at the University of Ulster. On 22 December 2020 it was announced that he was to become a Conservative life peer. In the afternoon of Monday 25 January 2021 he was created Baron Godson, of Thorney Island in the City of Westminster. Work at Policy Exchange Godson joined Policy Exchange in 2005 and initially headed up its research into security policy, before becoming its Director in 2013. In 2005, Godson edited Replacing the Routemaster: how to undo Ken Livingstone's destruction of London's best ever bus. The study, which featured contributions from Colin Cramphorn, Simon Jenkins, Andrew Gilligan and many others, was the first major critique of Ken Livingstone's policy of scrapping the Routemaster bus. The report heavily influenced Boris Johnson's subsequent 'New Routemaster' policy in the 2008 London Mayoral elections. and was attacked by outgoing Labour mayor Ken Livingstone in his memoirs. Godson founded the Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture, to celebrate the life of the late Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Peter Clarke, then head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command. In 2009, the lecture was delivered by Charles Farr, Director General of the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism in the Home Office. In September 2009, it was delivered by General David Petraeus, then Commander, United States Central Command. In 2011, Gen James N. Mattis, then head of CENTCOM, gave the sixth Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture. As head of Policy Exchange's security unit, Godson produced a number of reports examining the views of British Muslims. This included, in 2009, "Choosing Our Friends Wisely: Criteria for Engagement with Muslim Groups" by the ex Hizb ut-Tahrir radical Shiraz Maher and Dr Martyn Frampton of Peterhouse, Cambridge. The report was praised by Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, former Chief of the Defence Staff, as "remarkable". In June 2011, columnist Matthew D’Ancona wrote in the Evening Standard that the Government's review of its counter-terrorist strategy was “a tribute to an intellectual battle fought over the years by the modernising think tank, Policy Exchange... and, specifically, the head of its foreign policy and security unit, Dean Godson”. In October 2007, Policy Exchange published a report entitled The Hijacking of British Islam: How extremist literature is subverting mosques in the UK. Godson became embroiled in controversy when Newsnight put out a broadcast on 12 December 2007 that suggested some of the receipts purporting to prove the sale of extremist