Three hundred and sixty-six Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem MPs claimed between £20,000 and £23,083 (the maximum) in Additional Costs Allowances (ACA) last year which just happens to work out at 66.6 (recurring) percent of MPs from the 3 main parties. Continue reading “66.6 – The Real Nature of the Beast”
Month: May 2009
Failing to learn – or learning to fail?
Kieran Walshe
The question more public sector organisations should be asking themselves is: “How can we learn to get better?” Knowledge is very freely shared in the sector, with lots of encouragement to learn from good practice and few proprietorial or competitive barriers, but the way public bodies take in and learn from that information isn’t always effective enough to help them be successful – and can even lead them into failure. for full story see The Guardian, Wednesday 20 May 2009
Parliament: never waste a good crisis
Never waste a good crisis – never was this more true than in the current Parliamentary calamity.
The Conservatives have been quick to advance an agenda for reforming Parliament itself that is deeply worrying. Continue reading “Parliament: never waste a good crisis”
Innovation in Government (again)
Cabinet Office Minister Liam Byrne has announced a new ‘Innovation Council’ to fast-track ‘front-line’ innovation. Continue reading “Innovation in Government (again)”
Time for the Virgin Speaker?
Speaker Martin is, rightly, going to be out before the Election and the only question now is how and when.
Michael Martin is not entirely to blame for the current crisis but his statement today is too little far, far, too late. He has to go because he’s more part of the problem than the solution.
The real issue now is – who next as Speaker? Continue reading “Time for the Virgin Speaker?”
Moats and Manses, Knights and Knaves, and Fools
I hope this will be my last blog on ‘Expenses-Gate’ but I somehow doubt it – this one ‘has legs’ as the media says.
(For those of you outside the UK some of this must seem positively weird – the scale of the problem is, by any rational standards, relatively small). Continue reading “Moats and Manses, Knights and Knaves, and Fools”
Expenses Gate III: Hysteria, Humbug and Hypocrisy
Confession: within 30 seconds of hearing about David Willett’s expenses claim for changing light-bulbs I’d cracked the inevitable “how many Conservative MPs does it take to change a light-bulb…” joke to my long-suffering partner. Continue reading “Expenses Gate III: Hysteria, Humbug and Hypocrisy”
Westminster insiders see uncertain future for ‘Spending Review’ system.
As I have argued (see ‘The Death of Strategy in British Government’, May 5th below), the future of the Spending Review system introduced by Gordon Brown in 1998 is now in serious doubt. Continue reading “Westminster insiders see uncertain future for ‘Spending Review’ system.”
The Vulcan is Back, but is the rest of the crew with him?
John Redwood, the unreconstructed Thatcherite and leading Conservative, thinks we should be cutting about 20% off total public spending. Redwood is not in the current Shadow Cabinet, but is Chairman of their Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, and clearly still influential.
And his logic is impeccable – not surprising for someone often mockingly described as a Vulcan. Continue reading “The Vulcan is Back, but is the rest of the crew with him?”
Expenses-Gate II: Why Andrew Rawnsley is right, and wrong.
First, let me say I hugely enjoyed Andrew Rawnsely’s magnificent rant in today’s Observer. It was hilarious. And it was quite right about many things. Continue reading “Expenses-Gate II: Why Andrew Rawnsley is right, and wrong.”
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