New Head of Government Propaganda appointed

The eternally puzzled looking and Lancashire born Ian Hargreaves,57 (Queen's Cambridge) has been appointed as the new Strategic Communications Director for the The Foreign and Commonwealth Office succeed Lucian Hudson who moves elsewhere in the FCO.

Ian Hargreaves becomes therefore in charge of Government propaganda and has a fascinating pedigree. He arrives directly on loan from Ofcom, where he is currently a senior partner and Board member responsible for Ofcom's international activities.

His experience as Director of Corporate and Public Affairs at BAA, Editor of the New Statesmen,T he Independent, a former chairman of Demos, and a member of the Chancellor's Social Investment Task Force (Chairman Gordy's favourite merchant banker Lord Cohen). He is also a former director of Greenpeace UK and of the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, Deputy Editor of the Financial Times and (naturally) Director of BBC News and Current Affairs... and at some time Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University as well as a panellist on BBC4's Moral Maze.

Peter Ricketts, Permanent Under Secretary at the FCO, and head of the mandarinate says Ian will be invaluable in helping the FCO to develop its global campaigning skills and to broaden the debate on foreign policy to a wider public in the UK and abroad.

All his New Statesman articles are here