Even thirty years on, Yes, Minister captures something both funny and profound about government. If the stereotypical civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby really wanted to warn his hapless minister Jim Hacker off a course of action, he would simply tell him ‘that’s very brave, minister’. Sometime over the weekend during which I write this, or…
As the decorations were being put away for another year, one of my daughters sent me this link, with a note saying ‘you can use this for your next blog’. Since we are just coming out of the season for giving and receiving, I’m happy to take up her suggestion. But the BBC story on the…
Graduation is over for another year: we have just completed two weeks of graduation ceremonies with all the aplomb that goes with them. The gowns, like Christmas decorations after Twelfth Night, are put away for another year. The graduation teams are able to take a breather – although a fair number were in evidence at…
There’s a remarkable finding in one of the early reports from the Millennium Cohort Study – the vast research programme following the lives of 19,000 children born in the year 2000. The mothers were asked what they wanted for their children as they grew up. More than nine out of ten said they wanted their children to go…
Evelyn Waugh told the story in a letter home to his wife in May 1942. A British commando unit was billeted for training on the Earl of Glasgow’s estate. The Earl wanted rid of an old tree stump and the commandoes offered to blow it up for him. He was keen on the idea but worried about damage to…
The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) results were published last week. For me, as Chair of the TEF panel, last week was hectic: two hundred and ninety-five institutions submitted for TEF assessment, including large multi-faculty universities and specialist institutions, research-intensive and teaching-intensive universities, further education colleges offering higher education and alternative providers. That meant that the…
I have no reliable tip for the Kirkgate Handicap, which is run at 2:30 at Ripon on Thursday 8 June, and, since I know that’s the case, it’s probably sensible to avoid predictions for the General Election on the same day. Indeed, as regular readers of this blog will know, I was intending to source my online…
When Geoffrey Howe became Chancellor of the Exchequer after the 1979 General Election, one of the first people to contact him was his Labour predecessor, Denis Healey. Healey wanted to tell Howe that although there were huge challenges in managing the UK economy, the challenge of using the kitchen in Number 11 Downing Street was almost as…
Drive down Main Street in Salt Lake City and, at number 143, two blocks south of the Salt Lake Temple you’ll find Neumont University, which educates 366 students. Bryn Athyn College – “spiritual by choice, small by design” – in Philadelphia is smaller at just 215 students, but unlike other tiny American universities, Neumont chooses to use the…
In 1975, the United Kingdom voted on whether to remain a member of the European Economic Community. There was an article, I recall, in The Sunday Times by the then very influential left-wing historian E. P. Thompson arguing passionately against membership. Thompson excoriated the values of the common market. He argued that markets were all about…