London Child Protection Now the Vital Work of Keeping the City’s Children Safe
London Child Protection Now the Vital Work of Keeping the City’s Children Safe | Dedicated services and professionals safeguard the most vulnerable
Category: Governance
London Social Housing Now the Foundation Beneath the City’s Working Life
London Social Housing Now the Foundation Beneath the City’s Working Life | Affordable homes that keep the city’s essential workers housed
London Roadworks Now a Permanent Feature, Council Confirms
London Roadworks Now a Permanent Feature, Council Confirms | Officials admit the cones have achieved a kind of immortality
London Council Tax Now Funds a Mysterious Hole and Nothing Else
London Council Tax Now Funds a Mysterious Hole and Nothing Else | Residents demand to know which pothole is consuming their entire payment
Labour Ministers Now Vanishing
Labour Ministers Now Vanishing Faster Than NHS Appointment Slots, As Prime Minister Insists All Is Well While Holding Increasingly Large Bucket LONDON — Government insiders confirmed Thursday that ministers are now departing the Starmer administration at a rate that has begun to alarm actuaries, as the Prime Minister maintained that everything remained firmly under control, a claim he delivered while bailing water from a vessel that observers noted was getting visibly…
British Queue Etiquette Board
British Queue Etiquette Board Releases 47-Page Document Explaining What Could Be Summed Up As “Don’t Be A Bastard, But Don’t Tell Them That” LONDON — In a move that somehow manages to be both quintessentially British and deeply Kafkaesque, a newly established Queue Etiquette Board has published “Standards of Queue Conduct,” a 47-page document that reads like a constitutional treaty written by people who have attended far too many committee meetings…
Corporation’s “Wellness Initiative”
Corporation Spends £800,000 On “Wellness Initiative” To Help Employees Cope With Stress Corporation Deliberately Created LONDON — In a move that somehow manages to be tone-deaf while also being strategically genius, a multinational corporation with 40,000 employees has invested heavily in a “holistic wellness initiative” — a comprehensive programme designed to help employees manage stress, achieve mental balance, and find inner peace while working under conditions specifically engineered to prevent all…
Stop Dumping Sewage Into Thames
Thames Water Pledges To Stop Dumping Sewage Into Thames, Which Is Remarkable Considering That Has Been The Entire Purpose Of The Thames Since 1865 LONDON — In a statement that manages to be both sincere and completely inadequate, Thames Water — the water and sewerage company responsible for providing water to and removing sewage from 15 million people — has announced a “comprehensive commitment to water quality,” a pledge made approximately…
Biological Laboratories
Whitehall Defends Overseas Research Programme By Asking, “Would You Prefer The Germs Remain Unsupervised?” LONDON — British officials found themselves in the unusual position this week of commenting on revelations from the United States that dozens of overseas biolaboratories had received American support, prompting Whitehall to reassure the public that, whatever Britain may or may not be doing, it is undoubtedly being managed through a committee that meets on alternate Thursdays…
Knobbly Crab Declines Peerage
Knobbly Crab Declines Peerage: “I Already Have a Shell, Thank You” Palace Confirms Offer Was Genuine; Crab Confirms Shell Is Sufficient; Honours Committee Confirms It Has Never Written This Sentence Before WHITSTABLE, KENT — The knobbly crab, Britain’s most trusted political figure and the only elected official in the country whose approval rating rises every time it declines to speak, has formally rejected an offer of a life peerage from His Majesty’s…
Knobbly Crab Declared Britain’s Most Honest Politician
Knobbly Crab Declared Britain’s Most Honest Politician After Walking Sideways Away From Every Question Scientists Discover Knobbly Crab Has More Backbone Than Entire Civil Service, While Voters Admit They Prefer Candidates With Visible Shells WHITSTABLE, KENT — The knobbly crab, a suspiciously lumpy coastal creature previously known for hiding under rocks, frightening toddlers at tide pools, and refusing to explain itself to journalists, has been declared Britain’s most honest politician…
The British Seaside, Rural Communities, and the Geography of Deprivation: The Places That Economic Growth Forgot
The British Seaside, Rural Communities, and the Geography of Deprivation: The Places That Economic Growth Forgot | Coastal Towns, Former Mining Communities, Market Town Decline, the Rural Health Penalty, and the Policy Gap Between Where Growth Happens and Where the People Who Need It Live
Devolved Civil Services: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Governance of the Devolved Nations
Devolved Civil Services: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Governance of the Devolved Nations | How Three Separate Civil Service Traditions Have Developed Under Devolution, What They Share With Whitehall, Where They Diverge, and What This Means for the Union
British Drugs Policy: Forty Years of the Same Policy Producing the Same Outcomes
British Drugs Policy: Forty Years of the Same Policy Producing the Same Outcomes | The Misuse of Drugs Act, Decriminalisation, Scotland Drug Deaths, Cannabis Policy, and the Evidence Accumulating Faster Than Policy Is Changing
Devolution: How Westminster Gave Away Power and Spent the Next Twenty-Five Years Trying to Get It Back
Devolution: How Westminster Gave Away Power and Spent the Next Twenty-Five Years Trying to Get It Back | Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Constitutional Experiment Nobody Quite Finished Designing
UK Diagnosed With Alzheimer’s
