Five policies to fix the political class
The main political parties have all been jostling to respond to the ‘cost of living crisis’. But they’ve all failed to respond to the underlying issue - that in the eyes of voters, the political class lives on another planet. Here are five proposals that might help.
The poisonous politics of reducing unemployment
“The easier political answer to the unemployment issues is to pull the fiscal and legislative levers. …And job done. Only it isn’t.” Writing in advance of George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative Party conference, Puffles laments that politicians are avoiding answering the difficult questions about unemployment.
‘roots against the machine
“Nick Clegg may have won this battle. But the victory may well prove pyrrhic. He risks losing the war. Or, rather, he will very likely succeed in shaping the party in his own image, but he will then find that – rather like Spinal Tap – its appeal is becoming rather more selective.” Alex Marsh reviews policy making at this year’s Lib Dem Conference.
Puffles goes to school – and learns something from the children
“One of the reasons I volunteered as a school governor was to get a feel for the impact of Whitehall policy in my community. I spent years in Whitehall policy teams but never had to live the results of that work in my community.” Puffles suggests that the political class needs to get involved in their local communities.
The political class: If the Government’s approach to policymaking seems deliberately bad, that’s because it is
A new book on government blunders highlights how the ‘professionalised’ political class increasingly lacks the practical experience required for wise decision-making. Will they listen to its advice?
The dangers of weak policy foundations
“Today we witnessed a number of important developments, if you happen to be a policy geek. These developments have a substantially different character, and provide students of the policy process with much to chew on.” Alex Marsh questions the weak foundations of a variety of Coalition policies from the Lobbying Bill to Universal Credit.
Frontline Friday 30th August 2013: Our favourite frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 26th August 2013 - from housing policy and community engagement in health, to the political intentions behind the Government’s Lobbying Bill.
Are organisations hotwired to look towards central government?
“Does the existing policy-making process mean that the public shout from afar at politicians, while wealthy and/or connected interests butter them up out of sight?” Puffles argues for opening-up policymaking to much greater public scrutiny.
Shadow politics: Three reasons why public services feel increasingly less public
In the shadow politics, public services feel increasingly less public - from the development of policy to the delivery and regulation of services - in a way that may come back to haunt the political class itself.
Monsters in Whitehall?
I had a look at the article by journalist, columnist and former Cameron speech-writer Ian Birrell in The Guardian. It’s titled The Civil Service: a monster in Whitehall. The sub-text seeks to prepare the ground for the politicisation of the civil service. The problem is that the article doesn’t make the case how politicising the civil […]
How and why politicians are avoiding the ‘most difficult’ decisions
Summary Why “we have to take difficult decisions” doesn’t go anywhere near tackling the hardest questions of all I’ve reached that point where I now want to unpick this “difficult decisions” line to take. Politics and policy-making is full of decisions. Some of them are relatively straight forward, others are not – and for various […]
Accountability and responsiveness in the Senior Civil Service: a response
Summary My thoughts on the IPPR’s report It feels like I’ve got blogposts coming out of my ears at the moment. It’s that time of year where lots of organisations get their publications out before they head off for the summer. The IPPR’s report is here. Irrespective of its recommendations, this is an interesting report […]
Why a statutory register of lobbyists alone won’t solve the problem
Summary Further thoughts following the Sunday Times’ sting on Tim Yeo MP – looking at which lobbyists might not be covered by such a register Another weekend, another lobbying sting about what a politician might or might not do. This post follows on from my previous post about lobbying on how social media can be used to […]
How MPs and Whitehall can use social media to shine a spotlight on lobbying
Summary With lobbying back in the spotlight following recent headlines, can Whitehall and Westminster use social media to bring much-needed transparency into policy making? One of the things that continues to disturb me is how the structures and processes within our political and state institutions are struggling to deal with the pressures that people’s use of […]
A Vision for Education in 2040 – Part 1
This week I was one of a number of school leaders who met as part of the SSAT’s Vision 2040 group under the stewardship of Tom Sherrington, the @headguruteacher. The first question Tom put to the group was what we thought teachers and school staff looking in from the outside might expect of us. This […]
The political class: senior civil servants
In the fourth of our posts on the political class we investigate senior civil servants. This is part of series examining the political class – who they are, what their background and experience is, and what qualifies them to shape and inform public policy.
Big Issue founder John Bird fires rockets at charities and civil service
Summary A write-up of John Bird’s recent visit to Cambridge A few of you may know that I am a member of JCI Cambridge, the Cambridge branch of Junior Chambers International, an organisation that seeks to develop the professional skills of young professionals through series of self-organised events and community projects. Last month, our branch adopted the […]
“Brainwashing under freedom”
Yesterday, Nick Pearce from IPPR suggested in a Guardian blog that Labour should ‘drop its child poverty target’ and new measures should ‘take into account the fiscal realities we now face.‘ One of his proposals included ‘freezing child benefit in cash terms for a decade’ to ‘free up £2.5bn a year to invest in quality […]
Guerilla Voice: 10 ways to make bad policy
Ministers receive plenty of advice about how to make good policy. But what about those who want to make their name with a costly cock-up? Here’s some helpful advice.
Guerilla Voice: Dividing lines
The story of the week has undoubtedly been class. One debate on class - the ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’ argument - has been used by the political class to distract from the debate we should be having, about the widening inequalities in wealth, power and influence that have undermined our society and politics.