During the 1979 general election campaign, Margaret Thatcher famously said: ‘I can’t bear Britain in decline. I just can’t.’ If you’re a seasoned research professional who shares that sentiment, and who wants to fight for a high-growth, low-tax, small-state Britain built on personal and economic freedom, then I have just the job opening for you. In a few weeks’ time I will be heading to pastures new, creating a vacancy for the position of Research Director at the Centre for Policy Studies.
If that sounds like your dream job, you’d better get your skates on: the deadline for applications has been brought forward to 17 August.
You might be a policy analyst, a journalist, a former SpAd, an academic or in the private sector. Either way, you’ll be able to demonstrate an extensive knowledge of economics, sharp editorial skills and a deep familiarity with public policy debates in Britain. And if you’re successful in your application, you’ll be managing a small team of high-calibre policy researchers. With Liam Halligan coming in as the CPS’s new Director, you’ll have a prime opportunity to help to shape the next chapter in the CPS’s long and storied history.
After she had left office, Thatcher remarked: ‘The Centre for Policy Studies was where our Conservative revolution began’
The CPS was founded in 1974 by Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph in order to reckon with the failure of the post-war economic consensus and the malaise that increasingly permeated national life. It played a central role in diagnosing Britain’s problems, notably through the 1977 ‘Stepping Stones’ paper, with its famous wiring diagram; and also, over the 1970s and 80s, in coming up with policy solutions such as deregulation, inflation control, portable personal pensions and ‘denationalisation’. After she had left office, Thatcher remarked: ‘The Centre for Policy Studies was where our Conservative revolution began’.
I was fortunate in becoming CPS Research Director in December 2023, taking over the research team from my predecessor, tax genius Tom Clougherty, just before the CPS’s 50th anniversary year. The hardback volume of essays we published to celebrate the occasion took its name from Thatcher’s remark: ‘Conservative Revolution: The Centre for Policy Studies at 50’. Working at the CPS, you really do feel as though you are an inheritor of a rich tradition of policy and political thought. In fact, a minor but very enjoyable part of the Research Director’s job is curating the CPS reports archive of over 700 papers, books and briefings.
However, most of the Research Director’s time is occupied with the problems of today and – since our politicians ought to provide against preventable evils – tomorrow. Although the challenges Britain faces are daunting, it is a very exciting time to be working in policy: it feels like we are approaching one of those junctures in history where an old, decaying order must give way to something new. At the end of the 1970s it was the post-war consensus that was replaced by Thatcherism. Today it is the Blairite settlement that is displaying a great variety of morbid symptoms.
The 1970s analogies can be overdone – as indeed Conservative Revolution authors Paul Goodman and Rachel Wolf pointed out – but it’s also true that many of the socialist policies we all thought vanquished as recently as 10 years ago have returned with a vengeance: the war on prices, a state that spends 45% of GDP, the highest peacetime tax burden in history, industrial strategy in the guise of Net Zero, and even nationalisation. Part of the CPS’s task is therefore to go back to basics. In the words of F.A. Hayek: ‘If old truths are to retain their hold on men’s minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations.’
But there are novel problems too, many of them urgent, for which creative policy solutions are needed. In this vein, much of my time at the CPS has been spent on immigration policy, including my first major report after becoming Research Director, ‘Taking Back Control’, written with Neil O’Brien and Robert Jenrick. Key areas where we spend our time and energy at the CPS include the ever-worsening housing crisis, the surging working-age and pensioner welfare bill, and the raw deal for young people in our ageing society.
In some cases, the centre-right is still divided on what to do about the challenges facing Britain. For the most part this is not a Tory-Reform split – as I’ve written elsewhere, in policy terms they currently have much in common – but rather a split within the centre-right in both parties. The CPS of course talks about policy to politicians of all persuasions if they want to engage with us (though it is true that Labour MPs remain chary of being publicly associated with Margaret Thatcher’s think tank).
