First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

What’s happened to Policy Exchange? The centre-right think tank that was expected to fulfil the IPPR role of Number 10 in-house tank once the Tories swooped to victory at the next general election has not only lost its director, the controversial Anthony Browne, to Boris at City Hall, it has now produced an eccentric report on the future of northern cities that David Cameron, with one eye on those Labour heartlands, has described as “insane.” PX, as it is known to fans, was under Browne’s watch often accused of being too close to the Cameron project, just as the IPPR was in the early days of New Labour. It’s not clear who’s running Policy Exchange at the moment—Browne’s departure was announced almost a month ago but the organisation does not yet appear to have found a successor—but might this indicate a decision on the think tank’s part to reassert independence as the Tories move closer to government?