KATAYOUN SHAHANDEH surveys Iran’s cultural heritage and explains what has been damaged and what could be lost
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False gods
BINOY KAMPMARK lifts the veil on bad and costly advice supplied by the consultancy class
SNAKE OIL: Javid, Johnson and Sunak visit Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Herts 6/4/2022
[Pic: Simon Dawson/CC]
A dazzling novel, and autobiographical fiction, by Mexicans Brenda Navarro and Cristina Rivera Garza, and poetry by Brazilian Ricardo Domeneck
JONATHAN TAYLOR ponders the difference between autobiography and memoir - between life and story - in Margaret Atwood’s account of herself
Rereleases from Andrew Gold; John McFee, Stu Cook, Keith Knudsen; and The Outer Limits
Five years ago a flash crowd of Glaswegian activists defeated the Home Office and the police; MATT KERR urges you to savour that day in a cinema
SYLVIA HIKINS celebrates the chance that a new memoir offers to explore Frieda Brewster’s remarkable life story
The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies
by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington, Allen Lane, £25
CONSULTANCY companies have become the mandarins of outsourcing, and have served to degrade expertise in the public sector while diminishing the quality of services.
Along the way, they have charged astronomical fees in giving repeatedly flawed advice. Consultants, packaged as all-wise gurus, have become the great confidence tricksters.
Embracing the inner voodoo of consultancy had the effect of discouraging in-house contributions and solutions within government and the broader economy. The result has been a strange plea to those outside the public sector, resulting in what can only be described accurately as the consultacracy.
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RICHARD CLARKE recommends a hugely valuable text for those seeking theoretical analysis and practical action to defend public services