Being Research Director is a time-intensive job, and sometimes that means you don’t get to spend as much time on your own research as you might ideally like. The tyranny of the news grid can sometimes be frustrating too, and I can recall more than one report that has failed to make a splash purely because of the latest Westminster drama. But this is more than compensated for by the fact that you get to meet so many interesting people from politics, media, academia, business and the rest of the Tufton Street policy world (in the last case, generally at the Marquis of Granby pub). Indeed, an important part of the job is keeping your finger on the pulse of contemporary political thought and policy, both within Westminster and more widely, including the discourse on X.
As Research Director you will need to set aside plenty of time for editing papers (including a final, detailed line edit) and for team development. I’m lucky in that I like both of these things, particularly the coaching and mentoring aspect of getting someone to write a high-quality policy paper. One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about my time at the CPS over the years has been training and mentoring interns and new researchers.
This is made all the easier by the CPS being a happy ship. Credit for this has to go to our Director, Robert Colvile, under whose tenure since 2017 the CPS has flourished. I’ve been lucky enough to work for Robert for five years now, and have learnt an immense amount from him. In my opinion, the CPS has been the best think tank for staff satisfaction in Westminster for quite some time and it’s a testament to Robert that so many ex-staff still attend CPS events and socials so often. As Liam takes over, staff morale is high. I’m almost sorry to be leaving, as I know Liam has exciting plans for the CPS at a crucial moment in British politics.
Talking of future plans, like other think tanks, the CPS is experimenting with AI to improve productivity (not to generate reports, but to collate and sort data, format footnotes, automate administrative tasks and so on). This is vital work and I hope my successor pushes it further. But AI will never be a substitute for talent and dedication. One of the great things about working at the CPS is being surrounded by intellectually curious, well-informed, highly motivated individuals, and I will miss the chatter in the research rooms in particular. I love a good spreadsheet but ultimately it is the people who make working in think tanks such a joy.
Something similar could be said of the Thatcher Fellowship, which is perhaps the thing I am most proud of from my time at the CPS. As the programme blurb says, the Fellowship ‘is designed to introduce the sharpest minds from business and the City to the intellectual, academic and political arguments for free markets, and give them an understanding of how Westminster really works’. We started it as part of our 50th anniversary programme in 2024 and it’s now in its third year, with 45 Fellows to date. I hope it will still be going with a network of 750 Fellows by the time of the 100th anniversary (the CPS itself will doubtless still be around in 2074 – the price of freedom is eternal vigilance).
The hard parts of the Thatcher Fellowship – the logistics and all the other practical things that actually make it run smoothly – are overseen by Emma Revell, our superb External Affairs Director. The Research Director therefore gets to focus on the fun things, such as selecting the topics for the monthly dinners and compiling the requisite reading lists. If you miss tripos-style bibliographies, it scratches an itch.
The other main duty of the Research Director is working with the External Affairs Director to sift applications and interview prospective Fellows. This has become harder and harder each year, as the number of applicants has risen, but there has been no dilution in quality. We meet many talented, high-agency people who are deeply frustrated with the gap between politics and the private sector, and who want to do something about it. Getting to know the new Fellows each year and watching the cohort bond has been a genuine pleasure.
The left has always been much better at creating movements than the right. I suspect this difference has psychological roots. There is a phrase used by the historian J.G.A. Pocock in his introduction to Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ which has always stuck with me: ‘the fraternity of activism’. Small-c conservatives, though clubbable, are not by disposition activists. I see the Thatcher Fellowship in part as the CPS doing its bit to overcome this natural political disadvantage and push back against the progressive establishment that controls the commanding heights of political discourse in modern Britain.
All of this is to say that CPS Research Director is one of the best jobs in British policy and politics. It has given me a modicum of influence, a strong sense of purpose, and a vast amount of intellectual satisfaction. And to repeat, if this sounds like your dream job, then the application deadline is 17 August.
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