The Circumlocution Office

2006-08-30T20:45:00.000+01:00

John Connell: The Blog

2006-08-29T00:40:00.000+01:00

John Connell: The Blog

Here at the Circumlocution Office only the Chairman of the Board has taken up the new-fangled pastime of "blogging". As befits the traditions of this Office, progress has been slow. In other spheres the craze is spreading more rapidly, and my attention has recently been drawn to a number of these "blogs" kept by teachers. This is one of the most interesting.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | MSPs to view secret McKie report

2006-07-12T09:32:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | Scotland | MSPs to view secret McKie report

More developments in this interesting case. An interesting philosophical puzzle, with the MSPs asking for access to a document which has already been leaked and which, one presumes, most of them have already read. But they won't have seen it until they have officially seen it.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Mental health body move dropped

2005-06-08T21:03:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Mental health body move dropped

Tite Barnacle Esq. is all in favour of relocating public servants, as long as it happens to someone else. How exciting to see that our masters have run up against an immovable object in the form of the Mental Welfare Commission! Top of the Agenda for the next meeting of the Board of Circumlocution will be an examination of our constitution to see if the Secretary of State has the power to banish us to West Hartlepool.

The Observer | Business | The red herring of red tape

2005-06-08T20:57:00.000+01:00

The Observer | Business | The red herring of red tape

Caulkin is generally very sound on management. This article exposes some of the self-serving nonsense put about by businessmen when discussing de-regulation. Here at the Circumlocution Office we worked out in the 1980s that the competitive advantage offered by the private sector consisted chiefly of screwing down the pay and conditions of outsourced workers. You only had to listen to the howls when TUPE came along to see that they had nothing else to offer.

Freedom of Information

2005-01-08T15:39:00.000Z

It is fortunate that The Circumlocution Office continues to rely on an army of clerks with quill pens and sheets of paper. This has saved us from the frenzy of e-mail deletion that appears to have overtaken other parts of the mighty machinery of Government in recent weeks.