[Mon 18th Jun 2012] WHITEHALL AS VIEWED BY INSIDERS- FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR SPEAKS OUT (NW3 2QB.)

I've been asked to post this up by a family friend (I have no connection to Serwotka I hasten to add) and I've cleared it with The Editor.

Demoralized, privatised, despised by the public, disdained by politicians, demonized by the press: this is what has become of Britain's public services which, only a generation ago, were highly regarded and held in affection both at home and abroad.

Sir Rodric Braithwaite - Britain's ambassador to Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union - will speak on some of the reasons for the decline in prestige, fears for the future, and possible remedies at a book event for Public Service on the Brink, a collection of essays edited by Jenny Manson, published by Imprint Academic, price £17.95.

The event is at 6.30 p.m. on 18 June 2012 at Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, London NW3 2QB.

Other contributors to the book include Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, the UK's largest civil service union and Professor David Wiggins, once an assistant principal at the Colonial Office but later Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University.

Also speaking at Daunt:
Dan Carrier on press coverage of public sector unions
Rebekah Carrier on legal aid
Libby Goldby on secondary education
Liz Kessler on urban renewal

The speakers are available for interview on or before 18 June.

Contact - for more information
Jenny Manson mobile phone 07876 681173
jennysalamanmanson@hotmail.com