Research and development for senior government decision makers
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...
She was obviously an extraordinary political leader, with a unique, uncompromising style. She did not shrink from confrontation and openly scorned consensus. She was a conviction politician, who sharply divided people. While, in retrospect, you can point to tides of opinion – against the trade unions and the post-war state – which ran in...
First of all, special advisers play a vital role in government including helping to protect the impartiality of the civil service. As we highlighted in The Challenges of Being a Minister, ministers can be isolated and lonely. Special advisers can help as loyal, informed and politically sympathetic colleagues. An environment of openness, confidence and...
A striking result of the reshuffle is the gap in the middle of the ministerial hierarchy. With the exception of the demoted Baroness Warsi, there is not one other woman at minister of state level. This leaves little chance to improve the balance in a hypothetical 2015 cabinet, as neither party leader will have...
Paul Deighton is the latest in a distinguished line of GOATs brought in to provide business and delivery expertise for the Government. The future Lord Deighton — as he will become when he takes over in January from Lord Sassoon as unpaid Commercial Secretary to the Treasury — has had a very successful career...
Gus’s favourite statistic never bore that much scrutiny – in reality there were many more men with the rank of permanent secretary who did not “count” – whether the proliferation of permanent secretaries at the centre or ambassadors with permanent secretary rank. But at one point, some time in early 2011, it was possible to claim...
Yet the fact that it is politicians makes it newsworthy. There is no reason why this should be so – they are doing jobs like most people, albeit of a high profile kind, and will be judged on their performance. Also, like most organisations, government, is getting flatter in structure with less room to...
On Friday, 2 December 2011, Bristol’s Festival of Ideas organised a day-long event bringing together prominent Bristol academics, local councillors, MPs, business and community leaders, and former and current mayors from elsewhere in England to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of adopting the mayoral model in the city. Also taking part was Lord Adonis,...
To the strains of ‘fifty ways to leave your lover’, we highlighted the great political resigners – the Hezza flounce over Westland, the slow-motion destruction of Thatcher by Lawson-Howe over European monetary integration (not the poll tax); Robin Cook over Iraq and ending with our guest speaker, James Purnell, who gave a compelling account...
The US transition is a very different process, involving a massive scale of personnel change since political appointees occupy many of the posts held in the UK by the permanent Civil Service. But the relative small scale and sometimes ad hoc nature of UK opposition preparations would surprise many on the other side of...