Will Straw did a good job with Left Foot Forward, the “evidence based” left-wing policy blog that loves a graph. It was a critical success if not a box office success, voted the top left-wing blog in the Total Politics blogging awards – the British political blogosphere’s Oscars.

LFF is the blogging equivalent of a worthy art-house movie.

He is now off to the IPPR, the once influential think-tank which has sort of lost its way in the last few years. Guido has observed that it was contracting and last year’s 21st Birthday Party was more like a wake.  Will always was a bit of a wonk and his task is to restore IPPR to its former New Labour glory...