PETER RIDDELL | Is big government on the way back? Next to the length and depth of the recession, the central question in British politics this year will be about the role of the state.
MIKE THATCHER | Christmas cheer is in very short supply at the moment. Unemployment is up, inflation is morphing into deflation and the pound is heading inexorably towards parity with the euro.
COLIN TALBOT | I was in Croatia a couple of weeks ago advising their government on how (not) to do public management reform and discovered that they had cancelled Christmas!
MIKE THATCHER | There might be clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour on the economy, but on welfare reform there appears to be a strong consensus.
PHILIP JOHNSTON | The parliamentary Christmas recess, which starts next week, cannot come quickly enough for Michael Martin, the embattled Commons speaker.
MIKE THATCHER | Who’d be a social worker? Damned if you do intervene, damned if you don’t – and now, thrice damned for the systemic dereliction of duty that culminated in the horrific death of Baby...
MELISSA BENN | This week’s announcements of stringent welfare measures have just a whiff of Groundhog Day about them. Those ministers with longer political memories, including the prime minister...
MIKE THATCHER | So, it’s back to politics as normal. The Tories have even revived their ‘tax bombshell’ poster campaign – credited with helping them to win the 1992 election – following Labour’s...
PETER HETHERINGTON | Invoking yet again the late environment secretary Anthony Crosland’s warning to the nation in 1975, one of the larger management consultancies specialising in local government...
MIKE THATCHER | So this is it. The die is cast. The battle lines have been drawn. By ripping up his pledge to match Labour’s spending plans, David Cameron has apparently opened up clear political...
MIKE THATCHER | We’re all tax cutters now. All the main political parties are united in their support for a tax reduction to help the country deal with what is likely to be a very deep recession.
MIKE THATCHER | It was a no-win situation for the health secretary. On the controversial issue of top-up fees, Alan Johnson knew he would be upbraided by the unions if he said ‘yes’ and pilloried...
MIKE THATCHER | In the long run, we are all dead, Keynes famously remarked. As a justification for pump-priming an economy out of recession, it still has considerable appeal.
TONY TRAVERS | Many public service finance officers will have thought about ‘risk’ a great deal recently. In the past, the management of local authority, housing association or university reserves...
VICTORIA MACDONALD | For weeks now there has been nothing but unremitting gloom. The collapse of the markets, the failure of Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, Icesave, etc and inflation soaring to its...
MIKE THATCHER | It seems that councils, police and fire authorities, charities and universities will be disappointed in their calls for the government to guarantee deposits totalling more than £1bn...
MIKE THATCHER | The cherished fiscal rules lie in tatters as the government embarks on a borrowing bonanza aimed at stabilising the turmoil in the UK’s banking sector.
MELISSA BENN | It could be the biggest political news story of the autumn: the return of the Prince of Darkness, or the Prince of Sleaze as one newspaper unkindly called him.
