An appearance on EURONET News (European radio station) – about 17 mins into this broadcast (5th May 2010) talking about the Election see this comment on what I have been saying about efficiency, about parallels with the USA, on our (MBS) online site ‘Transforming Management’ My appearance on the BBC R4 Today programme on April 9th […]

The old anarchist slogan (above) always had a grain of truth in it – especially in Britain where our permanent civil service is very permanent indeed. As “Yes, Minister” so brilliantly satirised, Ministers come and go, but Sir Humphrey remains, immovable, unflappable and very much in charge – or at least a powerful force in […]

Channel 4 did a reasonable job of exploring some of the issues that the election campaign and leaders debates have failed to tackle adequately (although I am biased ‘cos I was on the panel).

Mervyn King – Governor of the Bank of England – has reportedly said that this would be a good election to lose. Glad to see he’s caught up – I first said this in a column for Public Finance in February 2009 entitled ‘Losing is the new winning’. What is surprising is it has taken this […]

Both Brown and Clegg have done well in the debate tonight on the public finances and the economy. Brown demonstrated his mastery and experience of the global economic issues whilst Clegg played his ‘anti-politics’ card well (although it is getting a little tired) and his ‘fairness’ pitch was well presented. Clegg is clearly the master […]

I posted (below) some time ago on the mysterious £860m (rising to £905bn in four years) they could “save” from the audit and inspection of local government. As the entire budget of the Audit Commission – the main body involved – is only just over £200m how could they save four times this amount?

With the FT and IFS reports this week it is abundantly clear now to everyone what some of us have been saying for ages – this election is being fought with a big void where the truth about the public finances and spending cuts ought to be. But if what they are telling us about […]

When I posted a week ago about the possibility of Alan Johnson as PM in a Lab-Lib coalition, it would have been easy to dismiss it as fantasy. But, a week is a very long time in our current politics. Today’s Guardian headlines Nick Clegg saying: I could work with Labour, just not Gordon Brown

Is the idea of an IMF intervention in Britain fact or fiction?  Simple answer: fiction, on just about every level.