In my reading for a recent post on the shifting nature of ministerial-civil service relationships. I read the 1981 “Haldane” report. This is a report, much quoted in the business of public administration theory and practice (I know, thrilling stuff…), chaired by Viscount Haldane and a small group of worthies, to focus on “the responsibilities […]
Institutional tectonic plates 2
After my brief Paul-Kelly inspired comments last week about the institutional shape-shifting implications of the US presidential election. this is a second reflection on a similar theme but from a rather different angle. Less spectacularly, but perhaps no less significantly, these brief reflections from the London School of Economics about the changing nature of civil […]
Institutional tectonic plates 1
This is the first of two posts about very different, but linked stories which both point to big, grinding shifts in the institutional tectonic plates on which democracy and systems of successful public governance rely. The first piece is from Paul Kelly (the journalist, not the singer, although I suspect Paul Kelly the singer might […]
Enough with the digital, already…
I recently saw a link to an interesting new study about the impact of digital technology in the retail sector. The conclusion was that the future of retail is digital. Right. And wrong. I suspect the future of retail is retail, transformed, disrupted, reinvented and turned inside out by digital in just about every way […]
Market capitalism is broken
The book is all about market capitalism and how it’s broken. I haven’t read it, but I will. I’ll write about it later but here’s some extracts from an interview with its author, financial journalist Rana Faroohar: “I believe that the reason for that is that our system of market capitalism is broken. The capital […]
Have you read War and Peace (and does it matter?)
Screens and social media addictions are changing, perhaps irreparably damaging our brains. It’s a view often associated with Susan Greenfield, the British peer, scientist and brain expert who, as I recall at one lecture I heard her give, pits “people of the book” against “people of the screen”. Shorter attention spans, an unwillingness or incapability […]
