Pakistan has long been one of our largest aid recipients, and between 2015 and 2019 Pakistan was the largest single recipient of direct British government-to-government bilateral aid. Yet its courts uphold forced marriages arranged by kidnapping.
If a mainstream candidate is needed, when next the Conservative leadership is contested, in order to stop some more ideological figure such as Kemi Badenoch, it is just possible that Cleverly might fit the bill.
Too many governments which extol the virtues of democracy in principle seem all too willing to abandon such lofty principles when it suits their base, commercial purposes.
Conservatives would do well to prioritise above all else the promotion of young, intelligent and furiously ambitious staffers granted a level of autonomy not seen since the administration of Empire.
If politicians come to believe that the civil service is preoccupied with speaking truth to power at the expense of doing its job, Francis Maude-type solutions will be imposed, regardless of which party is in power.
No, his does not mean that the UK has become “ungovernable” or that it will be “impossible for Ministers to do their job” or that his departure is a victory for “the Remainer blob” or evidence that the public sector is full of “snowflakes”.
I am grateful to ConservativeHome for publishing my Chagos assessments every Christmas/new year since 2012. A decade later we are close to a resolution.
Such initiatives are surely a deserving recipient of more of the UK’s overseas aid than China, which reportedly received £51.7 million last year.
On every front, his policy seems defined by retrenchment and retreat. Circumstances are difficult, but he must nonetheless do better.
“The Treasury Finance Ministry view of the world isn’t about structural reform to increase the productive capacity of the economy.”
We see evident now in the Tory Party, my party, a strange mix of complacency, entitlement, fear and exhaustion.
The Foreign Secretary aims to unleash the power of countries to control their own futures. Investing to end malaria helps achieve this.
A new report sets out clear steps the UK can take, alongside our allies, to reinforce this vital democratic partner.
Perhaps it is time to start to learn to love quangos; perhaps with greater democratic control, such a romance would be possible.