Matt Cavanagh

Matt Cavanagh (born 1971) is a British political adviser and author.[1][2] He was a special adviser in the UK Labour government (2003–10).[1] He worked for Home Secretary David Blunkett;[3] for Chancellor Gordon Brown;[4] for Defence Secretary Des Browne;[5] and for Gordon Brown again as Prime Minister from June 2007 to May 2010.[1][6] Subsequently, he was an associate director at the Institute for Public Policy Research, working on UK immigration policy.[7] He now works in the private sector as Director of Government Relations for Prudential plc.[8]

Biography

Matthew Cavanagh was born in 1971.[9] He was educated at Bedford Modern School[10] and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read PPE, and then took a BPhil and DPhil in Philosophy.[1] From 1996 to 2000 he was lecturer in Philosophy at St Catherine's College, Oxford.[1] From 2000 to 2003 he was a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.[1]

Cavanagh is the author of Against Equality of Opportunity a controversial work of 2002 that criticises conventional understandings of the doctrine of equality of opportunity.[11] It gained positive reviews across the political spectrum, including in the Times Educational Supplement[12] and in The Spectator.[13] Other reviews were mixed, including Jeremy Waldron in the London Review of Books[14] and in the Guardian.[11]

Two years later in 2004, with Cavanagh now working as a special adviser, the Guardian returned to the book with a front-page story arguing that his views on race and equal opportunity made him unfit to work in government.[15] This led to widespread calls for Cavanagh to be sacked, with questions tabled in Parliament, and the affair rumbled on for a few days. The Guardian letters page carried a balance of letters for and against Cavanagh.[16]

In 2009 he was briefly in the news again, when he was accused of putting pressure on NHS statisticians to release statistics on knife crime prematurely.[17] The UK Statistics Watchdog reprimanded Downing Street, and again there were calls for his sacking, including from the Public Administration Committee.[18]

Cavanagh has written on Afghanistan and other subjects for Prospect[19] and The Spectator[20] magazines. He is a regular contributor to a number of blogs including the New Statesman,[21] The Spectator,[22] and Labour Uncut.[23]

He was the British national champion at Rugby fives in 2004 and 2006, and has since been a veteran winner.[24][25]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Matt Cavanagh | Bruegel". 21 October 2015.
  2. ^ Cavanagh, Matt (23 August 2002). Against equality of opportunity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191584046. OCLC 1171244285.
  3. ^ Maguire, Kevin (20 March 2004). "Blunkett aide in row over race". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
  4. ^ "Special Advisers: 16 Jul 2009: Hansard Written Answers". TheyWorkForYou.
  5. ^ Mumford, Andrew (2 January 2018). Counterinsurgency Wars and the Anglo-American Alliance: The Special Relationship on the Rocks. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 9781626164932 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ "House of Commons Hansard Ministerial Statements for 16 July 2009 (pt 0008)". publications.parliament.uk.
  7. ^ "Matt Cavanagh > Associate Director for UK Migration Policy". IPPR. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  8. ^ "Vietnam UK Network". www.vietnamuknetwork.org.uk.
  9. ^ "Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records at Ancestry.co.uk". ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  10. ^ The Eagle, Magazine of Bedford Modern School
  11. ^ a b John Crace (26 March 2002). "Equal wrongs | Education". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  12. ^ "Why we should spurn equality and meritocracy". Times Higher Education. 21 June 2002. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  13. ^ "Against Equality of Opportunity | Matt Cavanagh | Review by The Spectator". Spectator.co.uk. 16 March 2002. Archived from the original on 8 May 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  14. ^ Waldron, Jeremy (19 September 2002). "Jeremy Waldron reviews 'Against Equality of Opportunity' by Matt Cavanagh · LRB 19 September 2002". London Review of Books. 24 (18). Lrb.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  15. ^ Kevin Maguire (29 March 2004). "Blunkett aide in row over race | Politics". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  16. ^ "Letters: Philosophy and the real world | Politics". The Guardian. London. 22 March 2004. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  17. ^ "BBC - Mark Easton's UK: Knife "fact sheet": The e-mail trail".
  18. ^ "Uncorrected Evidence 504". Publications.parliament.uk. 7 May 2009. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  19. ^ "Inside the Anglo-Saxon war machine". Prospect Magazine. 17 November 2010. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  20. ^ "Operation amnesia". The Spectator. 13 April 2011. Archived from the original on 20 September 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  21. ^ "Matt Cavanagh". New Statesman. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  22. ^ "Matt Cavanagh | Find Articles | Spectator Magazine". Spectator.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  23. ^ Cavanagh, Matt. "Labour-Uncut". labour-uncut. Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  24. ^ "Tournament Winners". RugbyFives.com. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  25. ^ "2019 Veterans Matt Cavanagh champion 4th time".