Here’s my second look at the question of what makes a great leader. Previously, I focused on a leader’s personal qualities. I argued in favour of character, and subsequently I realised that some of the qualities I listed set the bar quite high. Some readers’ comments suggested that good leaders might also be flawed personalities, [...]
A very long time ago, I used to commute into London from a long way out. Sometimes at the end of the working day, I’d find all the trains back home severely delayed or cancelled. Usually, there was little or no information about what was going on, and I would stand there feeling stressed, powerless [...]
We’ve all read about Sir Alex Allan’s recent report concerning whether the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, broke the Ministerial Code. It centres on allegations of bullying, and ironically the story broke during Anti-Bullying Week. I don’t want to get into the specifics of the Patel case here, but I do want to say a few [...]
What makes a good leader? Obviously too big a question to answer in one blog, so I’m going to have several goes at this, spread over the next few months. And I’m going to start with a slightly controversial point: not everyone in a leadership position is actually a leader. Some of them are just [...]
My apologies, but I couldn't resist adding something to the wall-to-wall coverage of the US Presidential Election that we've all been immersed in over recent days. My question, in the wake of the election outcome, is: what significance does ‘Make America Great Again’ have in the foreign policy context? ‘MAGA’ is a term to which [...]
No, not an astronomy blog, but one that builds on my last two pieces. I want to explore how narrative and truth in public policy play out with the citizen in the context of the current Covid crisis. And to do so, let me introduce you to Julie. Julie is a composite character drawn from [...]
The truth. Isn’t that the beating heart of everything? It’s tempting to say that the issue of what is true, and what isn’t, has never been more important in human civilisation than it is currently. But I suspect that, pre-Enlightenment, people walked round in a fug of myth, misinformation and misunderstanding that makes even today’s [...]
It was all well and good saying, as I did, that my first blog was just a trailer, but now I’ve got to come up with the main feature - a regular blog. Where to start? There’s a lot to tackle in the world of public policy, to say nothing of the other subjects I’d [...]
You might think that, popping out the other side of a 30-odd year career in the Civil Service, I would want to devote more time to tending my roses. But the fact of the matter is, I’m a pretty rubbish gardener. So blogging it is. And this first one will be a bit of a [...]
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