Monthly Archives: November 2013

Plus ça change: Ministers and Civil Servants

Under the energetic direction of the Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, the current government is embarking on significant reform of the civil service. This may then be an appropriate moment to reflect on the experiences of previous Ministers in dealing with the … Continue reading

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A missed opportunity? The Leveson Inquiry and Media Ownership

The notion of media plurality is widely seen as vital to a healthy democracy. However, since it was established in the 19th century (with the notable exception of the BBC) the mass media in Britain has been concentrated in the … Continue reading

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Tracking the payroll vote

Democratic Audit have been kind enough to run my post on the ISC this week and I’m happy to return the favour by drawing attention to their post about growth in the payroll vote, which is becoming something of a preoccupation of the … Continue reading

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Getting their ducks in a row: a small step forward in intelligence agency accountability

The significance of last week’s appearance of intelligence agency heads before the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), far outweighed anything that actually emerged from the evidence session itself. The ISC, which was established in 1994, has until this point … Continue reading

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The price of democracy

Interesting piece of research on the BBC News website about the cost of running elections in the UK. This is by no means a straightforward calculation. Related to this, I wrote this blogpost on the University’s Experts’ Blog last year in which … Continue reading

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