Talk about reforming the machinery of government often sounds like a wine tasting. One expert raises the glass, considers the latest initiative and says: ‘An interesting effort, but not enough depth.’ Another detects ‘promising notes of delivery, rather spoiled by departmental silos’. A third finds ‘hints of innovation and accountability, but with a disappointingly familiar […]
‘Who governs Britain?’ asked Ted Heath in the February 1974 general election, only to receive an answer he neither liked nor expected. But today, when a Prime Minister with a majority of more than 150 seats is said to be fighting for his political life; when a Cabinet Secretary departs after barely fourteen months; when […]
We are all fascinated by the personality aspects of any political row. Who leaked what to who? What are they up to, and why? Was it part of a wider plot? Who will fall? How and when will it all end? Intriguing, certainly, but sometimes it is worth looking at the deeper roots of the […]
First some good news for once: there are a surprising number of areas where the UK government has achieved outstanding results, more or less on time and on budget. Here are half a dozen examples: The Thames Tideway Tunnel is the recently-opened 25km ‘super sewer’ for London. Instead of dumping untreated sewage into the river […]
We have the highest levels of peacetime spending. We have the highest levels of public debt. We have non-existent growth, even negative on the most important measure, GDP per capita growth. And yet, despite all this spending and debt, we have managed the unfortunate trick of having record levels of public dissatisfaction with public services. […]
Who is in charge of the Civil Service? A simple question, with a supposedly simple answer: it is the Head of the Home Civil Service, who is also the Cabinet Secretary. The Permanent Secretaries of all government departments and the Scottish and Welsh governments are responsible to him for the day-to-day management of their organisations. […]
It took Margaret Thatcher nine years. It took Tony Blair seven years. But Keir Starmer has only taken five months to recognise that the machinery of UK government is bust. He now has the opportunity, time and parliamentary majority to drive through lasting reforms to the way in which Whitehall works. We should all welcome […]
It’s been a grim week. On Monday, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee published a paper on our national debt, now standing at almost 100% of GDP. It made the striking comparison with how, in the post-war years, successive governments had managed to reduce the national debt because of the baby boom, a […]
The head of the Downing Street Delivery Unit is quitting government, according to a report in yesterday’s Times. Emily Lawson had worked on the vaccine rollout, but now wants out, as Downing Street has apparently become ‘much more political in terms of the areas it wants to focus on’. The hugely successful vaccine rollout brought […]
The England that AJP Taylor wrote about in the introduction to English History, 1914-1945 is a very different country: ‘Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked… […]
It is wonderful that Oxfam recognises the “astonishing progress in poverty reduction” over the past few decades, and that “business can be a great force for good” in this respect. But I want to be greedy. I want Oxfam and all those other organisations which, rightly and commendably, want to see a reduction in global […]
Right now it’s still a small and disparate industry. It’s hard to define. But it’s rapidly changing the world. Airbnb has done it to hotels. Uber is doing it to taxis. Simply put – tomorrow, sharing will beat owning. First, the good news: the UK is already a world leader in the sharing economy, second […]
Bruce Anderson is wrong and Paul Krugman is right – at least on the minor point about whether equality of opportunity can ever be a cause which those who believe in freedom can support. In his (otherwise brilliant) CapX article, Anderson writes that: “Here, Tories have been careless. Some of them have been far too […]
“These are fantastically good figures”, the official concluded. “The state of the economy is much better than predicted.” Eyes swivelled to Gordon Brown. “What am I supposed to do with this?”, he snarled. “Write them a f***ing thank you letter?” Tom Bower, Gordon Brown, HarperCollins, 2004 This was the first, but not the last, tantrum […]
