Josh’s rools for riting

Every writer needs a guide to stick to when composing a piece of work. I’ve written some below, which are to be used in conjunction with The Economist Style Guide and George Orwell’s essay on political writing. They’re to be taken in good humour, and read with a critical eye.

When introducing a topic, there are four options: introduce a character who has been affected by the topic, use an interesting quotation, make a geographical observation (building or landscape) or get straight to the point about why the reader should continue reading. In this case, these rules are tried and tested, and will grant the user infinite life through timeless articles. Or something like that.

It may be tempting to use other introductions. For example, a recent event may have parallels with the topic, or a historical observation may be of interest. This is risky, and if used, should be linked straight back to the person profiled in the piece; a person or the people affected by whatever the piece is about; or the reader.

Observations about body language and mannerisms can be important parts of an interview. Animals also make good comparisons, especially if used to make a good humoured remark. Be cautious when making a disparaging remark – make sure it is fair and not vituperative. Unless they’re just an arsehole.

Any observation about a person should be combined with an explanation of why this affects what they are saying: they may become agitated when discussing a particularly difficult part of their career or another colleague. Alternatively, it may back up your ultimate argument about someone: they may constantly change the subject and have a mind like a moth in a disco.

Every piece should have an argument, either about a person or about a topic. It should contain the reason for reading the piece, the background information about the topic, the present day issues, and any future observations. In that order.

Often, while a different structure may appear better suited for an argument, it will be a variation on the above theme. For example, it may be that there is little background, and much more to be discussed about the future.

Do not be flash for the sake of being flash. No-one likes a show off.

The reader does not care about you. Unless the argument of the piece is that they should.

Don’t use gimmicky punctuation or grammar. Write clearly, in the active tense, and make your points. Then finish.

Do new MPs struggle to properly scrutinise policies?

Dame Anne Begg is a wonderful person to interview: she is insightful, incisive, and good company.

Begg chairs the work and pensions select committee, and as well as admitting that she was initially pressured into becoming Parliament’s welfare policy expert because she is wheelchair bound, she let slip about some of the troubles new MPs have with scrutinising government policies. In particular: her committee is predominantly made up of new MPs who are “still finding their feet… [and] what their role as an MP is”, Begg says. This is affecting the quality of their scrutiny: “Inevitably, when you come in as a brand new government, you’re going to think that everything your side is doing is wonderful; and when you come in as the opposition, you’re going to think the other side is dreadful,” she explains.

It’s a striking comment, but also worth chewing over. With the coalition pushing policies through at a frightful pace, are the freshly minted backbench MPs who often make up the membership of select committees struggling to ensure that policy is well-formulated? Read the full interview here

Bickering Delays Open Public Services White Paper … again

First published on the Civil Service Live Network, May 9th. Still relevant.

What’s going on with the Open Public Services White Paper? The bill, which is supposed to set out the government’s vision for the future delivery of public services, has been delayed once again. It was initially due in January but is now due in July, according to the latest Cabinet Office business plan. The trouble is, as one very senior source whispered to me recently, the politicians “just can’t agree on anything.”

As I understand it, there are three camps in the negotiations over how to reform the public sector. In the blue camp, we have David Cameron and Oliver Letwin. Their vision was set out in the Telegraph in February, in an article which called for as much outsourcing and private sector involvement in public services as possible. “Instead of having to justify why it makes sense to introduce competition in some public services – as we are now doing with schools and in the NHS – the state will have to justify why it should ever operate a monopoly,” Cameron wrote.

In the yellow camp are Danny Alexander and Nick Hurd. They are in favour of reforming the public sector, but want to focus more on new models of delivery – rather than increased outsourcing. At present, public sector mutualisation is being pursued by the Cabinet Office, but the public services white paper is expected to set out more specific targets and support for groups of public sector workers who want to take over and run their own services.

And in the red camp is Nick Clegg. He’s cautious about any sort of reform, increasingly so as he takes body blow after body blow in the national press. A well-placed source tells me that Clegg is responsible for delays to the publication of the bill because he refused to look at it until after last Friday’s local elections. It’s likely that, alongside seeking concessions from the Health and Social Care Bill, he also plans to exert more influence on the public services white paper following his drubbing in the local elections.

It would appear that those ministers opposed to large-scale outsourcing have already won. Minutes of a meeting between Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and director-general of the CBI, John Cridland, said that “the minister’s messages were clear cut… the government is committed to transforming services, but this would not be a return to the 1990s with wholesale outsourcing to the private sector – this would be unpalatable to the present administration.”

The leaked minutes also noted that the government will heavily push for mutualised public services to set up “joint ventures” with the private sector, stating that “Government is very open to ideas for services currently provided within the public sector to be delivered under a private/government joint venture. Government is committed to new models of partnership, and private sector organisations need to offer joint ventures – joint ventures between a new mutualised public sector organisation and a ‘for profit’ organisation would be very attractive.”

