Complexity theory has never had much patience for five-year plans, and neither does British politics. The King of the North arrived in Downing Street and, rather than leave it at the border, brought a court with him, creating “No 10 North” as the centre of his devolution-first government. Britain’s seventh PM has built his career…
The recent HS2 update was somehow both surprising and entirely expected. The cost has risen to somewhere between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion. Trains once expected to reach 360 km/h will now travel at 320 km/h. And the opening date has slipped by up to six years (assuming this version of the timetable survives long…
I read a post on LinkedIn recently, and I cannot remember who wrote it, saying the UK is structurally stupid, reactive by nature, especially with how we handled the heatwave. Ouch, I thought, and kept scrolling. And yesterday, a ShiftWorks King’s Fund piece on collective stupidity landed in my inbox, making essentially the same accusation…
Neighbourhood health has become the organising idea behind much of NHS reform, and with that comes an interesting possibility worth looking at: that a handful of recurring patterns can be found underneath very different neighbourhood partnerships, regardless of the place, the people involved, or the specific problem in front of them. Boards commission pilots, workforce…
This morning, with more to muse on than usual, I made the mistake of asking my daughter for editorial direction. There was a heatwave forcing half the country into a national debate about whether shorts are acceptable office wear, and a churn of Prime Ministers that will eventually work its way into the NHS, into…