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The Lord Finkelstein | |
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Born | Daniel William Finkelstein 30 August 1962 |
Nationality | British |
Education | University College School |
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Daniel William Finkelstein, Baron Finkelstein, OBE (born 30 August 1962) is a British journalist and politician. [1] He is a former executive editor of The Times and remains a weekly political columnist. [2] He is a former chairman of Policy Exchange who was succeeded by David Frum in 2014. [3] He is chair of the think tank Onward. He was made a member of the House of Lords in August 2013, [4] sitting as a Conservative.
Finkelstein is Jewish; [1] his mother, Mirjam Finkelstein, was a Holocaust survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, [5] while his father Ludwik Finkelstein OBE was born in Lwów (then in Poland but now in Ukraine), and became Professor of Measurement and Instrumentation at City University London. [6] [7] He is a grandson, via his mother, of Dr Alfred Wiener, the Jewish activist and founder of the Wiener Library. [5] He is the brother of Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng, President of City, University of London and of Tamara Finkelstein, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. [8]
Finkelstein is a director of Chelsea football club. [9]
He was educated at University College School, the London School of Economics (BSc, 1984) and City University London (MSc, 1986). [10]
Between 1981 and 1988, Finkelstein was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), becoming Chair of the Young Social Democrats on the defection of his predecessor Keith Toussaint to the Conservative Party during the 1983 general election campaign. [11] Subsequently, he was elected youth representative on its National Committee and selected as a parliamentary candidate for Brent East at the 1987 general election. At around this time, Finkelstein became a close ally and adviser to David Owen, the SDP leader. When the merger with the Liberal Party was proposed, Finkelstein was among the leading opponents and refused to join the merged party, instead following Owen into the 'continuing' SDP. After Owen had announced his resignation from politics in 1992, Finkelstein was the spokesman for a group of young SDP members who joined the Conservatives.
Before working for the Conservative Party, Finkelstein was Director of a think-tank, the Social Market Foundation, for three years. During his period with the SMF, the organisation brought New York police commissioner Bill Bratton to London, for the first time introducing UK politicians to the new strategies being used there.
Finkelstein formerly sat on the Board of Governors of the Gatestone Institute, [12] [13] a far-right think-tank known for publishing anti-Muslim articles. [14] [15] In a series of tweets in 2018, Finkelstein explained that he "didn't initially accept the critics' characterisation of (Gatestone)", that he thought they'd done "valuable" work, but that he eventually withdrew from the position due to 'the volume' of Gatestone publications he disagreed with. He acknowledged that his failure to do so earlier was "worthy of criticism". [16]
In 2018 he became chairman of the new think-tank Onward, whose mission is to renew the centre right for the next generation. [17]
Between 1995 and 1997 Finkelstein was Director of the Conservative Research Department and in that capacity advised Prime Minister John Major and attended meetings of the Cabinet when it sat in political session. Finkelstein became among the earliest advocates of the 'modernisation' of the Conservative Party, laying out the principles of change in a series of speeches and columns in The Times .
Between 1997 and 2001 he was political adviser to the Leader of the Opposition William Hague and, together with George Osborne, Secretary to the Shadow Cabinet.
In the 2001 election Finkelstein was the unsuccessful Conservative parliamentary candidate in Harrow West. [18]
This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(March 2021) |
Between 1990 and 1992, Finkelstein was the editor of Connexion, Britain's first Internet and data communications newspaper. Finkelstein joined The Times in August 2001 as part of the leader writing team and was Comment Editor from March 2004 to June 2008. He became Chief Leader Writer in June 2008. He began The Times blog Comment Central in September 2006. He is also a regular columnist in The Jewish Chronicle . His weekly football statistics column, the Fink Tank, began in 2002 and runs in The Times on Saturdays.
In June 2023, Finkelstein published a memoir, Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad, an account of his mother and father's experiences during World War II. [19]
Finkelstein was awarded the OBE in the 1997 honours list. [20] In 2011 he was awarded the "PSA 2011 Journalist of the Year Award". [21] It was announced at the beginning of August 2013 that Finkelstein was to be made a life peer. [22] He was created Baron Finkelstein, of Pinner in the London Borough of Harrow on 11 September 2013. [23]
Finkelstein was given an honorary Doctor of Science degree by City University London in 2011. [24]
He is a Vice President of the Jewish Leadership Council. [25]
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov was a Russian and later Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik, and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s onward. He served as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars from 1930 to 1941 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956.
