Daniel William Finkelstein, Baron Finkelstein,, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British journalist and politician.
Background
Finkelstein is Jewish. His mother was a Holocaust survivor, while his father Ludwig Finkelstein Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was born in Lviv, then in Poland, and became Professor of Measurement and Instrumentation at City University London. He is a grandson of Doctor Alfred Wiener, the Jewish activist and founder of the Wiener Library.
Education
He was educated at University College School, the London School of Economics (Bachelor of Science, 1984) and City University London (Master of Science , 1986).
Career
He is a former Executive Editor of The Times, but remains a weekly political columnist and is now associate editors He is a former chairman of Policy Exchange who was succeeded by David Frum in 2014. lieutenant was announced that he would be elevated to the House of Lords in August 2013.
He is the brother of Professor
Anthony Finkelstein FREng, Dean of the University College London Faculty of Engineering Sciences at University College London. Daniel Finkelstein has three children: Aron, Isaac and Samuel.
After Owen had announced his resignation from politics, Finkelstein was the spokesman for a group of young Social Democratic Party members who joined the Conservative Party. Before working for the Conservative Party, Daniel Finkelstein was Director of the think tank the Social Market Foundation for three years.
During his period with the SMF the organisation brought New York police commissioner Bill Bratton to London, for the first time introducing United Kingdom politicians to the successful new strategies being used there.
Conservative Party Between 1995 and 1997 Finkelstein was Director of the Conservative Research Department and in that capacity advised Prime Minister John Major and attended meetings of the Cabinet when it sat in political session. Finkelstein became among the earliest advocates of the "modernisation" of the Conservative Party, laying out the principles of change in a series of speeches and columns in The Times. Between 1997 and 2001 he was political adviser to the Leader of the Opposition William Hague, and, together with George Osborne, Secretary to the Shadow Cabinet.
In the 2001 election Finkelstein was the unsuccessful Conservative parliamentary candidate in Harrow West.
Between 1990 and 1992, Finkelstein was the editor of Connexion, Britain"s first Internet and data communications newspaper. Finkelstein joined The Times in August 2001 as part of the leader writing team and was Comment Editor from March 2004 to June 2008.
He became Chief Leader Writer in June 2008. He began The Times blog Comment Central in September 2006.
He is also a regular columnist in The Jewish Chronicle.
His weekly football statistics column, the Fink Tank, began in 2002 and runs in The Times on Saturdays.
Politics
When the merger with the Liberal Party was proposed, Finkelstein was among the leading opponents and refused to join the merged party.
Membership
Between 1981 and 1990 Daniel Finkelstein was a member of the Social Democratic Party, becoming Chair of the Young Social Democrats on the defection of his predecessor Keith Toussaint to the Conservative Party during the 1983 general election campaign.