Former senior civil servant Sir Peter Wanless recalls meeting Dolly Parton in 2007, and what she taught him about the relationship between evidence and politics
www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/art...

🚨NEW POST BY ME🚨

Greater Manchester’s growth success is real, but didn't happened by accident. The country should be studying it closely

Plus:
- Why a city's reputation matters so much
- How much credit can Burnham take? (not much)
- What does this tell us about a future PM Burnham? (not much)

Mark Carney's speech really is terrific: full text is here and very much worth your time.

Maybe Greenland could invade us instead?

This is how Chris Mason, like a child filled with wonder, described "the choreography and theatre that surrounds a Budget" in Feb 2024, when a male Tory Chancellor was in post.

"Plans, or even just options, can be floated... Reaction to them can be tested. Opponents can be teased or wrongfooted." 👀

So much for all that bleating about being misled by the Treasury from the BBC's political editor Chris Mason .....
www.ft.com/content/48c2...

Think this is exactly right - political journalism that is completely abstracted from policy, which was not the norm before 2017, has become the default. Impossible to have a serious attempt to either shrink what the state does or widen the tax base (have to do at least one) on that basis.

Watched BBC 6 o clock news. Just a completely unserious broadcast. Chris Mason, acting like a children's entertainer, giving a prolonged impenetrable editorial. Not a whiff of informative content about the Budget or what it means for the country. Just playschool blah blah bollocks.

Chloe Kelly’s goal celebration face is the exact look my sister used to give me behind our mum’s back when I was being told off

Wolf Hall. What a final episode. And it did justice to the book which was also magnificent. BBC should do A Place of Greater Safety. The equal of Wolf Hall. A younger Rylance would have been a great Robespierre.