David Jeffrey Frum is a Canadian-American political commentator and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is currently a senior editor at The Atlantic as well as an MSNBC contributor. In 2003, Frum authored the first book about Bush's presidency written by a former member of the administration. He has taken credit for the famous phrase "axis of evil" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address.
David Linsay Willetts, Baron Willetts, is a British politician and life peer. From 1992 to 2015, he was the Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Havant in Hampshire. He served as Minister of State for Universities and Science from 2010 until July 2014 and became a member of the House of Lords in 2015. He was appointed chair of the UK Space Agency's board in April 2022. He is president of the Resolution Foundation.
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat who served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 1930 to 1939.
The Social Market Foundation (SMF) is an independent British political public policy think-tank based in Westminster, London. It is one of the 'Top 12 Think Tanks in Britain' and was named 'UK Think Tank of the Year' by Prospect in 2012. Its purpose is to "advance the education of the public in the economic, social and political sciences" and to "champion ideas that marry a pro-market orientation with concern for social justice". Policy ideas are based on the concept of the social market economy.
Susan Slipman was President of the National Union of Students between 1977 and 1978. She later joined the National Union of Public Employees. Since then she has held a wide range of appointments and offices in the public sector and the field of training and education.
Alfred Wiener was a German Jew who dedicated much of his life to documenting antisemitism and racism in Germany and Europe, and uncovering crimes of Germany's Nazi government. He is best remembered as the founder and long-time director of the Wiener Library.
James Perry was an English scriptwriter and actor. He devised and co-wrote the BBC sitcoms Dad's Army (1968–1977), It Ain't Half Hot Mum (1974–1981), Hi-De-Hi (1980–1988) and You Rang, M'Lord? (1988–1993), all with David Croft. Perry co-wrote the theme tune of Dad's Army, "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Hitler?" along with Derek Taverner, for which Perry received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1971.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) formed in 1988 was a political party in the United Kingdom led by David Owen, which lasted for only two years. A successor party to the original Social Democratic Party (SDP), it was known informally as the 'continuing' SDP.
Martin Sean Indyk is an American diplomat and foreign relations analyst with expertise in the Middle East. He was a distinguished fellow in International Diplomacy and later executive vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C from 2001-2018. He took leave from the Brookings Institution to serve as the U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Daniel Korski is a UK-based Danish political adviser and businessperson. He worked as deputy head of the Number 10 Policy Unit for David Cameron and currently serves as a vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council. He founded the business PUBLIC, which aims to support technology companies to secure public sector contracts.
Neil John O'Brien is a British politician who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Primary Care and Public Health from September 2022 to November 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Harborough in 2017. O'Brien was previously a special adviser to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne from 2012 to 2016 and Theresa May during her tenure as Prime Minister.
Sir Anthony Charles Wiener Finkelstein is a British engineer and computer scientist. He is the President of City, University of London. He was Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security to HM Government until 2021.
Gatestone Institute is a think tank known for publishing articles pertaining to Middle-Eastern foreign policy, specifically Islamic radicalism. It was founded in 2012 by Nina Rosenwald, who serves as its president. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former national security advisor, John R. Bolton, was its chairman from 2013 to March 2018. Its current chairman is Amir Taheri. The organization has attracted attention for publishing false or inaccurate articles, some of which were shared widely.
Nina Rosenwald is an American political activist and philanthropist. An heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune, Rosenwald is vice president of the William Rosenwald Family Fund and co-chair of the board of American Securities Management. She is the founder and president of Gatestone Institute, a New York-based right-wing anti-Muslim think tank.
Andrew Timothy Cooper, Baron Cooper of Windrush is a British politician and former Director of Strategy in the Cameron–Clegg coalition. He entered the House of Lords as a Conservative peer, but was suspended from the party whip for endorsing the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 European Parliament elections.
Mirjam Finkelstein was a Holocaust survivor and educator. Born in Berlin, Germany, to Alfred Wiener, a Jewish activist and founder of the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933. There she grew up in the same community as Anne Frank and they knew each other as children.
Sebastian Early Anthony Payne is a British think tank director and former journalist. He began his career with stints at The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, before joining the Financial Times in 2016, where he eventually rose to become the paper's Whitehall correspondent. In 2022, he left the paper to become director of the think tank Onward.
Onward is a British centre-right think tank producing research on economic and social issues. It was founded in 2018 by Will Tanner, Martyn Rose, and Neil O'Brien. The think tank's advisory board is chaired by Daniel Finkelstein. The founders state that Onward would operate in the mainstream of conservative politics, and is a reaction to the "lack of energy on the centre right". It is explicitly aligned to the Conservative Party and is not a charity.