Category: Politics

Saint GP. Why have GPs been elevated to special status in the health debate?

The whole NHS reform is based on an assertion – that GPs are somehow better placed to decide what NHS services need to be provided because they are in some sense ”closer to patients”.

The news story today that GPs seem to be failing to provide adequate services to elderly people in care homes raises doubts about this assumption. I tweeted about it and have had an interesting exchange with ”TheNiceLadyDoc” (a GP). Continue reading “Saint GP. Why have GPs been elevated to special status in the health debate?” →

Is the Civil Service Accountable to Parliament? Hodge vs O’Donnell spat opens a can of worms.

Is the Civil Service accountable to parliament?

Margaret Hodge MP, the formidable chair of the powerful Public Accounts Committee of Parliament says “yes”. Sir (now Lord) Gus O’Donnell and other ex-Mandarins say firmly “no”. (For details see the Guardian website here). Ironically, emerging in the week that Norman St John-Stevas (Baron St John of Fawsley) died, this dispute dates back to the introduction of the modern Select Committee system he initiated back in the early 1980s. Continue reading “Is the Civil Service Accountable to Parliament? Hodge vs O’Donnell spat opens a can of worms.” →

My Top Ten (most read) WhitehallWatch posts of 2011 (so far)

Continue reading “My Top Ten (most read) WhitehallWatch posts of 2011 (so far)” →

Greek Deficit and Tax Evasion

One issue that keeps coming up around the Greek crisis is the degree of tax evasion. In the slide below I report the average Greek budget deficit per year on a decade by decade basis since the 1960s (figures on the left – calculated from OECD figures in an excellent paper you can find here). Continue reading “Greek Deficit and Tax Evasion” →

Theresa May: déjà vu all over again

[I appeared briefly on Newsnight commenting on this – the item is about 20 mins in].

A British Home Secretary faces a media firestorm over a major blunder in one of the Home Office’s Executive Agencies. A senior agency official is blamed to shift attention away from Ministers. He resigns and hits back, hard and sues the Home Office and wins.

Theresa May (Home Secretary) and  Brodie Clarke (UK Borders Agency)? Well yes, but it could also be Michael Howard (Home Secretary) and Derek Lewis (Director General of the Prison Service) back in 1995. Continue reading “Theresa May: déjà vu all over again” →

My Big Fat Greek Government?

The Greek crisis has given neo-liberals a a great opportunity to criticize ‘big government’ Hellenic style – they see the problem as a Big Fat Greek Government (apologies to the film of nearly that name). But as usual the truth about Greece’s problems are rather more complex – what Greece needs is not less Government, but better Government. Continue reading “My Big Fat Greek Government?” →

Three ‘Simples’ Principles for Controlling Run-Away Finance?

I have been thinking about what sort of moral principles ought to apply to finance, including banking. The sort of thing I’ve been thinking about are some fairly simple things that would appear obvious to most of us, but apparently don’t apply to the world of finance.

Today I heard a Lib Dem MEP say something to the effect of “what are we going to do, stop the markets from doing certain things”? Well, er, yes. We stop ‘the markets’ from trading in human body parts, or in whole humans for that matter. We don’t allow them to freely trade nuclear weapons, or other WMDs. In other words there are all sorts of moral and practical restrictions placed upon the markets, for our own protection. After the gigantic and still unfolding damage unrestricted financial markets have managed to inflict, isn’t it time to consider what they should not be being allowed to do? Continue reading “Three ‘Simples’ Principles for Controlling Run-Away Finance?” →

Universities and the logic of public interest

 

My trade union, UCU, is campaigning against the establishment of “private” universities in the UK. They have a point about the way in which this is being done, which is in my view with reckless disregard for quality and probity issues which could damage the whole UK higher education sector. Continue reading “Universities and the logic of public interest” →

Soviet Planning Meets Parliamentary Boundaries, and it’ll end in tears

The imposition of soviet-style ‘one size fits all’ Parliamentary constituencies on the complex organic realities of England is an extraordinarily clumsy and contentious move.

It smacks of moving towards Amercan-style boundary ‘Gerry mandering’, as well as distancing Parliamentary representation from real local communities. From a government supposedly committed to ‘localism’ this is a strange move, to say the least.

Now the realities of what these changes mean have become obvious, the legal changes needed to implement it look to be in severe danger from disgruntled MPs and Peers. Look out for another screeching U-turn in the near future.