📜 The best policy ideas are timeless

When I graduated I didn’t even know what a think tank was. I meandered my way into it. I knew I was interested in politics and writing, and wanted to broadly work in that area. I became an advisor to the Tories and then I happened to work for David Willets MP. His nickname is ‘Two Brains’; he’s very policy focused. He got me into the world of think tanks and helped me secure my first job with the Social Market Foundation.

The lack of clarity around what think tanks do probably means that it’s cut off to people from less advantaged backgrounds. It’s often dependent on who you know – if a world has an informal relationship-based way of getting into it, that tends to favour people with more advantaged backgrounds. Whereas very formalised assessments, and recruiting and interviewing, are the biggest ally of people from more disadvantaged backgrounds.

We’re trying to interact with the people who are going to be most affected by the policy, to give them the chance to talk about the problem and how they think it should be best addressed, and then consider the policy ideas we’re coming up with. What do they think about it? What would improve it? Think tank ideas could certainly be more rooted in conversation, collaboration, and consultation, both with officials – the people who deliver the policy – but also people on the ground who are going to be affected by it.

It is useful to be on social media to promote your work, but it’s an echo chamber. It’s a mistake to believe that the columnists and MPs who spend too much time on social media are the main point of influence. Often officials, regulators, and special advisors are better points of influence in terms of getting policy through. Spending too much time on social media speaking to people who seem influential and high profile is not going to get your policies through – you’re not going to have an ally on the inside, somebody who understands your work and ideas.