These measures could mean that Cameron still gets the outsourced public services he desires.  The director of the Oxford University Centre for Mutual and Employee-Owned Business, Professor Jonathan Michie, recently told me that in the 1980s, bus companies were set up with employee ownership models – but quickly transferred into private hands when their owners were offered handsome sums. Perhaps David Cameron’s vision will win in the long run after all then.

Cease and Dysist: why the Dylan worship has to stop

I was on the Underground the other day, clutching yet another sycophantic Dylan puff piece in a daily newspaper, and I felt compelled to scribble something down to describe my own feelings. I don’t usually write about music and probably won’t again.

This is not just another Dylan piece: the troubadour has reached 70 this year, and once again elicited page after page after page of muddled hagiography. He has also yielded the now common re-releases and bootlegged tapes that surely have long ceased to be a valuable seam of artistry.

But I suspect that the Dylan-industrial complex (© Ron Rosenbaum) would rather these decennial events were celebrating the anniversary of his death, rather than his continued existence. After all, the past is much easer to shape than the present.

The simple truth is that Dylan peaked as a musician in the ‘70s and only stirred back into life in the ’90s as a final flash of brilliance. Everything between those decades was stagnant, and now it seems we have reached his musical death rattle with an ill-judged trip to authoritarian China, a horrific Christmas album, a never ending tour where the man barely sings and plinks out of tune (and time) on his keyboard.

Not even his sarcasm retains its bite. Gone are the lines like “If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself” or “if a man’s not busy being born he’s a busy dying”. Not even something along the lines of “folk music is a bunch of fat people.”

His best line in recent years was mere longwinded pomposity. In his written rebuttal to critics of his trip to China, he said: “Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.”

If they do, it won’t be about these past few years: Dylan has reached the footnotes of his back pages. To be frank, I used to care but things have changed.

The government’s special advisers

Recently, I was part of a small team of reporters writing profiles of every government special adviser (spad). It was not an easy task: very early on, a senior spad informed me that he would be telling others not to co-operate, and some believed (erroneously) that providing information about themselves would breach the government code of special advisers. Yet we persisted because it’s vital that people understand who these advisers are, where they come from, and what expertise they have.

Very little outside the Westminster bubble, it turns out. After profiling many of them, I read through all of our biographies and tallied up the various backgrounds and experiences they had. An astonishing 89% have built their careers in the Westminster bubble. I contrasted this with the backgrounds of Labour’s special advisers (which were profiled in 2009). Only 37% of that cohort had worked for their party HQ, for an MP, or as a spad for another minister. A marked difference.

While they lack experience, spads are becoming more and more valued. Indeed, David Cameron is likely to break his self-imposed cap on the number of spads, and this won’t necessarily lead to opposition from the civil service either. I wrote an analysis piece about the use of special advisers in a coalition, and certainly it seems they are handy at keeping to cogs of government moving.

The full special report is available here.

A blast from the past

As a reminder of how markedly different the tone of Obama’s presidency is to Bush’s, here’s the announcement when Saddam Hussein was captured:

What’s most alarming about this, though, is the obsequiousness of the press.

A new direction?

How will the death of Osama Bin Laden affect US foreign policy, and therefore us? After all, Bin Laden’s death could be used by the United States to end military operations in Afghanistan sooner than expected, or more comprehensively than was previously aimed for.

A great piece in the New Yorker earlier this month highlighted that Obama does not want to expend resources and political capital on continuing US operations in Afghanistan in the long term, or indeed in the Middle East as a whole.

Instead, the President is much more concerned with refocusing US foreign policy towards the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and perhaps most importantly, China. For example, Obama was reluctant to engage in efforts to remove Colonel Gadaffi in Libya and insisted on continuing a longstanding visit to Brazil while the decision was being made – highlighting to the world his foreign policy priorities.

Yet this was a symbolic display, and in practice Obama has become entangled in the Middle East: in part because of Afghanistan but also because of the Arab uprisings earlier this year. In the last year, Obama has committed significant military resources and political capital both to Afghanistan and also to the Libyan uprising.

Bin Laden’s death now provides Obama with an opportunity to remove troops from Afghanistan sooner than expected, and refocus his resources elsewhere. Perhaps it will also affect his willingness to commit troops to other parts of the region. American popular opinion was against committing troops to Libya, and also appears to be in favour of bringing forces home from Afghanistan.

What does this mean for the United Kingdom? British troops are committed in Afghanistan, indeed, numbers increased there when Obama pushed for a troop surge. The death of Bin Laden may mean the ending of American involvement in Afghanistan, and that would surely mean the end of British involvement there too.

Further, it may also affect British assistance for Arab uprisings: following the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the UK is heavily reliant on the United States. As Libya has shown, we can only lead when the Americans agree to follow, and it is more likely that we ask them to lead instead.

One final thought: with the US presidential election just beginning, we may not have to wait long before President Obama sets out what he intends to do next.

Update: Did the Guardian pay Wikileaks?

My previous post questioned whether The Guardian paid Wikileaks to access the data. This is important: they are setting the agenda and filtering this information, it’s important for us to know why they are doing it.

