Educator

A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.

The wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a...

On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about...

Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.

States which used to communicate directly to their citizens now do so through the media, where their messages are reshaped by the logics of news values and commentary.

Europe has shown how government can be organised in a network. Its institutions both compete and co-operate and include a directly elected parliament that does not appoint the executive, independent...

Cities simply don't have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.

Conflicts are never caused in any simple way by identity, culture or economics. Where resources are scarce, or there are strong historical memories of conflict, small events are more likely to inflame...

As a civil servant in charge of the government's Strategy Unit, I brought in many people from outside government, including academia and science, to work in the unit, dissecting and solving complex...

The responsibility for good government lies not just with governments themselves but also with every other part of the system they operate in, including media, non-governmental organisations and the...