I am pleased to report that Forest has appointed political commentator and former member of the Scottish Parliament, Brian Monteith, as the new editor of the Free Society website.
The Free Society was founded in 2007. One of the first events, organised in conjunction with Forest, was a party at Boisdale of Belgravia to celebrate the publication of Scared To Death by Christopher Booker and Richard North.
The website was launched in February 2008 to provide commentary on the threats to individual freedoms and lifestyles from public health officials, the surveillance state, health and safety bureaucrats and authoritarian politicians.
In 2010 and 2011, under The Free Society banner, we organised a series of debates at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) entitled Voices of Freedom. Each debate was co-hosted with another party – among them the IEA, Adam Smith Institute, Manifesto Club, Privacy International, Big Brother Watch and Liberal Vision – with a view to developing a loose coalition of libertarian leaning groups and organisations.
The Free Society has also hosted a variety of events at the main party conferences. They include 'Libertarian Paternalism and the Nanny State', 'You Can’t Do That! The Anti-Social Regulation of Public Space', 'Freedom and the Internet' and 'How liberal are the Liberal Democrats?'.
Brian succeeds Tom Miers who took up a new job in Brussels earlier this year.
As well as writing a weekly column, Brian will log examples of nannying and bullying by governments worldwide (Bullies Bulletin). He will also publish a weekly round-up of pertinent blog posts, as well as commissioning articles and features from guest contributors.
As it happens Brian and I go back a long way – to when we were students in Scotland, in fact. Brian was at Heriot Watt in Edinburgh, I was at Aberdeen.
Brian edited a magazine called Armageddon. I edited a magazine called Campus. Brian, however, was far more politically active than me. He was a leading light in the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS), becoming national chairman in the early Eighties.
My first job after leaving university was with Michael Forsyth, later Secretary of State for Scotland, now Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. Brian's first job, after his year as FCS chairman, was with ... Michael Forsyth.
In Edinburgh in the Nineties we shared an office in Leith. At the time Brian was Scottish spokesman for ... Forest. (It was because of that that I later became director of Forest.)
In 1997 Brian ran the No to devolution campaign in Scotland. Two years later he was elected as a member of the Scottish Parliament!
Anyway, I'm delighted to have him on board. Let's see where this latest association takes us. Visit The Free Society.
Simon Clark