Tag: “Nick Clegg”

I don’t know if Malcolm Tucker is to be killed off now that the coalition has replaced Labour, or if a new coalition version may replace him, but if the latter is the case, he/she and its scriptwriters may want to be aware of a dark arts strategy known as MTBL, which might help a storyline [...]

To deepest Cleggland last night, and if Mark Mardell thinks Barack Obama has disillusion problems, he should get himself to Sheffield for some of the real thing. I was speaking at the University Students’ Union, as part of Sheffield’s Off The Shelf Literary Festival. To be fair, one or two in the audience stuck to [...]

In the dying moments of the Labour government, namely those heady days between the election and Gordon Brown’s departure from Downing Street, Bank of England governor Mervyn King was perhaps a bigger player than any of the accounts so far have revealed. His name is of course well-known in political, media and financial circles, and the [...]

In this cynical, media age, it is not easy for an organisation to establish a strong reputation for taking complicated facts and delivering sound and sober judgements upon them, but you’d have to say the Institute for Fiscal Studies has done so. There were times when I was working for the government when their judgements could [...]

There is something wonderful, almost French, about Brighton seafront on a cold sunny day like today. I was so taken with the light and the fresh air that I enjoyed a little stroll before heading to one of the big hotels on the front to speak at a conference of public services communications professionals. This [...]

Time to take a step back and have a look at the government’s overall strategy. Boldness is an important factor in strategy and in leadership. David Cameron and Nick Clegg both showed themselves capable of it in forming the coalition. Yes, it is possible to say that is the only way they could get their [...]

As Nick Clegg and Vince Cable were standing on their heads once more yesterday, and quietly forgetting their ‘I pledge’ posters on student finance, I was back in my classroom with a group of teenagers who have completed their formal schooling without being overly bothered about the impact of higher tuition fees. The tragedy is [...]

To the lovely setting of Knowsley Park near Liverpool last night, and a speech to pensions experts. No, wait, wait, the specific brief was ‘anything but pensions’ so don’t go away. Of course pensions is a fascinating subject but tough for an after dinner speech, especially when your main experience of the issue is having [...]

Had a fascinating time yesterday, my first day as part of an education experiment. I was teaching a group of ‘challenging’ teenagers who have gone through the school system without overly troubling the GCSE scorers, and who have been brought together to see whether ‘inspiring, passionate, achieving’ people (why thank you experiment organisers) can turn [...]

It is quite something to go from one full on campaign (the general election in May) into another (the Labour leadership election) and then within three days of your unexpected win make a hugely anticipated speech to Party and country. Ed Miliband did it very well. I have seen close-up in four of his predecessors [...]