Research

The History of Digital Policy in Britain

A history of remarkable digital technological change and the British governments policy response.

The History of the Department of Business and Trade

A history of the Department of Trade investigating the constant changes in trade’s machinery of government and re establishing DBT identity and institutional memory.

The Downing Street Chief of Staff

A study of the introduction, development and impact of the Chief of Staff role to Blair’s Downing Street

A reappraisal of John Major’s management of opposition in the Tory Party towards the EU.

Using government documents to re-examine Major’s decision-making processes

A Unity of Thought, Doctrine, and Outlook? An Institutional History of the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence, 1947-1992

PhD thesis assessing the institutional development of the UK Ministry of Defence and its wider significance concerning the thought and practice of strategy by the British state.

The Queen and her Prime Ministers

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, celebrates her Platinum Jubilee this week. Festivities will be held across the country to mark the Queen’s incredible 70 years on the throne. During the last seven decades, fourteen individuals from Winston Churchill to current Prime Minister Boris Johnson have ‘kissed hands’ with the Queen and thus become prime minister.

The London Problem: What Britain gets wrong about its capital city

Book on London’s relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom, anti-London sentiment, and the role of popular myths about the modern capital.

The Road to 1997: Bank of England Operational Independence in Historical Perspective

A history of New Labour’s decision to grant BOE operational independence

London’s Mayor at 20: Governing a global city in the 21st century

Book recording the contemporary history of the first two decades of London’s mayoralty, jointly written and edited with Richard Brown and Professor Tony Travers of LSE.