The UK has no equivalent of the US’s state of the union speech – when the President holds the Houses of Congress in awe with a tour of the world interwoven with some folksy stories and gets a standing ovation. Instead we have the odd ritual of the Queen announcing a series of legislative...

With a month of taking office, the new Government Chief Science Adviser, Sir Mark Walport, has become a pantomime villain to at least one environmental commentator, branded as an industry stooge for an article he wrote in the Financial Times in advance of the European debate. Indeed the article went further – to claim...

David Miliband headed the No.10 Policy Unit before he went off to be MP for South Shields and then start his rise to Foreign Secretary. Andrew Adonis headed the No.10 Policy Unit before moving as a Lords Minister to the Department of Education and becoming the most enthusiastic ever Transport Secretary. In an earlier...

In the tributes to Mrs Thatcher, Lord Tebbit drew attention to the ‘two great influences in her life. One was her scientific training. The other, of course, was her religious belief’. Lord Waldegrave underlined the point with a story about how Mrs Thatcher used her scientific training not just to see off a proposal...

This is what the chief secretary to the Treasury should have said in his opening remarks: “We face a prolonged period of fiscal austerity. The Treasury will no longer be prepared to finance policies which are not demonstrably working – nor can we underwrite speculative policies which are not supported by a reasonable evidence...

When the foot and mouth scandal broke, a friend of mine in government said that the basic problem was that cattle travelled all over the country before they were slaughtered. We are now discovering that “meat” has a eurorail pass before it gets to the shops or into the school dinner. That means that...

The Budget itself is a bizarre anachronism.  A major political event, for which the TV schedules are cleared.  Special supplements in the FT.  Still shrouded in secrecy and mystique despite the fact that the Chancellor claimed in his first days that all major announcements would have been trailed in the previous autumn – and...

In the last year, since Jeremy Heywood and Bob Kerslake took over as the duumvirate at the top of the Civil Service, seven people have been promoted to head government departments. Not a single one has been a woman. In that time, some of the most high profile women in Whitehall have decided they...

And others suffered cuts – notably swimming, which underperformed in the fantastic Aquatic centre with two bronzes and a silver; archery, volleyball and badminton which were all medal-free zones. The clear message is that sports federations who deliver results get funded – and those that don’t, get cut. The day before UK Sport’s funding...

“Ministerial involvement is actively encouraged for permanent secretary and other key competitions – it is a critical part of getting the right person for the job”. So wrote Civil Service Commissioner Sir David Normington to The Times, the day after the Civil Service Reform Plan was published. “They can even veto the panel’s...