John Craig
Associate
John is Director of The Innovation Exchange, which works to grow innovation from the third sector
- Politicians won't be the same again I was very sad this morning to hear of the passing of John Profumo. I will always be grateful that I got to know him just a very little as a trustee of Toynbee Hall during his presidency of the charity in East London. Jack, as he was always known there, came to Toynbee after the events for which he will always be remembered and gave the charity over forty years of service, raising an incredible amount of money. For me, he was a vision of politics past - a charismatic showman who even in his... continue reading on 10th March 2006
- Plug and play In Start with People we talk about platform organisations and Disorganisation talks about 'plug and play organisations'. So it is interesting to see a growing number of examples. There seems to be growing policy interest in the 311 service SWP recommended - a kind of AQA for government - and it will be interesting to follow this initiative to create a local authority platform for local campaigns. In that vein, perhaps thingamy is the answer to all our Demos prayers... continue reading on 9th March 2006
- The art of politics There have been some great exhibitions in recent years on the relationship between democracy and design. Bruce Mau Design, including some friends of Demos, created the famous Massive Change exhibition and one of my favourite books of the moment, Making Things Public, chronicles the amazing ZKM show in Germany. So I'm excited that in our own small way Demos is building on this work with an EveryDay Democracy Exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston Upon Thames. Go along. Spread... continue reading on 8th March 2006
- Protecting the profit The violence following the Danish cartoons is getting worse, and that makes it all the more important that we think hard about the issues it raises. For every virtue there are many vices - not brave enough is cowardice, too brave is foolhardy. Freedom of speech is similarly held in balance against the other values we hold most dear. And in the west it is not Christianity we hold most dear but capitalism. Far from being absolute, expression is tightly regulated by rules of intellectual... continue reading on 6th February 2006
- Professors of tomorrow I have a comment piece in the Guardian today making the claim that a new breed of academics are taking universities back to the future. This is the idea that, while their institutions remain remorselessly inward-looking, individual researchers are getting much better at building relationships beyond the walls of the academy. As they connect with commercial, political and neighbourhood life they are reviving images of the academic as the travelling intellectual and university chairs as that to... continue reading on 10th January 2006
- Bounce the baby What a year. For little reason at all, here's a quote from my favourite book of the year, the Letter From America collection issued following the death of Alistair Cooke. Happy winterval."Politics will undoubtedly bedevil us till the day we die, but? even the prospect of early annihilation should not keep us from making the most of our days on this unhappy planet. In the best of times, our days are numbered, anyway. And it would be a crime against Nature to take the world crisis so solemnly... continue reading on 22nd December 2005
- The administration of things Antipolitics keeps me awake at night and so I am much cheered by this article from David Miliband and Douglas Alexander, which critiques Cameron's attempt to make politics 'a choice between competing management consultants, not competing visions of the good society'. It's striking that the first leader of a major party to have drawn his wages solely from politics should be so keen to attack the very idea of it. Cameron deserves credit from the optimism he has returned to politics, and for... continue reading on 21st December 2005
- Doing it his way The conventional wisdom is wrong; David Cameron does not need a clause IV moment. Where Blair beat up on his party to forge a special relationship with the electorate, Cameron hits the media and politics itself. In yesterday's Observer, he argued for a politics that is 'non-ideological and practical'. So while Blair left us wondering about life after the party, Cameron threatens to leave us searching for a life after politics. Next year has been billed as a return of politics, but I think... continue reading on 19th December 2005
- Giving tribal leaders the boot Some coverage in the Times Ed today for our work with NCSL looking at the new leadership of extended schools. Sadly, my own spin on the work crashed at the news desk. I argued that school leaders were increasingly having to move away from the Alex Ferguson model of leadership - a reliance on the co-ordinating power of a common enemy. As social workers and parents alike spend more time in schools, bitching in the stafffroom is no longer an option, so that teachers need to find new sources of... continue reading on 11th November 2005
- Just a start... The only thing worse than being talked about is not being, so all must be well. In addition to a typically thoughtful contribution from Will Davies, Kevin Harris and David Wilcox (here and here) have been good enough to blog some thoughts on Friday?s Start with People launch. Their comments remind me that Start with People is perhaps an unconventional pamphlet that had a conventional launch. Both are attempts to contribute to a conversation about what Kevin calls the local level, and to... continue reading on 4th July 2005