I’ve been Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice – the #1 independent website for the Lib Dems – since 2007. I combine this with my professional life as Development Director for the Education Endowment Foundation.
I’m a graduate of Mansfield College, University of Oxford, where I received an MA in Modern History in 1998, writing my thesis on the Labour party and Scottish devolution in the 1960-70s.
I joined the Liberal Democrats in 1999, and was elected to Oxford City Council the following year. I was re-elected twice, retiring from the council after eight years, in 2008, having served as Deputy Lord Mayor and the city’s executive councillor for finance.
I worked as a development professional for more than a dozen years within the University of Oxford, including for its £1.25 billion Oxford Thinking Campaign. Achievements during my time at Oxford, which ended in 2011, included:
- Helping launch the largest educational fundraising campaign outside of North America – Oxford Thinking: The Campaign for the University of Oxford;
- The largest ever gift to a British university library – £25 million from the Garfield Weston Foundation towards the renovation of the New Bodleian Library in Oxford;
- Initiating and developing at St Anne’s College an annual giving programme of direct mail and telephone campaigns, raising some £1m in gifts and pledges. Over 2,000 alumni and friends – 25% of the College’s worldwide constituency – made a gift;
- Overhauling the St Anne’s College website, introducing the first e-zine and launching the first YouTube channel in Oxford;
- Becoming the first Director of Development to be appointed Head of Strategy for an Oxford college.
In 2005, I began blogging, and was awarded the inaugural Lib Dem ‘Blogger of the Year’ prize in 2006 for my blog A Liberal Goes A Long Way. In the same year, I was shortlisted for the New Statesman’s New Media Awards in the Elected Representative category.
In 2007, I was asked to take over as editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a role I have held ever since, helping – alongside a small group of contributing editors – to establish the site as not only the leading independent website for the party, but also as one of the top 5 blogs in the UK, with a peak readership of 140,000 individual readers in 2010.
I appear frequently in the media – in print, online and in person, and regularly speak at conferences and seminars on British politics and the impact of new media.
I live in Oxford with my partner, Noa, and our three cats and one terrapin.
