Media & endorsements
February 12, 2025
Our politicians should be taught how to govern.
The Times, Munira Mirza,
Chief Executive
“Smart young people are more likely to work in finance, law or tech than go into government, perhaps because politics provides very little real preparation… MPs form the pool from which ministers are chosen. It is bizarre that the people in charge of multibillion-pound government departments, legislating for new technologies or even deciding whether we go to war, lack expertise. No other profession or industry would be so blasé about its senior ranks.”
October 23, 2024
Is your company mired in the culture wars? Stop fighting.
Bloomberg, Adrian Wooldridge
“The core idea of “institutional neutrality” is that organizational leaders don’t go out of their way to take party political positions on behalf of their organizations. Permanent civil servants (as opposed to political appointees) don’t commit themselves to one particular political party. CEOs of regular public companies (as opposed to founders) don’t throw the company’s weight behind one particular party. But in today’s world, where politics is extending beyond traditional boundaries and becoming entangled with culture wars, institutional neutrality needs to go further…”
June 27, 2024
How the British elite lost its way
Munira Mirza, Chief Executive
“In a multipolar world, with a stagnant economy and the prospect of geopolitical conflict forcing us into ever tougher choices at home, we must think about leadership again with the kind of seriousness it deserves.” Munira Mirza for Engelsberg Ideas
November 23, 2023
Race, Brexit, and Islamism
Podcast: Conversations with Coleman
In this episode, Munira and Coleman talk about her early days as a Marxist, her interest in art and museums, her views on Brexit, her views on multiculturalism in the UK, the Israel-Hamas war and Jihadism in general, and much more.
August 3, 2023
You don’t become a science superpower without taking care of the basics
Financial Times, John Thornhill,
Innovation Editor
“There have been a few great examples of the public and private sectors working well together in Britain: the expansion of the offshore wind turbine industry and the rapid development of the Oxford Covid vaccine, to name but two. But what was striking at the Civic Future event was the seething frustration felt by many of the British participants at the inability of successive governments to help realise this economic potential.”
July 18, 2023
Britain is a developing
country
Substack, Sam Bowman
“I think there is an opportunity to tell the world, tell the markets that investing in productive infrastructure, things that will help boost the economy, are worthwhile and that the UK has a plan to try and deal with economic stagnation.”
July 18, 2023
Britain Should Stop
Pretending It’s a Rich Country
Bloomberg, Adrian Wooldridge
“We have a very strong science base, a great start-up culture…and in order to get out of this economic stagnation we have to start thinking about how we use technological innovation and it’s not just about more science brain power, it’s about what politicians and people in public institutions can do to also help boost that science talent that we have.”
July 18, 2023
Britain’s pro-growth agenda
needs a rebrand to convince
reluctant voters
City AM, Adam Hawksbee, Onward
“There are many opportunities to turn things around — as long as we take seriously what it means to really prioritise growth and the trade-offs that growth involves. It is not technology by itself that will decide its impact on our lives but the ability of the great twin powers of the state and business to integrate, fund and develop new frontiers of technological change.”
July 15, 2023
How do we fix Britain’s stagnant economy?
The Spectator, Kate Andrews and Professor Tyler Cowen
“It’s the number one policy problem. If people don’t see their living standards going up. There will be political discontent, other bad decisions will be made… and that’s what we’re seeing. I think that’s why we’re all at this conference, hosted by Civic Future, to figure out what to do”
July 13, 2023
How do we get out of The
Great Stagnation?
Andrew Marr on LBC, Munira Mirza,
Chief Executive
“I think there is an opportunity to tell the world, tell the markets that investing in productive infrastructure, things that will help boost the economy, are worthwhile and that the UK has a plan to try and deal with economic stagnation.”
July 13, 2023
How do we get out of The
Great Stagnation?
Munira Mirza, Chief Executive on Times Radio
“We have a very strong science base, a great start-up culture…and in order to get out of this economic stagnation we have to start thinking about how we use technological innovation and it’s not just about more science brain power, it’s about what politicians and people in public institutions can do to also help boost that science talent that we have.”
July 13, 2023
It’s time to embrace new frontiers
of technological change
The Times, Munira Mirza,
Chief Executive
“There are many opportunities to turn things around — as long as we take seriously what it means to really prioritise growth and the trade-offs that growth involves. It is not technology by itself that will decide its impact on our lives but the ability of the great twin powers of the state and business to integrate, fund and develop new frontiers of technological change.”
