As part of their ongoing research into Brexit, governance and populism at the Universities of Manchester and Exeter, Professor Dave Richards, Professor Oliver James, Dr. Kinglsey Purdam and Dr. Liz Richardson offer their reflections on the systemic challenges facing the UK as our government prepares to make Brexit official. Despite its ubiquity, exactly what ‘take back […]
Desperately seeking: why we need a leader for the Northern Powerhouse
George Osborne confirmed his commitment to the Northern Powerhouse by prioritising it so strongly in the recent Budget. But, says Mark Robinson, the initiative is in desperate need of a figurehead or strategic leadership to take it to the next level and stop it fizzling out. Lord Adonis and the National Infrastructure Commission have […]
‘Neither Unified, Nor Uniform – So What Civil Service for the Twenty-First Century?
In the final part of our special series on the Civil Service, Francesca Gains and Dave Richards sum up the debate and assess the future of the service during a period of great change. The most striking theme to emerge from the Policy@Manchester series of Civil Service ‘stocking-taking’ blogs by Martin Stanley and Colin Talbot […]
Civil Service Accountability to the Public
In the second of our series of posts exploring the corridors of power in Whitehall, former senior civil servant and public sector chief executive Martin Stanley discusses how we are governed and the tensions between the needs of Ministers, MPs and the wider public. The electorate clearly believe that ‘the Westminster Village’ is incompetent and/or […]
After the ‘No’: Constitutional Reform must not be by the Elites for the Elites
The constitutional debate unleashed by the Scottish Independence Referendum has revealed many of the contradictions and problems of the British political system. The result effectively undermines the notion of the Westminster model and the underlying principle of Parliamentary (in realty Executive) Sovereignty. The Westminster model is based on an idea of indivisible sovereignty, accompanied by […]