The Blair Years

A revelatory account of Tony Blair's tumultuous leadership, The Blair Years gathers extracts from the diaries of the man who knew him best: Alastair Campbell–Blair's spokesman from 1994 to 2003, his press secretary, strategist, and closest confidant. It is a compelling chronicle of contemporary British politics and the rise of New Labour, providing the first important record of a remarkable decade in Britain's history.

The story of Scotland's superstar DJ you’ve never heard of. A crowd-pulling DJ at 15, Stuart 'Scoobs' Cochrane performed from Bannockburn to Ibiza and all points in between. A pioneer of the rave scene in Scotland, Scoobs' entrepreneurial spirit and hedonistic attitude saw him host raves in the most unlikely of places including Blair Drummond Safari Park. But at 56, having struggled with his mental health, Scoobs had forgotten some of his younger adventures, so he bought a tape recorder and went to interview the people he'd partied with to see if they could fill in some of the gaps.

The book provides detailed analysis of the structure and operation of the British Civil Service along with a historically grounded account of its development in the period from Margaret Thatcher to the Tony Blair premiership. It assesses continuity and change in the civil service during a period of deep transformation using new archive files, government and parliament reports, primary and secondary legislation. The author takes the evolutionary change of the civil service as a central theme and examines the friction between new managerial practices introduced by government in the 80s and 90s and the administrative traditions rooted in the history of this institution. In particular the author assesses the impact of the New Public Management agenda of the Thatcher and Major years its enhanced continuity during the Blair years. Further changes that involved ministerial responsibility, codification, performance management, special advisers and constitutional conventions are analyzed in the conclusions.

The story of Scotland's superstar DJ you’ve never heard of. A crowd-pulling DJ at 15, Stuart 'Scoobs' Cochrane performed from Bannockburn to Ibiza and all points in between. A pioneer of the rave scene in Scotland, Scoobs' entrepreneurial spirit and hedonistic attitude saw him host raves in the most unlikely of places including Blair Drummond Safari Park. But at 56, having struggled with his mental health, Scoobs had forgotten some of his younger adventures, so he bought a tape recorder and went to interview the people he'd partied with to see if they could fill in some of the gaps.