David Goodhart

David Goodhart
David Goodhart, November 2015
Born (1956-09-12) 12 September 1956
London
Nationality United Kingdom
Education B.A. University of York
Occupation Journalist and editor
Known for Founder of Prospect magazine
Parent(s) Valerie Forbes Winant Goodhart
Sir Philip Goodhart
Family Mayer Lehman (great-great-grandfather)

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

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]

Opinions

Goodhart first wrote that "sharing and solidarity can conflict with diversity", in an essay "Too diverse?" published by Prospect in February 2004.[13] In deviating from liberal orthodoxy, he caused a stir at the time.[5] 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.[14]

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.[15][16]

The Road to Somewhere was published in 2017. A fault line in Britain existed, he suggested, between Somewhere, those people firmly connected to a specific community which consists of about half the population, "Inbetweeners", and Anywhere, those usually living in cities, socially liberal and well educated; the latter being only a minority of about 20% to 25% of the total, but in fact had "over-ruled" the attitudes of the majority.[17] Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian believed it could be argued New Labour had actually often had the Somewheres in mind in policies espousing a "Asbo culture" and the "prison works" attitude which they continued from Michael Howard's earlier period as Home Secretary.[17]

Personal

David Goodhart is married to Financial Times journalist Lucy Kellaway; they have four children,[18] but separated in 2015.[19]

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

References

  1. "Birthdays". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media. 12 Sep 2014. p. 47.
  2. "Sir Philip Goodhart, politician - obituary". Telegraph.co.uk. 6 July 2015.
  3. Daily Telegraph: "Valerie Forbes Winant died peacefully on April 1st aged 88" retrieved 30 September 2015
  4. "The Judges - Samuel Johnson Prize". 20 October 2012. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 Goodhart, David (17 March 2017). "Why I left my liberal London tribe". Financial Times. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  6. David Goodhart Archived 2013-06-22 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. Ben Dowell: David Goodhart to step down as Prospect editor The Guardian, 7 June 2010
  9. Demos, Press release: David Goodhart joins Demos as Director Archived 2013-03-20 at the Wayback Machine. demos.co.uk (homesite), retrieved 1 April 2013
  10. Policy Exchange. Policy Exchange https://policyexchange.org.uk/author/david-goodhart/. Retrieved 6 June 2017. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  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. Goodhart, David (February 2004). "Too diverse?". Prospect. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  14. Phillips, Trevor (16 February 2004). "Genteel xenophobia is as bad as any other kind". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  15. Immigration: why the public is right London Evening Standard, 28 March 2013
  16. David Goodhart: Why the left is wrong about immigration The Guardian, 27 March 2013
  17. 1 2 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.
  18. "Lucy Kellaway". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  19. Lucy Kellaway (October 25, 2015). "Divorce can galvanise a career as well as ruin it". Financial Times. (Subscription required (help)).
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