...whirr of a freewheel, the Ordnance Survey’s origins are associated with preparation for war and it played a major role in the mapping of the First World War battlefields. Preparing...
Maurice Hankey (1877-1963) deserves to be far better known than he is today as the principal architect of the Cabinet Office in modern British government. It would be wrong to...
...and policy was channelled. Yet many individuals today do not realise what the Privy Council is and the central role it has in fact played in our nation’s history. This...
...then I'll begin. Could a government document ever have been a potential contender for the ‘Jackanory’1 treatment? Let me explain. Today, 3 January, as part of the transition to a...
Today a memorial service is held at Westminster Abbey for the former foreign secretary Lord (Peter) Carrington, who died last July aged 99. Over a life-time of public service, he...
...1917, shortly after his arrival at No.10. It would prove to be a precursor to an administrative model that continues to function today. David Lloyd George, 1906, The National Archives,...
Modern technology means that today’s politicians remain contactable, even when on holiday. Constant access to digital communications can be a mixed blessing but, in the event of a crisis, the...
...her political beliefs, her personal qualities would both attract and repel people today. She rejected the opportunity to live a quiet life of luxury in order to be politically active,...
...will undoubtedly be maintained by our successors over the next hundred years.’ Patrick Salmon making his speech The full story of how the Foreign Office has used and promoted history,...
...Company, August 1956 (Public Domain) The announcement sixty years ago today by President Gamal Abdel Nasser that he was taking the Suez Canal into Egyptian ownership provided the ‘inciting incident’,...