Sorry to be a stickler for details but a widespread myth emerged during the Election that the Labour government had “postponed” a Spending Review and “put it off until after the Election”.

If a minority Tory or Con-Lib dem government comes to power next week the worst possible thing they could do is deploy the infamous “it’s worse than we thought” ploy.

Labour has clearly lost, but the Tories also clearly did not win either, however much they want to pretend otherwise. The verdict of the electors is that they do not want one-party rule anymore. The issue is not whether we have a smash and grab Tory government or a clinging on Labour one, but what […]

Things have been rather hectic over the past couple of weeks and I’ve done so many media things I’ve not had time to keep this page up to date. Until the Election is over that’s likely to continue to be the case. But one amusing story – I got “bumped” by a volcano last week! […]

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?