Ed Straw is a writer and campaigner on government and politics. He has a very different take on its problems and a unique solution.
“I’ve slowly but surely learnt that if we really want to improve our lives and the world we live in, then politics and the way governments work has to change very significantly first.”
Ed is now a Visiting Research Fellow at the Open University’s Applied Systems Thinking in Practice unit, headed by Professor Ray Ison, with whom he is writing a book on The Hidden Power of Systems Thinking, and its application to governments and governance.
He was a consultant and partner with PWC (1982 – 2008), Global and UK Boards Director, European Head of Media, and Director of Quality.
He became a leading consultant to governments under Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair, advising on public sector reform. As an expert on the design of organisations, he sat on the devolved Scottish Executive’s ‘Efficient Government’ Expert Panel.
As a Labour Party moderniser, he was in charge of the organisational review for the party’s then leader John Smith. Much of this advice was accepted and contributed to the electoral and early policy success of New Labour, where Ed was a government adviser on family policy and a range of briefs, including the Olympics bid.
Ed has had parallel careers as the Chair and Trustee of the think tank Demos and relationship charity Relate, and was Co-founder of the National Family and Parenting Institute. His long professional career has resulted in many insights on the modern history of politics, government, and economics. It has been said he has an unrivalled Insiders/Outsiders experience of government, and the destructive nature of the psychopathologies of power.
An early training in civil engineering taught him structured analysis, and perhaps most importantly for the reformation of governments, how to design things so they don’t fall down.