Will Hutton

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Will Hutton

William Nicholas Hutton (born 21 May 1950, Woolwich) is a British writer, weekly columnist and former editor-in-chief for The Observer. He is currently executive vice-chair of The Work Foundation (formerly the Industrial Society), having been Chief Executive from 2000 to 2008.

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[edit] Early life

Hutton studied at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School in Sidcup, where he was introduced to A level economics by a teacher Garth Pinkney. After studying Sociology and Economics at the University of Bristol[1] gaining a BSocSc, he started his career as an equity salesman for a stock broker, before leaving to study for a MBA at INSEAD.

[edit] Career

He moved on to work in TV and radio, spending ten years with the BBC, including working as economics correspondent for Newsnight from 1983 to 1988. He spent four years as editor-in-chief at The Observer and director of the Guardian National Newspapers before joining the Industrial Society, now known as The Work Foundation.

Hutton joined The Work Foundation as chief executive in 2000 when it was named the Industrial Society.[1] As well as a columnist, author and Chief Executive, he is a governor of London School of Economics, a visiting professor at the University of Manchester Business School and the University of Bristol, a visiting fellow at Mansfield College Oxford, a trustee of the Scott Trust that owns the Guardian Media Group, rapporteur of the Kok Group and a member of the Design Council's Millennium Commission.[2]

[edit] Political analysis

The analysis in his books is characterised by a support for the European Union and its potential, alongside a disdain for what he calls American conservatism – defined, among other factors, as a certain attitude to markets, property and the social contract. In 1992, he won the What The Papers Say award for Political Journalist of the Year.

Will Hutton (right), speaking to Peter Sutherland (left) and Garret FitzGerald (centre) at the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin in 2006.

[edit] Author

As an author, his best known and most influential works are The State We're In (an economic and political look at Britain in the 1990s from a social democratic point of view) and The World We're In (where he expanded his focus to the relationship between the United States and Europe, emphasising cultural and social differences between the two blocs).

Hutton's most recent book The Writing On The Wall was released in the UK in January 2007. The book examines Western concerns and responses to the rise of China and the emerging global division of labour, and argues that the Chinese economy is running up against a set of increasingly unsustainable contradictions that could have a damaging universal fallout. On February 18, 2007, Hutton was a featured guest in BBC's Have Your Say programme discussing the implications of China's growth.

[edit] Personal life

Hutton married in 1978 and lives near Woodstock in Oxfordshire, with a second house in Muswell Hill. He has a son and two daughters. He is a keen windsurfer, and has competed in several poker tournaments. His wife, Jane Atkinson, is a director of a property development company called First Premise based in Richmond upon Thames, which she founded in 1987.

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Media offices
Preceded by
Andrew Jaspan
Editor of The Observer
1996 - 1998
Succeeded by
Roger Alton
Languages