Satire lives……

The great British sense of humour lives on. Some genius in Conservative central office clearly didn’t recognise the satire potential of the Tories recent poster campaign. MyDavidCameron.com was quickly set up and has spawned hundreds of often hilarious spoofs on the original. As you can see, being off sick has given me far too much time to indulge myself…. so here’s my feeble contribution (you can also find it on the mydavidcameron website and vote for it..)

I’m sure it’ll be Labour’s turn next…. (in the interest of political balance).

Sojourn at the Heartbreak Hotel

‘Whitehall Watch’ might be a bit sporadic over the next month or so – two weeks ago I had a heart attack. I’m recovering well and the prognosis is good, but it’ll be a while before I’m back to full functioning.

Meanwhile, “never waste a good crisis” as someone said (it’s alright, I know who) – so I thought I’d record my experience – for good and ill – of the wonderful British NHS.

And it really is wonderful, imperfect, but wonderful.

Salvaging the Treasury?

See my recent piece in The Guardian’s on-line magazine ‘Public’, and you might also be interested in my comments in The Guardian’s society section.

Noble and Ignoble Prizes for Economics

Just in case you have missed this:

The Real-World Economics Review Blog is holding polls to determine the awarding of two prizes:

The Ignoble Prize for Economics , to be awarded to the three economists who contributed most to enabling the Global Financial Collapse (GFC), and

The Noble Prize for Economics , to be awarded to the three economists who first and most cogently warned of the coming calamity.

Is the Future Scary?

We took my 5 year-old son to see a ‘Horrid Henry’ show after Christmas. At one point in the production Horrid Henry is trying to convince his little brother Peter Perfect that he’s been to the future. “What’s the future like?” asks Peter. As Henry appears stumped for an answer, my son shouts out “scary” and gets one of the best laughs of the show. (I’m not sure whether to be proud or hide under the seat).

Lord make me chaste, but not yet

The central message of yesterday’s PBR was that we need to put the national finances in order, but not quite yet – in fact not for quite a long time. That does not mean there will not be severe cuts in public spending – there will be. It’s just that they will be severe rather than apocalyptic. With health, education and policing protected other areas will be hit all the harder. Local government especially will probably face between 15-20% cumulative cuts over the next four years.

The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything? It’s 43.

According to the supercomputer Deep Thought the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything was 42 (in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).

It turns out however that this number may be subject to localised quantum relativity effects – specifically on an insignificant island off the north-west coast of Europe, a continent on a small blue planet in an unfashionable part of the galaxy. Here, the number is 43, rounded up – well actually 42.51, but it keeps wobbling around all the time and is subject to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. So usually, most of the time, its sort of around 43. Ish.

HELP!

No, not the Beetles hit, but the flavour of many of the meetings I’ve been attending in recent weeks and will be in the next few weeks.

First was a Guardian ‘roundtable’; this was followed by evidence I was asked to give to the Northern Ireland Assembly Finance Committee; another roundtable, this time organised by Public Finance magazine, last week; this week it is the Public Administration Select Committee in Westminster; and the following week it’s a Demos/PwC seminar.

Hidden Wealth of Nations

I thought I’d share this interesting message from David Halpern, Research Director, Institute for Government London:

NEW BOOK: HIDDEN WEALTH OF NATIONS

DAVID WRITES: As you may know, since leaving No10 and Cabinet Office, I’ve spent some time revisiting the last 25 years of data on value change, the social and economic challenges (and opportunities) we face, and thinking about the policy implications. The results are published in The Hidden Wealth of Nations, out in the beginning of December.

OneTotalLocalPlace

In the never-ending, and now more important than ever, effort to do more-with-less, a new initiative has come out of Whitehall: OneTotalLocalPlace.

There have been quite a number of initiatives that have been focussed on getting the best value for money our of local spending. These have included:

- Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) – these are meant to focus the efforts of all local service providers

- Local Area Agreements (LAAs) – these are like LSPs, but with money

- Comprehensive Area Assessments, or as they are now known, OnePlace – these are run by the Audit Commission and are supposed to measure results across a local area.

- Total Place – this is a new ambitious programme run by Treasury and DCLG to examine spending patterns across an area and see if the money can be better allocated, or cut, whilst producing the same or better results.

In an effort to join all this up, the Government has now announced OneTotalLocalPlace (or OTLP).

OTLP will be a powerful new organisation with substantial powers over local budgets, priorities and responsibility for determining and achieving outcomes. It will coordinate and allocate resources for maximum impact. Priorities will be fixed by a revolutionary new system, involving directly elected representatives of local communities. Some have suggested an alternative, simpler name: Local Government.

Gordon Brown’s Letters

I detest even having to blog about this – the Sun’s manipulation of a grieving mother of a dead British soldier today is disgusting.

But, let’s be very clear. Gordon Brown lost the sight in one eye when he was a kid, playing Rugby. The sight in his other eye is adequate, but not brilliant.

Theories of Performance – the book: coming soon.

My new book on ‘Theories of Performance’, which has come out of my ESRC Public Services Programme Fellowship – is more or less finished, bar some minor edits. I’ve added a new page (ToP Book – see tab above right) which has the contents, a description and some comments from colleagues who have read the draft, for those of you who might be interested.

What sort of crisis is public management in?

I’ve just been discussing with a colleague what sort of crisis we are in and what the effects for Public Management Reform are likely to be. Lots of people are discussing what the financial crisis means for public services and public management, without stepping back to think about what sort of crisis the public sector (internationally) faces?

The big issue for me is not the public sector financial crisis per se, but what caused it? Only by understanding that can we start to understand the possible reactions to it.

The Financial Crisis: How Economists Went Astray

from Professor Geoffrey M. Hodgson

Two Nobel Laureates and over 2000 Signatories Uphold that Economists have Mistaken Mathematical Beauty for Economic Truth

BNP Supports Polish Pilots?

Today’s controversy over the far-right British National Party using images from the British Armed Forces to promote themselves has one rather ironic element.

The BNP has featured the Spitfire on their literature as an symbol of the Battle of Britain – the air clash between the UK and Germany at the start of the war.

Balls takes his ball away

Gordon Brown put reinforcing parliamentary accountability at the heart of his premiership. One major change was to involve parliament in the appointment of senior public officials.

MPs Expenses – the missing mortgage money issue

So – MPs expenses are back, but this time with a slightly more complex plot.

Former civil servant Sir Thomas Legg has been accused of retrospective re-writing of the rules in calling on MPs to repay anything above certain set limits for things like cleaning their second homes.

PS – Eye Witness: Gordon’s seemed fine to me

I sat next to Gordon Brown at the Chequers seminar (Sat 10/10/09) as he he took copious notes – he was clearly having no problem writing, so I don’t know what all the fuss is over his eyesight?

Chequers, mate?

I almost didn’t get to Chequers (the Prime Ministers country residence) on Saturday for a seminar on “Equality, Fairness and Responsibility in the Post-Crisis Society” convened by the PM and chaired by Ed Miliband.

Recessions Come and Go

Don’t dismantle the public domain because of this latest one…. see my article in today’s Guardian.

See also my brief comment on George Osborne’s ‘cull’ of Whitehall in todays Financial Times.