- Martin Bright
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Martin Bright is a British journalist. He worked for the BBC World Service and The Guardian before becoming The Observer's education correspondent and then home affairs editor. From 2005 to 2009, he was the New Statesman's political editor.
Bright was the presenter of Channel 4's 30 Minutes film, Who Speaks For Muslims? He is the author of When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries, on British state funding of political Islam, published by the right-of-centre British thinktank Policy Exchange.[1] In 2001, he wrote a controversial article in the New Statesman about the work of Islamic scholars John Wansbrough, Michael Cook, Patricia Crone, Andrew Rippin and Gerald Hawting entitled The Great Koran Con Trick. [2]. He has since publicly disowned the headline on the article, which he has described as irresponsible. Some of the scholars involved were unhappy with the article.[citation needed]
Bright is married to Vanessa Thorpe, the arts correspondent of The Observer, with whom he has two children.
Bright left the New Statesman in January 2009. He now writes an online blog entitled "The Bright Stuff – Dispatches from Enemy Territory" for The Spectator. Bright was on the journalism long list for the Orwell Prize in 2009.
In January 2009, Bright formed New Deal of the Mind, a coalition of artists, entrepreneurs, academics and opinion formers working to boost employment in Britain's creative sector during the recession. The organisation was launched formally at Number 11 Downing Street on 24 March 2009. The launch seminar was attended by over sixty of Britain's leading creative industry figures, as well as several ministers and politicians from across the political spectrum. Lord Puttnam called the event "a remarkable moment in history".[citation needed]
The New Deal of the Mind coalition has since founded a charitable company that is now based at the Southbank Centre in London. New Deal of the Mind continues to work closely with government, all political parties and leading cultural institutions to find ways of boosting employment in the creative sector.
Bright joined the Jewish Chronicle as political editor in September 2009.
External links
- The New Statesman Special Report – The great Koran con trick, by Martin Bright, 10 December 2001
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