Demos (UK think tank)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Demos is an influential think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1993 by journalists from Marxism Today, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). In the run up to the 1997 UK general election it was seen as being close to the Labour Party, in particular ex-prime minister Tony Blair. It is however, independent of any political party.^{[citation needed]}

Its co-founder and first Director was Geoff Mulgan, who went on to work inside Downing Street in 1997. At that time Demos was seen as central to New Labour's vision for Britain.^{[citation needed]}

Between 1998 and 2006, under Director Tom Bentley, it moved away from being just a think tank and an increasing part of its workload was described as 'public interest consultancy'.^{[citation needed]} It also did an increasing amount of work internationally. Demos works with a number of partners including government departments, public sector agencies and charities.^{[citation needed]}

Madeleine Bunting, previously a columnist at The Guardian, was appointed Director of the organisation in 2006, but resigned shortly after taking up the post over differences with the trustees concerning the direction of the organisation.^{[citation needed]} She then returned to The Guardian and was succeeded as Director by Catherine Fieschi.[1]

Demos has an open access policy which means that all publications are available to freely download under a Creative Commons licence.

Julia Middleton was a former trustee of Demos, and also CEO of the influential Common Purpose.

On August 9, 2006, British Home Secretary Dr John Reid gave a speech at a Demos conference stating that Britons may have to modify their notion of freedom, citing that "freedom is being misused and abused by terrorists." [2]

Demos is unrelated to the US think tank of the same name.