A history of the British civil service from the Norman Conquest to the present day. It also provides an analysis of present-day ministries. This edition has a new 10,000 word final chapter.

John Seddon explains how successive governments have failed to deliver what our public services need and exposes the devastation that three decades of political fads, fashions and bad theory have caused. With specific examples and new evidence, he chronicles how the Whitehall ideas machine has failed on a monumental scale - and the impact that this has had on public sector workers and those of us who use public sector services.

Compiles information about a myriad of topics, ranging from the arts and life sciences to computers and the zodiac. 8 yrs+

'Backing into the Spotlight is a hilarious and an unashamedly non-PC memoir . . . Now in his eighth decade, Whitehall is a fine raconteur, gloriously unreconstructed and still deeply suspicious of modernity' Daily Mail Standing in front of a full-length mirror in my dressing room at ITV studios, waiting to go on to the set of Backchat, I had a brief conversation with my reflection. 'Michael, what the f*** do you think you're doing?' Theatrical agent Michael Whitehall spent a career pushing others into the spotlight. He had been involved behind the scenes with the careers of many prominent actors, including Colin Firth, Richard Griffiths, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Courtenay, Ian Ogilvy, Judi Dench, Edward Fox, Michael Fassbender, Angela Thorne and Nigel Havers. But then, much to his surprise, his son Jack becomes a successful comedian and actor and decides that his new comedy partner should be his father. Whitehall Snr. finds himself reluctantly appearing on stage and then television, cast as the archetypal grumpy old man and thrust, in his early seventies, into a whole new career in front of the camera. Minor fame comes at a sedate pace: one of the highlights being a record £300,000 win for charity with Jack on Channel 4's The Million Pound Drop. In this enchanting memoir Whitehall looks back on his life, from growing up in suburban London in the 1940s and '50s with his saintly father and social climbing-mother, who coined the phrase 'à la carte' to describe people who were posher than she was and whose company she craved, to falling into a career as a successful theatrical agent and producer. As he says, 'Actors can be egotistical, greedy and vain, but they're not half as bad as agents and producers.' Charming, gossipy and above all very funny, Backing Into The Spotlight is no ordinary show business memoir.

'Screamingly funny...a splendidly effervescent and enjoyable book' Daily Mail One part Lonely Planet, one part tell-all family memoir, this is the definitive and hilarious guide on how to survive family holidays. No one has more experience of travelling together than the Whitehalls. They've given us a window into their escapades in the hit Netflix show, Travels With My Father, and in this brilliantly funny book they've pooled their advice for fellow travellers. In doing so they are sharing some of their best anecdotes, their most extreme experiences and their most valuable advice. It's part memoir of family life, part travel guide and full on, laugh-out-loud funny.

WHITEHALL - the name of a street now synonymous with the civil service - has been the centre of British religious and political power for over 500 years. Whitehalltakes the reader behind closed doors to explore the fascinating history that lies behind the façade of the great departments of state and some of the greatest figures in British history, including Henry Vlll's playground, the execution of Charles I, Nelson's tortured love life, and Winston Churchill's plans for a last stand against the forces of Hitler's Nazi invaders. It explores the private house in Whitehall - ignored by tourists today - which became the most notorious address in London, when Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb conducted their very public and tempestuous love affair there. Inside Admiralty House, screened from public view, is the elablorately decorated boardroom equipped with its own wind clock where Nelson received his orders to attack the French. There is also the dining room where Nelson fumed over dinner with his wife Fanny, who burst into tears at his black mood. Fragments of the tennis courts where Anne Boleyn watched Henry Vlll playing tennis in his 'slops' have survived behind the walls of the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall. Beyond its glass doors, a secret passageway leads to Number Ten Downing Street. Cabinet papers reveal that Winston Churchill planned to use Whitehall as a 'fortress' in 1940 when Britain faced imminent invasion by Hitler's Nazi forces. The documents published for the first time show how Churchill prepared for street fighting in Whitehall's departments, as he made his final stand. And it also reveals for the first time the films that helped Churchill escape the rigors of war in his underground cinema at Whitehall as the Prime Minister battled to preserve Britain for another 1,000 years.

Beyond Westminster and Whitehall provides the first comprehensive account of the range of sub-central government institutions that are responsible for the delivery of services to citizens. These bodies are the warp and weft of the British system of government and yet are all too frequently ignored. For a full understanding of British government, the study of sub-central government is of equivalent importance to that of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and Parliament. Westminster and Whitehall do not always get what they want. There are a great many restraints upon the actions of the centre, and central policies all too often have unintended consequences. This book, demonstrating that Britain is not a unitary state but a differentiated polity in which sub-central governments play a key role, will be essential reading for teachers and students of British politics.