November 14, 2022
It’s time to kick the posers out of politics
The Times – Sir Trevor Phillips
writer and broadcaster
“The aim of Civic Future is twofold. First, to improve the quality of our leaders by providing what in corporate life we would call CPD — continuing professional development. Most in Westminster and Whitehall are woefully under-prepared. […] the second, even more important aim is to encourage diversity of experience and perspective.”
November 14, 2022
A call to arms: where will we find tomorrow’s bright Whitehall leaders?
CityAM – Eliot Wilson
co-founder of Pivot Point
“It is to be hoped that Civic Future will be an idea that encourages others to do the same, in whatever ways they can. Let us recruit from the best and brightest, irrespective of their socio-economic and cultural circumstances, and let us try also to bring in those with talents and qualifications from across the academic and practical spheres.”
November 11, 2022
The midterms. What the Tories and the Republicans can learn from each other
Conservative Home – William Atkinson
Assistant Editor of Conservative Home
“The ambition of those New Right think tanks across the pond is to train up the next generation of staffers and wonks for the next Republican government. We should be doing the same. Munira Mirza’s excellent Civic Future initiative is a guide. Nonetheless, that is non-partisan, and rightly so.”
November 11, 2022
Back to the Civic Future
Philip Salter
Founder of The Entrepreneurs Network
“Getting good policies is more than just good ideas. We also need leaders in public life who can put them into practice. Both through Civic Future and other mechanisms, we want to ensure that some of the UK’s latent entrepreneurial talent is applied to the public sector.”
November 10, 2022
London Influence
Politico – Matt Honeycombe-Foster
Policy Editor
“The new outfit: Mirza’s launching a new not-for-profit, Civic Future, which is vowing to “open up public life” by training up potential leaders and giving them “the tools to navigate the arcane and often intimidating world of the British political system.”
November 10, 2022
Where are our leaders? The battle for top political talent
Audley – Harry Wynne-Williams
Director at Audley
“The effort to bring skills and diverse talent into politics is commendable, as the limitations of ‘career politicians’ are regularly revealed […] The Fellowship selection is competitive and one wonders who might now come forward, who might otherwise have been deterred by the ways of the Westminster village.”
November 10, 2022
Mirza’s Civic Future. A welcome attempt to improve our stagnant political class
Conservative Home – William Atkinson
Assistant Editor of Conservative Home
“Ensuring our politicians have a deeper theoretical and practical understanding of their profession – and come from a wider set of backgrounds than Oxbridge, PPE, Tufton Street, and ministerial bag-carrying – can only be a good thing. People of all parties – and none – should be cheering her efforts on.”
November 9, 2022
How to train our leaders to run the country
The Times, Munira Mirza
Chief Executive of Civic Future
“We believe that to make public institutions and government more effective, Britain needs a much stronger talent pipeline that will attract and equip candidates with both a theoretical and practical understanding of how politics works — and how it can be improved.”
November 9, 2022
Why Civic Future was launched
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme
interview with Munira Mirza
Chief Executive of Civic Future
“Public life in its broadest sense there are hundreds, thousands of jobs where people are making decisions that affect millions of us around the country and the aim of this organisation is to try and encourage more talented people, people from different backgrounds to go into those roles. At the moment we have a problem many people are put off going into politics and public life and this is designed to encourage more people to consider that.”
November 9, 2022
Munira Mirza: The constant briefing at Westminster is corrosive
New Statesman, Munira Mirza
Chief Executive of Civic Future
“Munira Mirza, once known as “Boris Johnson’s brain”, wants to avoid controversy and change the way we do politics.”
November 9, 2022
Low status and mediocre pay: no wonder we get the worst MPs
The Telegraph – Jemima Lewis
Telegraph columnist
“Civic Future will offer fellowships, training in skills and the opportunity to think deeply about values and philosophy. It points specifically to economic and scientific literacy and crisis management, but we can all think of competences in which our leaders have been found lacking as we have faced the financial crisis, then Brexit, then the pandemic. Surely, if we could not only promote these kinds of skills, but also open up the government—both political and official—to broader participation, it would equip the nation better to move forward.”