After nearly two years setting up and editing Left Foot Forward, I have decided to pass on the leadership of the blog to what Ed Miliband might call a “new generation”.
Shamik Das, our excellent assistant editor becomes Acting Editor, and Daniel Elton, a trained fundraiser who has been working with Left Foot Forward on the separate Latimer Project, will take over as Managing Director with responsibility for business development. Our regular writers Nicola Smith and Marcus Roberts will become contributing editors on social policy and foreign policy respectively. They join a new editorial board which will be expanded in the coming weeks.
In January, I start as Associate Director for Strategic Development at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). I’ll be working with new Director Nick Pearce and ippr’s terrific team of researchers (many of whom will be familiar as LFF contributors) to help rebuild the policy platform for British progressives as well as developing the Institute’s international relationships, particularly in the US where I used to work. I’ll continue to write – primarily on economic policy – for Left Foot Forward.
Setting up and editing Left Foot Forward over the past 18 months has been an enormously rewarding challenge and I’m thrilled that we now have a regular monthly audience of over 50,000 and have been voted the No.1 left-wing blog. I’ve no doubt that the new team will take the blog from strength to strength.
44 Responses to “Changes at Left Foot Forward”
Deborah Segalini
Congrats all round!
Brian Duggan
Best of luck @wdjstraw in move on from @LeftFootFwd, congrats on job well done for the left online http://bit.ly/f6PCdB
Johanna Baxter
RT @TheBrianDuggan: Best of luck @wdjstraw in move on from @LeftFootFwd, congrats on job well done for the left online http://bit.ly/f6PCdB
David Choat
Congratulations on the new job, Will, and well done on your considerable achievement in building Left Foot Forward to where it is now. As a New Zealander with a interest in progressive politics internationally, I find it an indispensable read, and your team’s approach to running a blog is an inspiration.
Mary Goudie
RT @leftfootfwd: Changes at Left Foot Forward http://bit.ly/i5Bmyg