[This post is being updated as more information arrives, so please check back]. A friend and colleague at the University of Malawi (Chancellor College) has just sent this somewhat hair-raising account of a developing attack on academic freedom there:

Here’s a simple question about the NHS reforms – who’s going to count the beans? Bean counting gets a bad press, but as soon as someone fails to count the public sector beans – for which read “the taxpayers money” – properly all hell breaks loose.

When the LSE set up their controversial programme of training civil servants in Libya the person they negotiated the contract with was a Dr Mahmoud Jebril, who was then the DG of the National Development Board. At today’s Conference in London on the Future of Libya the Transitional Government (i.e. the rebels) was represented by, […]

I did the above on Sunday as a studio guest – if anyone’s interested you can find it on the BBC iPlayer here – it starts about half way through the NW segment.

Attacks on the Civil Service are nothing new. But when they come form a new government less than a year in office, something strange is happening.

As I predicted, the 2011 Budget has stuck rigidly to the public spending plans set out in the Spending Review 2010, including spending on services and capital spending.

A colleague at MBS, Tudor Rickards, has launched an interesting initiative over at Leaders We Deserve focussed on the Fukushima problem. But, as I indicated in my previous post, I still think the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami to the coastal communities in north-east Japan is by far the biggest problem. Estimates of […]

Today’s report from the Public Administration Select Committee (see here and Press Release reproduced below) makes complete sense. It argues that as Ministers reduce the size of the House of Commons (from 650 down to 600 MPs) and devolve power (allegedly) away from Whitehall, there should be less need for so many Ministers and their […]

The current debate in the UK about the  “Big Society” has been marred by some unfortunate mythology about to what extent the “Big Society” already exists, whether it is growing or shrinking, and whether it is counter-posed to the “Big State”.  The argument can be summed up as follows: