David Goodhart

David Goodhart (born 12 September 1956)[1] is a British journalist, commentator and author. He is the founder and former editor of Prospect magazine.

David Goodhart
(November 2015)
Born (1956-09-12) 12 September 1956
London
NationalityBritish
EducationUniversity of York (BA)
OccupationJournalist and editor
Known forFounder of Prospect magazine
Parent(s)Valerie Forbes Winant Goodhart
Sir Philip Goodhart
FamilyMayer Lehman (great-great-grandfather)

Early life and education

Goodhart is one of seven children born to Valerie Forbes Winant (the niece of John Gilbert Winant) and Conservative MP Sir Philip Goodhart.[2][3] He is a great-great-grandson of Mayer Lehman, co-founder of Lehman Brothers. He was educated at Eton College, and the University of York, where he gained a degree in history and politics.[4] He has written of being an "old Etonian Marxist" in his late teens and early 20s.[5]

Career

Goodhart was a correspondent for the Financial Times for 12 years; for part of the period he was stationed in Germany.[6][7] He founded Prospect, a British current affairs magazine in 1995 and was the editor until 2010, when he became editor-at-large.[8] In December 2011, he was appointed Director of the London-based think tank Demos.[9] As of 2017 he is Head of the Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit at the think tank Policy Exchange.[10]

He has written for The Guardian, The Independent and The Times. He has presented documentaries for BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme on immigration (in 2010)[11] and on Blue Labour.[12] He has written of the influence on his thinking of people like Maurice Glasman, who coined the term Blue Labour.[5]

In November 2020, he was one of four new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) board commissioners appointed in November 2020.[13][14]

Political views

Goodhart first wrote that "sharing and solidarity can conflict with diversity", in an essay "Too diverse?" published by Prospect in February 2004.[15] Trevor Phillips, then chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, described such arguments as being those of "liberal Powellites", after the Conservative politician Enoch Powell.[16]

In the book The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-war Immigration (2013), Goodhart argues that high immigration can undermine national solidarity and be a threat to social democratic ideals about a welfare state. He advocates that immigration to the United Kingdom should be reduced and more emphasis put on integrating immigrants.[17][18]

The Road to Somewhere was published in 2017. A fault line in Britain existed, he suggested, between "Somewheres", those people firmly connected to a specific community which consists of about half the population, "Inbetweeners", and "Anywheres", those usually living in cities, who are socially liberal and well educated, the latter being only a minority of about 20% to 25% of the total population, but who in fact had "over-ruled" the attitudes of the majority.[19] Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian believed it could be argued New Labour had actually often had the Somewheres in mind in policies espousing an "Asbo culture" and the "prison works" attitude which they continued from Michael Howard's earlier period as Home Secretary.[19]

Writing for The Daily Telegraph in 2018, Goodhart described the Windrush scandal as "an error of over-zealous control" which "must not lead to a radical watering-down of the so-called 'hostile environment'".[14]

Personal life

David Goodhart was married to Financial Times journalist Lucy Kellaway; they have four children.[20] The couple separated in 2015.[21]

Publications
  • The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-war Immigration (2013). Atlantic Books. ISBN 9781843548058
  • The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (2017). C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 9781849047999
  • Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century (2020) Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0241391570

References
  1. "Birthdays". The Guardian. 12 September 2014. p. 47.
  2. "Sir Philip Goodhart, politician – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 6 July 2015.
  3. "Valerie Forbes Winant died peacefully on April 1st aged 88", The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 September 2015
  4. "The Judges – Samuel Johnson Prize". 20 October 2012. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. Goodhart, David (17 March 2017). "Why I left my liberal London tribe". Financial Times. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  6. David Goodhart Archived 22 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine ideasfestival.co.uk (Bristol Festival of Ideas). Retrieved 1 April 2013
  7. "Prospect eyes 50,000 sales as Goodhart moves on". Press Gazette. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  8. Dowell, Ben (7 June 2010) "David Goodhart to step down as Prospect editor", The Guardian.
  9. Demos, Press release: David Goodhart joins Demos as Director Archived 20 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine demos.co.uk (homesite). Retrieved 1 April 2013
  10. "David Goodhart – Head of Demography, Immigration & Integration". Policy Exchange. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  11. Goodhart, David (8 February 2010). "Transforming Britain by accident?". BBC News.
  12. Goodhart, David (20 March 2011). "Labour can have its own coalition too". The Independent on Sunday. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  13. "Four new commissioners appointed to board of Equality and Human Rights Commission". Scottish Legal News. 13 November 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  14. Hooper, Simon (12 November 2020). "'Hostile environment' supporter appointed to EHRC equality watchdog". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  15. Goodhart, David (February 2004). "Too diverse?". Prospect. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  16. Phillips, Trevor (16 February 2004). "Genteel xenophobia is as bad as any other kind". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  17. Sexton, David, "Immigration: why the public is right", London Evening Standard, 28 March 2013
  18. Goodhart, Goodhart (27 March 2013), Why the left is wrong about immigration, The Guardian3.
  19. Freedland, Jonathan (22 March 2017). "The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart – a liberal's rightwing turn on immigration". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  20. "Lucy Kellaway". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  21. Lucy Kellaway (25 October 2015). "Divorce can galvanise a career as well as ruin it". Financial Times.
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