]

Dean Godson was involved in controversy when Policy Exchange, of which he is Research Director, was accused of fabricating evidence. On 12th December 2007 BBC's Newsnight presented forensic evidence suggesting that some of the supporting material for a report on the sale of purported extremist Muslim literature in UK mosques may have been forged. Policy Exchange denied this accusation and threatened to pursue the BBC with legal action "relentlessly, to trial or capitulation",^[2] though no legal action has yet been forthcoming.