The Washington Post reported yesterday: “But [Wikileaks] pointedly snubbed the Times this time around, offering the State Department cables to two other American news outlets, CNN and the Wall Street Journal. Both turned WikiLeaks down, deciding that its terms – including a demand for financial compensation under certain circumstances – were unacceptable.”

It is likely that Wikileaks asked for payment from The Guardian. Did The Guardian agree to give funding to Wikileaks, or did it come to some other agreement with Assange? What were the terms of that agreement?

Did the Guardian, NYT, etc have to pay Wikileaks?

Wikileaks was set up to freely distribute information that was secret. However, it’s notable that its most recent leak of government files was only given to five newspapers (the New York Times, Le Monde, El País and De Speigel) each of which have had monopoly access in their own country to peruse the files, redact sensitive information, and then write exclusive stories about them.

This may have happened for two reasons. First, because Wikileaks identified a need to limit initial media access in order to ensure that the story had as big an impact as possible. The editorial of the Guardian mentions that the newspapers all agreed to publication dates set by Wikileaks, stating that “co-operation with WikiLeaks has been restricted to agreeing the dates on which we could cover specific regions.” Second, the limit may have been to ensure some control of information to prevent the loss of life – both the NYT and Guardian editorials stress they have shared redactions, such as the names of informers, with Wikileaks.

But why did Wikileaks decide to give the information to those five newspapers? In limiting early access to the Wikileaks documents, won’t they will be filtered through the perspective of those newspapers?

I can only speak with some knowledge about The Guardian and the New York Times but both are seen as liberal/left-wing newspapers in their countries. Did Assange give the five newspapers access because they are closest to his worldview, and in turn hopes they will put a spin on the information which he agrees with? I’ve just read a profile of the Wikileaks founder in the New Yorker, which had unprecedented access to him this summer. It indicates that Assange does take stances on the issues referenced in the information he leaks, stating that: “To be completely impartial is to be an idiot. This would mean that we would have to treat the dust in the street the same as the lives of people who have been killed.”

Or perhaps there is an alternative reason why the five newspapers gained access to the data. The New Yorker profile shows that Assange has been pursuing a number of business models in order to fund Wikileaks, such as auctioning early access to leaks. It says: “On the principle that people won’t regard something as valuable unless they pay for it, he has tried selling documents at auction to news organizations; in 2008, he attempted this with seven thousand internal e-mails from the account of a former speechwriter for Hugo Chávez. The auction failed. He is thinking about setting up a subscription service, where high-paying members would have early access to leaks.”

So was early access to the information purchased? Or was access given because Assange believed the newspapers would be the best at reporting on it?

What I’m up to

I haven’t written an update for some time, a result of pressing ahead with my career. I work as a reporter for Civil Service World, the newspaper of the senior civil service, which I started after working throughout the general election as a duty editor at PoliticsHome.

This is what I’ve been up to:

Interviews

As part of my work I frequently interview ministers, senior civil servants and public servants working for executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies.

Recently, I interviewed Lord Andrew Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary (and head of the Home Civil Service) from 2002-2005. He told me that political pressure on civil servants prevented people in the Treasury coming forwards and telling ministers that borrowing levels were too high before the credit crunch.

He also criticised the Academies Bill for shifting focus from boosting under-achieving schools to allowing thriving schools to press further ahead.

And, he told me that the Tories’ measures to redraw the election boundaries is “politically motivated” and is designed to negate the effect that electoral reform would have on their poll standing. This point has been made before, but not by a former cabinet secretary.

Other high-ranking civil servants I have interviewed include the now-retired permanent secretary (head civil servant) of the Scottish Executive, Sir John Elvidge. It was the last interview he gave before he retired, and as well as discussing the difficulties of serving a coalition, he also talked about the problems that spending cuts would present to Scottish politicians.

I combined the interview with a broader essay on the lessons that can be learned from Scotland’s experience of coalition governments. A key finding was the importance of special advisers on the political process – and the surprising discovery that civil servants in particular valued the role of often-denigrated political advisers.

Amongst others, I have also interviewed Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, transport minister Norman Baker, foreign office minister Lord Howell, chairman of the Olympic Development Agency John Armitt, and am soon to publish a joint interview with the heads of the Sustainable Development Commission – the recently scrapped government environmental watchdog. Stay tuned …

Scoops

I’ve broken a number of scoops in my months at Civil Service World, here are the best:

[update November 2010] A week before Martha Lane Fox recommended that the government combine all its online public services into one website, I exclusively reported this.

My first story was when a special adviser let slip to me that DWP planned to scrap Labour’s Pathways to Work scheme as part of its work programme.

I then broke a couple of stories about endemic data loss in the NHS, prompting the ICO to change its behaviour and sanction two NHS trusts as I was researching a followup special report.

And most recently, I broke the news that Defra planned to scrap its funding to the Sustainable Development Commission, which has now been formally announced.

None of them are Watergate, admittedly, but I like to think I’m reporting on serious issues and keeping track of what’s actually going on in Whitehall.

Blogging

I write an infrequently updated blog on the Civil Service Live Network, covering Whitehall issues. I also tweet primarily from @CSWnews .