Feb 23rd 2012, 14:01 by A McE
DOES Sir Bob Kerslake as the new head of Britain’s domestic civil service feel ready for the unvarnished truth about the organisation he heads? Leviathan hopes so: a new survey may make him brace himself. The civil service, once the “safe” career choice for Britons oiling the wheels of the state machinery, is not in chipper mood. A survey by the Boston Consulting Group and the UK Civil Service People Survey flags up problems of low morale, aimlessness and worries about career decline.
Your blogger does wonder how much “depression offset” should be built in to questionnaires asking people how they feel about their occupation.
Continue reading "Why the civil service is home to the new Mona Lotts" »
Feb 15th 2012, 18:00 by A McE
A MORE than usually terrifying assault on Andrew Lansley’s ragged health and social care bill in the Lancet claims that it is in fact a Trojan horse for private companies taking over key services and ruining the principle that health care should be free at the point of delivery. Naturally Mr Lansley denies this (arguably, his health reforms got so convoluted precisely because he has tried to free up scope for private innovation, while not indulging ideas like co-payment for some treatments, which were already being probed by some New Labour ministers). Your blogger spent some time this week consulting with the private providers the Lancet authors are convinced stand poised to make a killing while sounding the “death knell for a free NHS”.
Continue reading "Two very different ways to bash Mr Lansley's health bill" »
Jan 25th 2012, 18:15 by A McE
THE BBC’s chairman Lord Patten has had an eventful week. On Monday, he confirmed The Economist’s report of two weeks ago (“Auntie’s Big Year”) that he was already looking for a new Director General to succeed Mark Thompson, the present incumbent. Today at a conference, he delivered a wide-ranging speech on the corporation’s future, laying out several demands about its scope and substance.
In terms of impact, Lord Patten who has only been in the job for less than a year, is steaming ahead. The governing Trust, which he chairs, has just demanded that the executive unravel plans for drastic cuts in local radio. Such ruthlessness has come as something of a shock in the corporation.
Continue reading "Lord Patten ruffles the Beeb's feathers" »
Jan 4th 2012, 17:03 by A McE
It will not be a lot of fun being a crime reporter in the capital for the foreseeable future. A report by Dame Elizabeth Filkin into relations between hacks and the Metropolitan police paints a dim picture of alcohol-soaked encounters with “flirty” journalists (it seems safe to assume Dame Elizabeth means female journalists talking to male police officers, though that is a bit of an assumption).
Continue reading "A (very) sober way of dealing with police leaks" »
Dec 27th 2011, 15:18 by A. McE
THE fate of health-care reform since the grand retreats which began in of spring 2011 has been vague. Now Andrew Lansley, the health secretary who spent much of this year defending his sickly Health and Social Care Bill, has returned to launch another set of proposals which will put the cat among the pigeons. Existing foundation trusts, which run large hospitals, will be able to raise up to 49% of their funding from private work. This has brought forth more cries of a “two-tier health-care system”, a somewhat ritual denouncement which shies away from the fact that the real NHS is multi-tiered already, with doctors mixing private and public practice and widely varying levels of efficiency within the system.
Continue reading "A dose of private funding that's good for the NHS" »
Dec 13th 2011, 20:05 by A. McE. | LONDON
LARGELY unremarked among the greater political dramas, the coalition’s Big Society aspirations have undergone a health-check and being found sorely wanting by the public accounts committee, which monitors progress of the big idea. In a report published today, the committee warned that the project is hampered by the lack of a clear implementation plan, was confused about its policy agenda and “requires substantial change in Whitehall and to the nature of government”. Apart from that, it's all going fine.
On one level, David Cameron has bigger fish to fry.
Continue reading "How Dave's Big Society dream turned small" »
Nov 22nd 2011, 18:01 by A. McE.
HOW MUCH should Leviathan fund political parties? Not to the tune of £100m, it seems, as it emerges that the three major parties are about to reject the proposals of the committee on standards in public life, which had been investigating the matter. Your blogger (who has toiled longer than is good for her in the undergrowth of party funding), would make two points.
The first is that it was inevitable that the committee would recommend a strong element of state funding as a way of guaranteeing cashflow to parties with fewer strings attached than personal or company donations. Second, it was just as likely that the parties would demur.
Nov 2nd 2011, 16:08 by A McE
AMID the messy stand-off of disputatious protestors and hapless administrators in the great sit-in at St Paul's Cathedral, the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a modest proposal. Dr Rowan Williams has revived one of the favourite theoretical devices to constrain bankers' greed and redress what he describes in the Financial Times as the need for "visible change" in banking practices. The Church of England, he adds, has a "proper interest" in such matters. On that score, the Archbishop speaks for many in Britain who think that the bankers got off lightly and have not changed their ways. Now he is asking David Cameron and George Osborne to drop their opposition to a proposed Europe-wide tax on financial transactions at the upcoming G20 summit of world leaders.
