A winning team?
George Osborne is beefing up his political team, snaffling all the best policy wonks even as Downing Street is criticised for not having a strong enough political voice in its policy unit. His latest recruit is Neil O’Brien from Policy Exchange, a think tank which has risen in its influence on government. Osborne noticed how Gordon Brown used the Council of Economic Advisers to boost the number of political appointees, and is effectively creating his own policy unit. David Cameron, in contrast, still has a team of civil servants, many of whom worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to the irritation of many Tory MPs.
One quiet French alliance
When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced new construction plans around Jerusalem, William Hague’s first call was to Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister. As the foreign secretary made clear at his end of year party at Lancaster House , he feels a personal sense of urgency about a Middle East deal.
While waiting to see whether President Barack Obama would shrug off flak from Congress and appoint Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defence, the UK-French conversations have prompted what seems a new European initiative in the region. French officials say that relations with Hague, whom they like, have been helped by Cameron’s decision to take on Britain’s wider disputes with Brussels himself.
Out of Afghanistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in Washington in mid-January to discuss Nato’s exit—he wants a significant force to stay—may have a new target: British and US military kit. Britain this year will pull out 3,800 of its 9,000 soldiers from Helmand, and the Ministry of Defence is embroiled in a debate over whether, if it takes out the most valuable kit first, such as mine-resistant vehicles worth £700,000 each, that will leave soldiers more vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the US’s Government Accountability Office has put its cost of withdrawal at $5.7bn. The US has 750,000 big military items worth more than $36bn there, and it can cost up to $150,000 to bring one vehicle home—hence the temptation to leave some there. The US, which has agreed exit routes through Central Asia, will not want to rely on Pakistan, which reopened its border to Nato only in July. New turmoil there hardly makes that route attractive—as Karzai knows.
The Office
Tension between ministers and civil service officials has extended to the matter of office space. It has been noted with amused anticipation by political insiders that the office of Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, is larger than that of Francis Maude, the Conservative minister in charge of civil service reform. It has become the fashion to say that Yes, Minister was a documentary not a comedy; this might take more than one episode to sort out.
Pale, male and stale
An inspired appointment at the British Science Association, where Imran Khan takes over as chief executive in April. Khan, who fought cuts to the UK science budget while director of the Campaign for Science & Engineering, has spoken out against the “pale, male and stale” culture of the research establishment. The 27-year-old campaigner, who replaces 50-something Roland Jackson, may liven things up: he once posed as Mr December in a “geek calendar” to raise money for libel law reform.
Immortal-in-waiting?
Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Joseph Anton, attracted memorable brickbats when published in September. “An unembarrassed sense of what he is owed as an embattled, literary immortal-in-waiting pervades his book,” wrote Zoe Heller in the New York Review of Books. The public seems to agree: Nielsen BookScan, which tracks book sales, estimates that Rushdie’s book has sold 7,000 copies—in comparison, Ian McEwan’s latest, published in August, has sold more than 44,000.
On message
The Christmas card from the Peterson Institute was especially succinct this year. The clarity of thinking—and of goals—encouraged in that institution was reflected in the economy of the message printed upon it, which read simply “Peace on Earth.” But if that is the first policy statement by Adam Posen, the new director of the Washington-based think tank, fresh from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, it belies his record as a cheerful controversialist.
George Osborne is beefing up his political team, snaffling all the best policy wonks even as Downing Street is criticised for not having a strong enough political voice in its policy unit. His latest recruit is Neil O’Brien from Policy Exchange, a think tank which has risen in its influence on government. Osborne noticed how Gordon Brown used the Council of Economic Advisers to boost the number of political appointees, and is effectively creating his own policy unit. David Cameron, in contrast, still has a team of civil servants, many of whom worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to the irritation of many Tory MPs.
One quiet French alliance
When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced new construction plans around Jerusalem, William Hague’s first call was to Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister. As the foreign secretary made clear at his end of year party at Lancaster House , he feels a personal sense of urgency about a Middle East deal.
While waiting to see whether President Barack Obama would shrug off flak from Congress and appoint Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defence, the UK-French conversations have prompted what seems a new European initiative in the region. French officials say that relations with Hague, whom they like, have been helped by Cameron’s decision to take on Britain’s wider disputes with Brussels himself.
Out of Afghanistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in Washington in mid-January to discuss Nato’s exit—he wants a significant force to stay—may have a new target: British and US military kit. Britain this year will pull out 3,800 of its 9,000 soldiers from Helmand, and the Ministry of Defence is embroiled in a debate over whether, if it takes out the most valuable kit first, such as mine-resistant vehicles worth £700,000 each, that will leave soldiers more vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the US’s Government Accountability Office has put its cost of withdrawal at $5.7bn. The US has 750,000 big military items worth more than $36bn there, and it can cost up to $150,000 to bring one vehicle home—hence the temptation to leave some there. The US, which has agreed exit routes through Central Asia, will not want to rely on Pakistan, which reopened its border to Nato only in July. New turmoil there hardly makes that route attractive—as Karzai knows.
The Office
Tension between ministers and civil service officials has extended to the matter of office space. It has been noted with amused anticipation by political insiders that the office of Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, is larger than that of Francis Maude, the Conservative minister in charge of civil service reform. It has become the fashion to say that Yes, Minister was a documentary not a comedy; this might take more than one episode to sort out.
Pale, male and stale
An inspired appointment at the British Science Association, where Imran Khan takes over as chief executive in April. Khan, who fought cuts to the UK science budget while director of the Campaign for Science & Engineering, has spoken out against the “pale, male and stale” culture of the research establishment. The 27-year-old campaigner, who replaces 50-something Roland Jackson, may liven things up: he once posed as Mr December in a “geek calendar” to raise money for libel law reform.
Immortal-in-waiting?
Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Joseph Anton, attracted memorable brickbats when published in September. “An unembarrassed sense of what he is owed as an embattled, literary immortal-in-waiting pervades his book,” wrote Zoe Heller in the New York Review of Books. The public seems to agree: Nielsen BookScan, which tracks book sales, estimates that Rushdie’s book has sold 7,000 copies—in comparison, Ian McEwan’s latest, published in August, has sold more than 44,000.
On message
The Christmas card from the Peterson Institute was especially succinct this year. The clarity of thinking—and of goals—encouraged in that institution was reflected in the economy of the message printed upon it, which read simply “Peace on Earth.” But if that is the first policy statement by Adam Posen, the new director of the Washington-based think tank, fresh from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, it belies his record as a cheerful controversialist.
