Ferdinand Mount

Secrets of the secretaries

Is the main purpose of the cabinet secretary to frustrate the PM? Two new books uncover the hole in the middle of Whitehall

  • The Cabinet Office 1916—2016: The Birth of Modern Government

    Anthony Seldon

    Biteback, pp. 360

  • The Official History of the Cabinet Secretaries

    Ian Beesley

    Routeledge, pp. 722

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Iwas once asked by a colleague to sponsor him on an undertaking designed, he said, to raise money for a very good charitable cause. I can’t remember what the cause was – cancer, maybe, or mental kids – but I do remember the nature of the undertaking. He intended to walk a number of miles

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