Michael Pinto-Duschinsky

Michael Pinto-Duschinsky (born June 1943) is a Hungarian-born British political consultant and writer. He is a senior consultant on constitutional affairs for the think-tank Policy Exchange.

Michael Pinto-Duschinsky
BornJune 1943
Hungary
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Oxford
OccupationPolitical consultant and writer

Early life and family

Michael Pinto-Duschinsky was born in Hungary in June 1943, son of Eugene Duschinsky, rabbi (Av Beit Din)[1][2] of Cape Town, South Africa, of a family that had been rabbis for seven generations.[3][4] He graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford[3] with first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and subsequently earned an MA in government at Cornell University and a D.Phil. in politics at Oxford.[5]

Career

Pinto-Duschinsky is a political consultant who has had a variety of positions advising organisations and governments on constitutional reform, the promotion of democracy, anti-corruption policies, and the funding of political parties and elections. He has been a senior research fellow at Brunel University.

In 2011–12, he was a member of the Commission on a Bill of Rights set up by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 to advise on reform of the 1998 Human Rights Act. In March 2012, he resigned after complaining that his views were being ignored.[6]

In 2012, he was appointed senior consultant on constitutional affairs for the think-tank Policy Exchange.[7]

Pinto-Duschinsky was a frequent contributor to the debate following the 2014, Lutfur Rahman voting affair, and estimated that there were over 6.5 million "ghost voters" in the electoral register.[8][9]

Personal life

Pinto-Duschinsky married Shelley, daughter of Dr Jerome David Markham.[3][10] Their son, David, is a management consultant, Labour politician and former special adviser to former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. David is a former President of the Oxford Union[11] and was the unsuccessful Labour parliamentary candidate for then-Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's constituency of Tatton in 2015[12] and contested Hendon in 2019, where he finished in second place.[4]

Selected publications

Articles and chapters
  • "Central Office and ‘Power’ in the Conservative Party" in Political Studies, Vol. 20 (1972), No. 1, pp. 1-16. DOI: Central Office and ‘Power’ in the Conservative Party
  • "Send the rascals packing: Defects of proportional representation and the virtues of the Westminster model", Times Literary Supplement, 25 September 1998.[13]
  • "Fund-raising and the Holocaust: The Case of Dr Gert-Rudolf Flick's Contribution to Oxford University" in Alan Montefiore & David Vines (Eds.) Integrity in the Public and Private Domains. Routledge, London, 2005. ISBN 978-1-134-67938-6.

Books
  • The Political Thought of Lord Salisbury, 1854-1868. Constable, London, 1967.
  • The British General Election of 1970. Macmillan, London, 1971. (With David Butler) ISBN 0333121422
  • British Political Finance, 1830-1980. American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington D.C., 1981.[14] ISBN 0844734527
  • Voter Registration in England and Wales: Problems and Solutions. Constitutional Reform Centre, London, 1987. (With Shelley Pinto-Duschinsky)
  • Paying for the Party: Myths and Realities in British Political Finance. Policy Exchange, London, 2008. (With Roger Gough) ISBN 9781906097233
  • Bringing Rights Back Home: Making human rights compatible with parliamentary democracy in the UK. Policy Exchange, London, 2011. ISBN 9781906097950
  • Electoral Omission. Policy Exchange, London, 2014.

References
  1. South African Jewry, Leon Feldberg, Fieldhill Publishing Co., 1976, p. 166
  2. Jewish Affairs, vol. 50, South African Jewish Board of Deputies, 1995, p. 34
  3. "Shelley Markham Will Be a Bride". December 26, 1971 – via NYTimes.com.
  4. Frazer, Jenni. "Hendon Labour candidate: 'Party must prove it's not institutionally antisemitic'". jewishnews.timesofisrael.com.
  5. "Dr. Michael Pinto- Duschinsky". Michaelpintoduschinsky.wordpress.com. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  6. "Bill of Rights commissioner resigns". BBC News. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  7. "Michael Pinto-Duschinsky". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  8. Eric Pickles (12 August 2015). "We are ignoring electoral fraud just as we ignored child sex abuse in Rotherham". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  9. Kate Allen (16 August 2016). "Flawed voting system is fuelling electoral fraud, report warns". Financial Times. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  10. Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael; Pinto-Duschinsky, Shelley; Centre, Constitutional Reform (January 9, 1987). "Voter registration in England and Wales : problems and solutions". London : Constitutional Reform Centre – via Trove.
  11. Vinnie Jones, Wimbledon captain public speaking at the Oxford Union, THE World University Rankings, 12 May 1995
  12. "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  13. Michael Pinto‐Duschinsky (1999). "Send the rascals packing: Defects of proportional representation and the virtues of the Westminster model". Representation. 36 (2): 117–126. doi:10.1080/00344899908523069.
  14. King, Roger (1983). "British Political Finance 1830-1980. By Michael Pinto-Duschinsky. (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981. Pp. xviii + 339. $17.95, cloth; $10.50, paper.)". American Political Science Review. 77 (2): 512–513. doi:10.2307/1958993. JSTOR 1958993.
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