Michael Ware

Hugh Grant vs government grants, by Michael Ware

15 March 2011 | Michael Ware

So here we are basking in the glory of another great British Oscars night. And by British of course I mean English, as nobody else quite fits the stereotype required for success. Read more...

Tags: | | | Comment

Another brick out of the wall, by Michael Ware

11 February 2011 | Michael Ware

Reading the news this week, I was struck by the similarities between Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, and Marcus, my year-old baby boy. Read more...

Tags: | | | | 2 comments

Happiness is a warm bun, by Michael Ware

10 December 2010 | Michael Ware

This year I will celebrate my 45th Christmas day, and with every passing year I find I am increasingly preoccupied with two things: spending more and more money on a week’s enforced family ‘fun’ and trying not to get even fatter as a result. And this year, my concerns are, for once, shared by politicians; David Cameron wants me to be a happier and skinnier member of the Big Society rather than just a law abiding non-rioting taxpayer. Read more...

Tags: | | Comment

Green Bank blues, by Michael Ware

19 November 2010 | Michael Ware

Reading reports of the ongoing row between chancellor George Osborne and energy secretary Chris Huhne over the status of the government’s proposed Green Bank bought back anxious memories of my failed history A level; the answer I had carefully prepared in the preceding weeks bore little or no resemblance to the question in front of me. Read more...

Tags: | | | Comment

We have the power, by Michael Ware

6 September 2010 | Michael Ware

The recent change in the law allowing councils to sell power to the grid has had me thinking about how passive we are in our relationship to electricity. It comes out of the wall, I have never actually seen it, I am a bit vague as to how ‘it’ actually works (isn’t it electrons going in a big circle back to the power station ? ) and I think AC/DC was a technical term about current before it came to mean something more esoteric. But that’s the sum of my knowledge and I suspect that this relaxed attitude is shared by many in the public sector.
 Read more...

Tags: | | | | 1 comment

PFI – the end of the affair? By Michael Ware

13 July 2010 | Michael Ware

For some of you, the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme means that the fragile marriage between the public and private sectors is finally over – so let’s tell your mother, split the CD collection and go our separate ways. However, I am not so pessimistic. Sure we have had difficult times recently, but we have completed over 700 projects together and I don’t think we should let those good times go just because you flirted with a Swedish social enterprise model. Read more...

Tags: | | 2 comments