Monthly Archives: March 2013

For a period that had such important consequences, very little has been written about the wars between the Roman, Persian and Arab empires in the sixth and seventh centuries. I’m sure there have been lots of academic papers but not … Continue reading →

As usual, the IFS briefing on the budget was more informative than anything the government put out. Among the graphs were some that clearly show the peaking of public service provision and help to explain why it is almost certainly … Continue reading →

When I were a lad, people were saying that the challenge of future decades would be what to do with all our leisure time. Working weeks in the advanced economies had fallen and continued to fall. New technology, automation and robots, it … Continue reading →

When a big news story breaks, it is interesting to look at what newspapers and columnists were saying about the same subject years or even months earlier. Here, for example, is what the Telegraph advised its readers two years ago: … Continue reading →

The catchily titled House of Lords Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change warned last week that Britain is woefully under-prepared for the rising number of elderly people. Regular readers of this blog will know that this is something I have been banging … Continue reading →

Gus O’Donnell presented a thought-provoking programme on Radio 4 this morning, In Defence of Bureaucracy. He presented two arguments. Firstly, you can’t get much done without basic organisation. Secondly, bureaucracy, with its formal rules, offers protection from the arbitrary whims … Continue reading →