UK Diagnosed With Brexit Alzheimer’s, Demands Referendum To Remember Why It Held Last Referendum Poll Suggesting Brexit Would Lose Today Sparks Nationwide Search For Memory Care Facilities LONDON — A new poll claiming Britain would vote differently on Brexit today has triggered concern among doctors, historians, and several confused pensioners who distinctly remember spending the last decade arguing about exactly the same issues. The diagnosis is in. The patient is…
Banks Enjoy Keeping The Money They Earn
Labour Shocked To Learn Banks Enjoy Keeping The Money They Earn Treasury Launches Inquiry Into Why Britain’s Banking Tax Keeps Driving Profits Abroad LONDON –– Britain was plunged into constitutional crisis Monday after Labour officials learned that banks appear strangely attached to the money they earn, and not in a way the Treasury found remotely accountable. The revelation came after Santander chief Ana Botín reportedly suggested the UK’s banking taxes make “no…
Tony Blair Announces Leadership Doesn’t Matter
Tony Blair Announces Leadership Doesn’t Matter, Promptly Becomes Main Character Of Leadership Debate Former Prime Minister Explains Personality Is Irrelevant Using His Own Personality As Evidence LONDON — Britain entered its traditional summer season of political panic this week after former Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Labour’s problems were not really about leadership, personality, or communication. The nation responded by spending several days arguing exclusively about leadership, personality, and…
Public Policy and the Policy Process: How Britain Turns Problems Into Initiatives and Initiatives Into Different Problems
Public Policy and the Policy Process: How Britain Turns Problems Into Initiatives and Initiatives Into Different Problems | Think Tanks, Pressure Groups, Treasury Dominance, and the Multiple Streams Framework for Understanding Why Policy Looks Like It Does
Britain in the World: The Special Relationship, NATO, the Commonwealth, and the Art of Pretending to Be a Bigger Country Than You Are
Britain in the World: The Special Relationship, NATO, the Commonwealth, and the Art of Pretending to Be a Bigger Country Than You Are | Post-Imperial Foreign Policy, the Five Eyes, the UN Security Council Seat, and Why Britain Is Still Invited to the Important Meetings
The Commonwealth: Fifty-Six Countries, Two Billion People, and One Shared History That Not Everyone Wants to Share
The Commonwealth: Fifty-Six Countries, Two Billion People, and One Shared History That Not Everyone Wants to Share | Soft Power, Reparations, Republican Movements, CANZUK, Trade Realities, and the Organisation That Exists Because Nobody Has Thought of a Better Reason for It Not To
The House of Lords: Nine Hundred Unelected People Who Are Somehow More Useful Than Expected
The House of Lords: Nine Hundred Unelected People Who Are Somehow More Useful Than Expected | Britain’s Second Chamber: Hereditary Peers, Life Peers, Bishops, Crossbenchers, and the Century-Long Reform That Is Nearly Finished
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests: The Accountability Officials Nobody Has Heard Of and Everybody Needs
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests: The Accountability Officials Nobody Has Heard Of and Everybody Needs | The Standards Commissioner’s Powers, the Ministerial Code Adviser’s Structural Problem, Referrals, Investigations, and the Accountability Mechanism That Depends on the Accountability Subject
The UK Supreme Court: The Judges Who Told the Government No and Are Still There to Prove It
The UK Supreme Court: The Judges Who Told the Government No and Are Still There to Prove It | Judicial Review, Human Rights, Miller I, Miller II, and the Curious British Habit of Being Surprised When Courts Apply the Law
The British Pension System: Triple Lock, State Pension, Private Provision, Defined Benefit Extinction, and the Intergenerational Wealth Transfer Nobody Votes Against
The British Pension System: Triple Lock, State Pension, Private Provision, Defined Benefit Extinction, and the Intergenerational Wealth Transfer Nobody Votes Against | The State Pension, Auto-Enrolment, Final Salary Pensions, the Pensions Crisis, and the Uncomfortable Arithmetic of an Ageing Population
The British Civil Society: Voluntary Organisations, Faith Groups, Trade Unions, and the Non-State Institutions That Hold the Country Together
The British Civil Society: Voluntary Organisations, Faith Groups, Trade Unions, and the Non-State Institutions That Hold the Country Together | From the Women’s Institute to the TUC, From the Law Society to the BMA, the Ecosystem of Organised Interests That Shapes British Life
The British Quango: The Arm’s-Length Body That Governs Britain When Nobody Is Looking
The British Quango: The Arm’s-Length Body That Governs Britain When Nobody Is Looking | Non-Departmental Public Bodies, Executive Agencies, Regulatory Capture, the Bonfire of the Quangos That Wasn’t, and the 1,162 Bodies Between You and Your Government
Education Policy: The Sector That Every Government Reforms, Nobody Can Agree Has Improved, and Parents Worry About Constantly
Education Policy: The Sector That Every Government Reforms, Nobody Can Agree Has Improved, and Parents Worry About Constantly | Comprehensives, Academies, Free Schools, Tuition Fees, Ofsted, and the Eternal Question of Whether British Education Is World-Class or Falling Behind
The Racial Politics of Modern Britain: Equality Law, Institutional Racism, the Windrush Scandal, and the Country That Has Not Quite Had the Conversation It Needs to Have
The Racial Politics of Modern Britain: Equality Law, Institutional Racism, the Windrush Scandal, and the Country That Has Not Quite Had the Conversation It Needs to Have | The Macpherson Report, Black Lives Matter, the Commission on Race, Sewell Report Controversy, and the Political Management of Racial Inequality