Dr Madsen Pirie OBE

Congratulations to Dr Madsen Pirie, president of the Adam Smith Institute.

Madsen has been awarded an OBE (for services to public policy) in the New Year Honours List announced last night.

I won’t repeat the story of my debt to Madsen (you can read about it here) but if it wasn’t for him and Eamonn Butler, with whom he co-founded the ASI in 1977, my ‘career’ might have taken a very different path.

(In fact, he helped me get not one but two jobs, the latter of which lasted 14 years.)

Given the ASI’s influence on public policy - especially during the Margaret Thatcher years - I’m just surprised it has taken so long for their work to be recognised in this way.

Meanwhile, still no gong for Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH, or her counterpart in Scotland, Sheila Duffy. The mystery continues …

See: Still no honours for titans of tobacco control