Andy Coulson may have gone, but the evidence of the spin-s dark arts at work permeates the Coalition government’s strategy. Before the election both Tories and Liberal Democrats made much of the fact they were going to be open and honest with voters about the effects of the cuts they were proposing (as opposed to […]

Today’s economic results were worse than anybody expected. The world economy is growing faster, and we are back into recession territory. And the Chancellor’s explanation – the wrong sort of snow.

A senior PCT manager writes to tell me that they have estimated that the new GP Consortia – costing about £25-£35 per patient to run – will mean between £7-£10m for their area, whilst the current PCT costs at most £7m.

The Oldham and Saddleworth by-election is intersting for all sorts of reasons: the first since the general election; the first where two Coalition parties have fought each other (or not); the first sitting MP to be expelled by an Election Court for lying about an opponent (and let’s hope that doesn’t catch on or we’ll […]

The allegation is being widely circulated that Manchester City Council announced it’s 2,000 job losses today as a “spoiler” for the Old & Sad bye-election. Sadly, nothing so expertly Machiavellian has happened….

A crazy day after Manchester City Council confirmed that it was to make 2,000 staff redundant. A few minutes after I’d heard about on the Today programme just after 7am, they rang up to ask me to comment! Apart from a Today interview, which you can listen to here, I’ve done interviews for BBC Radio […]

I was surprised to hear David Cameron admit on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show (BBC TV) that “no-one gave us a mandate on how to run a coalition”.  How true, how very, very, true.

Last week the Public Administration Select Committee published a hard-hitting, extremely blunt, report criticising the way in which the Government’s (non) bonfire of the quangos has been conducted. Well worth a read – one of the most intriguing suggestions was that many quangos should be turned into executive agencies, which for those of us who […]

I was amused, but also frustrated, to watch the media over Christmas get themselves into a tiz about whether the Government are “Maoists”. The Financial Times even went so far as to construct a sort of Mao-Metre for individual policies – amusing, but unfortunately a bad historical parallel.

I have been trying – and I confess failing – to try and get my head around a simple question: who owns (or rather will own) GP consortia? The legal status of these bodies may seem a bit pedantic, but it could have a fundamental affect on the dynamics of the New Model NHS. This […]