Continue reading "The archbishop gets his bank tax in a twist" »
Nov 1st 2011, 9:03 by A. McE. | CHENGDU
YOUR blogger has been released from the delights of following the NHS healthcare bill and British planning arguments and set off to the western Chinese city of Chengdu, to assess the state of private input into the public sector. It started out feeling like a hunt for Lewis Carroll's mythological Snark. Chengdu is a massive, modern sprawl of nearly 14m inhabitants and is a vast manufacturing base for Chinese and international companies. The majority of parts for the iPad 2, we were proudly told, hail from the Taiwanese Foxconn company, which has a major production centre here. The long drive through the city’s highways passes vast sticklebrick constructions, bearing the logos of Maersk, Ikea and the other gaudy talismanic logos of international enterprise.
Continue reading "Hunting the private-sector Snark in Szechuan" »
Oct 18th 2011, 16:32 by A. McE. | LONDON
THE tent city on the western side of St Paul’s Cathedral is thickly carpeted with colourful bivouacs and placards declaring war on bankers, global capitalism and much else besides. “Capitalism is Crisis,” reads the main banner. “Capitalism is anti-empathy!” proclaims another, and “Bankers are the Mubaraks of the West”. One zipped-up tent has a sign hung out offering “free hugs”. This could be a threat or a promise, but the inhabitants are fast asleep so it’s hard to judge.
Moved on by the police from their intended encampment on Paternoster Square, where the London Stock Exchange and Goldman Sachs are headquartered, the protesters are now huddled against the winds in the shade of Christopher Wren’s great creation. Church authorities have so far been tolerant.
Oct 14th 2011, 17:05 by A. McE. | LONDON
NEVER mind the recently departed defence secretary, Liam Fox—that defenestration was only a matter of time. What is really exercising the custodians of Leviathan in Whitehall this week is the impact of GOD’s demise: the early retirement, that is, of Sir Gus O’Donnell, head of the domestic civil service, and his replacement by a trusted Number 10 civil servant. The anointment of Jeremy Heywood signals a major shift in what the prime minister wants from his officials. See “Goodbye to GOD” in the Britain section for further details of that job-swap.
Some commentators see this as yet more centralisation.
Continue reading "Can Dave's favourite mandarin break the blockage on reform?" »
Oct 5th 2011, 13:25 by A. McE | MANCHESTER
ROWS about the coalition's health-care reforms come around rather frequently these days. David Cameron cannot be best pleased to find that another tranche of heavy-hitting critics have launched a frontal attack during the Conservative Party conference.
Some 400 public-health practitioners, including senior doctors, have signed up to a letter warning that the proposals in the health and social care bill will waste money, fragment the service and damage patient trust. This missive is aptly timed to raise awareness of the resistance of many clinicians to change, just before the bill arrives for its second reading in the Lords next week.
Sep 16th 2011, 9:56 by A. McE
IN THE same week that Theresa May, a senior Conservative, ditched a Labour drive for equal representation on company boards on the grounds that it might "frighten the horses" comes the film release of "I Don’t Know How She Does It"—the writer Allison Pearson’s social comedy about combining workplace with motherhood. It stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Christina Hendricks, Pierce Brosnan and Kelsey Grammer. Yes, just like the colleagues in my day job, too. The film, based on the rise of senior women in the workplace, is also an absorbing insight into changing fashions when it comes to the portrayal of women in the financial world.
Continue reading "Is the working woman allowed to get rich on screen?" »
Sep 5th 2011, 14:30 by A. McE | LONDON
AS IF by magic...no sooner had Leviathan blogged on David Cameron's decision to step up the fight to save the union, than the man most likely to lead the Scottish Conservatives, Murdo Fraser, announced that he felt the best chance of future success for the centre-right in Scotland lay in not being formally connected to the Conservative party down south at all. We are familiar with "decapitation strategy" as a ruse in election strategy. Less common is the idea of self-imposed decapitation, such as Mr Fraser proposes. In some regards, his premise is unarguable.
Continue reading "Can beheading save the Scottish Tories?" »
Sep 2nd 2011, 17:15 by A. McE | LONDON
WHAT pressing matters are in David Cameron's in-tray as he returns to the autumn fray? Just a few small things, like handling the aftermath of the Libya victory, clearing up the social and criminal-justice mess left by the inner-city summer riots and juggling deficit reduction, rising NHS waiting lists and impending public-service cuts. Yet one subject which—perhaps surprisingly—made it near the top of the "to-do" list is the discussion about how to counter the Scottish National Party's advance. The "Quad" of Mr Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander (chief secretary to the Treasury and a Highland Scot), have just agreed a “gear-shift” in their campaign to halt independence-strivings north of the border.
Continue reading "Mr Cameron has trouble with a modern Scottish Braveheart" »
In this blog, our public policy editor reports on how governments in Britain and beyond are rethinking and reforming the state's role in public services, the arts and life in general. The blog takes its name from Thomas Hobbes's book of 1651, which remains one of the most influential examinations of the relationship between government and society.
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