Apology, this has nothing to do with Whitehall or Public Management, but here goes anyway….. Owen (”Chavs”) Jones started a discussion on Twitter to glorify his and others ancestors who’d been involved in what, to him, we’re worthy pursuits like the General Strike. (I or you or may not agree whether this was a worthy […]
‘Poor Performers’ in the Civil Service – blame the poor bloody infantry
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister, says it should be just as easy to sack badly performing Civil Servant’s as it is to sack private sector workers. Which is to say, in today’s Britain, pretty easy. In truth, it is already just as easy to sack Civil Servants (at least in the lower echelons) – […]
Government U-turn on jump-jets – MBS research shows it could have been avoided.
My colleague at MBS, Michael Pryce, sends this: On 10 May 2012 Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond announces that the UK will revert to plans to buy the jump jet version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, to save billions of pounds in potential costs.
Andy Coulson and and his non ‘Developed Vetting’ – why on earth did the Civil Service let this happen?
Let’s start by saying I have been through the ‘Developed Vetting’ (DV) process. I can’t tell you why, because then I’d have to kill you (a joke, of course).
Is the Era of Single Party Rule Over?
The BBC’s Nick Robinson has it almost right when he says there are two ways of judging these elections – through the prism of the last three decades of British politics with its long-lived single party governments (Tories 1979-97; Labour 97-2010) or through the prism of 1970s one-term Governments. In the 1979-2010 period incumbent governments […]
Can Mervyn King do the math? Apparently not……might explain a lot?
I heard yet again today someone using the Queen’s Jubilee Gambit to explain that next quarter (Q2 2012) may see even more sluggish growth in the economy or even that wonder “negative growth”. This is based on comments made by the Governor of the Bank of England a few weeks ago:
Have Social Sciences “Wasted a Good Crisis”?
Aditya Chakrabortty has suggested (in a Guardian column) that British “publicly funded” social scientists have failed to step into the breach as neo-classical economic orthodoxy so spectacularly failed over the 2007-2009 financial crisis and it’s on-going consequences. Read my analysis over on my new ‘Homo Janus’ blog here.
Doubling Dip: is it the government’s fault?
So, Britain is officially in a ”double-dip” recession, just. In reality this is both more and less serious than it sounds. It is more serious because we are still a good 4% of GDP lower than we were at the start of the financial crisis in 2007. And that is probably between 10% or more […]
The Class Ceiling – Posh Boys (and Girls) Still Rule OK
When Tory MP Nadine Dorries described her Prime Minister and Chancellor as ”two arrogant posh boys” it prompted me to start thinking about my own experiences of class in British society over the past half century. My conclusion – there is, still, a ”class ceiling” in British society. True, it is weaker than it once […]
There is no such thing as a free lunch, unless you’re running a state funded academies trust that is. In which case you can free everything.
I have been predicting for ages that some of the current (and previous) Government’s reforms like NHS Foundation Trusts, Academies and ‘Free Schools’, and the soon to be Community Commissioning Groups, will undermine financial control and audit in these publicly funded agencies. In June 2010, for example, I wrote that “Many of the much derided […]
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