Tuesday Topic

Will Big Oil face the same legal challenges as Big Tobacco? A recent Special Report in The Economist had a section heading called ‘Courtrooms are the new battleground for climate…

The fudging of accountability. 2020 continues to throw up novel situations and dilemmas that have previously not troubled us. Who might have guessed that on the day that this Topic…

If consultation was not undertaken – how to retrieve the situation. When coronavirus sent Whitehall – and everywhere else – into a flat spin, Government responded with a flurry of…

Public servants need to understand the Downing Street approach to their future At the beginning of July there were two important speeches. One came from the Prime Minister – a typical bish-bash-bosh tour…

A month ago, we published a Briefing Paper entitled Exit from Lockdown: the case for consultation. In it, we made the case for decision-makers at both central and local levels to…

Right in the middle of the current health emergency, many commentators have observed that at a time of national crisis, people tend to cling to the words of people they…

Citizens’ Assemblies have become extraordinarily popular. And rightly so. Trust in elected bodies – Parliamentary or Municipal is at a low ebb. Campaigners for causes like social care, public transport…

Consultation as one of the ways to address Yuval Hariri’s latest warnings. Consultation professionals are essentially concerned with process. We are not supposed to be pursuing our own political, social…

Is The Economist right to be optimistic about technology? Every so often, The Economist publishes one of its weighty editorials, designed for maximum influence, and chose the imminent start of the ‘Twenties’…

“For goodness sake, just get Xmas done!” “We’re fed up. For months, we’ve heard little else.” “No ifs; no but’s. Let’s stick to the agreed date.” “December 25th it is.…