Onward!

I was a bit surprised to hear that Sir Simon Clarke, my near namesake and the former MP and Cabinet member, had been appointed director of Onward.

It’s not that I think he won’t do a good job, but Clarke is on the centre right of the party and Onward, a think tank founded in 2018, always struck me as being on the centrist, wishy washy left of the party.

Labour MP Lucy Powell, now Leader of the House of Commons, arguably thought so: “I think Onward are a fantastic think tank”, she is reputed to have said.

That may be but hopefully this is a political realignment and Clarke's appointment will signal a new dawn for a think tank that was also described as ‘close to Rishi Sunak's Downing Street’. Enough said.

Either way, now that Sir Simon is back in the Westminster bubble, does that mean I can expect more media requests that, on closer inspection, are intended not for me but for him?

At least that isn’t as bad as being summoned to the House of Commons to meet an MP, only to find that the person the MP thought he was meeting was … Simon Clarke.

See: What’s in a name?, Confusion reigns, and Another case of mistaken identity

PS. As I write this, Onward is hosting a keynote speech by Kemi Badenoch, which is a good sign. A penny for Lucy Powell’s thoughts!