For Iain McLean (Official Fellow) it was a year of two halves. The first (short) half was dominated by Thomas Jefferson; the second (long) half, by Joel Barnett.

As William H. Orrick Professor in the Program in Ethics, Politics & Economics at Yale from September to December, Iain taught two courses. One of them was on ‘Jefferson in Paris’, aiming to track the mutual influence of the American and French Enlightenments on one another, and on each country’s Bill or Declaration of Rights, viewed through the pivotal figure of Jefferson as American Minister in Paris from 1784 to 1789. A paper on this was presented to a human rights conference in Bellagio in June and will be included in a conference book. The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments includes a harpsichord by Kirkman of London, from whom Jefferson in Paris commissioned an instrument for his daughter.  While taking his class to view it, Iain had the spine-tingling experience of playing the Kirkman and other 18^th-century instruments from the collection, which are not normally available to play. This was the highlight of his four months in Yale. He later saw another Kirkman in Jefferson’s house in Monticello, but it was neither playable nor the authentic instrument that Jefferson bought for his daughter.

 A single-authored book on Jefferson in Paris was contemplated, and may yet happen, but was elbowed aside by events later in the year. However, Thomas Jefferson will still be there, if need be as a retirement project. The chapter on Jefferson’s best friend James Madison, mentioned in last year’s report, went through further revisions and will be published in 2002-3. A short research trip to Boston took him to the books of Jefferson’s lifelong rival John Adams. Both Jefferson and Adams annotated their copies of Enlightenment authors, Jefferson sparingly, Adams copiously and crossly. A comparative paper could result.

On returning to Oxford, Iain’s research (re)turned sharply to UK public policy. The ‘Attitudes to the Union’ project (with Alistair McMillan) mentioned last year is now under way. Work includes analysis of Unionist and anti-Unionist votes and ideologies in 1707, 1800, 1886, 1921 and the present day. A book , State of the Union, is under contract to OUP for publication in 2004. Since at least 1886, the trickiest problems of asymmetric Union have been representation and finance. The current (‘Barnett’) financial formula for devolution is under severe strain. Extensive policy work and consultation with the Treasury and elsewhere on Barnett and possible alternatives occupied much of the long half of the year, culminating in oral evidence to the Treasury Select Committee in July. A College working paper on The Fiscal Crisis of the UK was produced but has deliberately been withheld from journal submission while these discussions continue. However, a book with the same title is under contract to Palgrave for publication in 2005.

A contract valued at about £176,000 was secured with the DTLR (now ODPM) to investigate the flow of domestic and European public spending into the English regions. This will lead to further work on the non-Barnett formulae that determine this flow, and on explaining the anomalies that appear to exist, notably between north-east England and Scotland, and between London and its surrounding regions.

Other policy work covered the reform of the House of Lords (where Iain claims some credit for the withdrawal of the government’s White Paper on the subject, which, he argued, would require the appointment of 73 mostly female faith representatives to the upper house); the constitution of the European Union; and response to disasters.

The second edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (consultant editor I. McLean; executive editor A. McMillan) was submitted during the year, with grateful thanks to collaborators in Nuffield and elsewhere who wrote new entries in short time and for no reward to speak of.

Papers were given at the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA; at departmental seminars at the Universities of Wisconsin-Madison, Emory, Pennsylvania and Essex; at the Harvard-MIT Seminar in Positive Political Economy; at the Jefferson Foundation conference ‘Thomas Jefferson and Human Rights’, Bellagio, Italy; at the ESRC Research Seminar series on Disasters at Edge Hill University College; and at several government research conferences. With Chris Wlezien and Geoff Evans, he convened the Nuffield Political Science Seminar.

F. McGillivray, I. McLean, R. Pahre, and C. Schonhardt-Bailey, International Trade and Political Institutions instituting trade in the long nineteenth century. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2001. ISBN 1 84064 690 X.

I. McLean, ‘Scotland: towards Quebec - or Slovakia?’, Regional Studies 35, 2001, pp. 637-44. ISSN 0034-3404

‘Memorandum by Professor Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Oxford University: Cm 5291: The House of Lords - Completing the Reform’ in House of Commons, Public Administration Select Committee, The Second Chamber: Continuing the Reform, Fifth Report of Session 2001-02, Minutes of Evidence, pp. Ev168-174.  HC 494-II

Iain McLean (Official Fellow) continued the research described in previous years. The year was dominated by public policy research begun last year.

The most time-consuming project was the report to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, commissioned in April 2002, delivered in July 2003, and published on the College and ODPM websites in September 2003. Its title is ‘Investigating the flow of domestic and European public spending into the English regions’. A large research team examined data supplied by HM Treasury and visited the departments that supplied them, to which we were given unprecedented access. We found that, while many departments reported accurate outturns for their expenditure in the nine English regions, some others merely made unsubstantiated guesses. The data on European public expenditure in the English regions appeared to be particularly poor. Our best attempts to reconstruct the data suggest that public expenditure in London has been under-reported, and in all eight other regions has therefore been over-reported.

Other policy work on the Barnett Formula and possible replacements to it involved visits to Australia, Canada, HM Treasury and the Northern Ireland Executive; an academic paper (with Alistair McMillan) was published during the year. A paper on Australian fiscal federalism is in press; one on Canada is in preparation. Both have been or will be submitted to HM Treasury, which has expressed interest in this work although no research contract exists. An extension of this research to possible replacement funding formulas for English local government is progress, under contract to the New Local Government Network. Iain both gave evidence, and served as a special adviser, to the Treasury Select Committee for its inquiry into regional public expenditure in autumn 2002.

House of Lords reform may have juddered to a standstill but research on it has not. A paper (joint with Arthur Spirling and with Meg Russell, who had been Robin Cook’s Special Adviser at the time) explained how the Commons managed to vote down all eight options on Lords reform presented to it. This gave rise to methodological work on the coding of Commons divisions, with David Firth and Arthur Spirling, which shows that it can be done electronically (something last attempted by W.O. Aydelotte in the 1950s); that it is worth doing even though most divisions are whipped; and that it challenges the assumptions underlying the industry-standard NOMINATE program.

Work began on a project examining the establishment of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, and the implications of disestablishment.

The Leverhulme ‘Attitudes to the Union’ project, which underpins most of the above, concludes at the end of September. Two books will result in 2004 or 2005: State of the Union (with Alistair McMillan; OUP), and The Fiscal Crisis of the UK (Palgrave).

Work on the American Enlightenment (especially Jefferson and Madison) continues on the back burner; a chapter on Madison was published, and one on Jefferson is in press. Jefferson in Paris continues to beckon as a retirement project.

The second edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (consultant editor I. McLean; executive editor A. McMillan) was published. Russian, Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian, and Kazakh translations of the original edition also appeared.

Papers were given at the ESRC Research Seminar series on Disasters at Edge Hill University College; at the Public Choice Society annual meeting, Nashville, TN; at the Regulation Network, Barcelona; at the Economics Department Seminar, Carleton University; and at government and think tank (e.g.., Constitution Unit, IPPR, Institute of Welsh Affairs) research conferences. With Chris Wlezien and Geoff Evans, Iain again convened the Nuffield Political Science Seminar.

Ed. with A. McMillan, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics 2^nd edn. Oxford: OUP,  2003.

‘Minutes of Evidence, Wednesday 3^rd July 2002: Professor Iain McLean’ and ‘Memorandum submitted by Professor Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Nuffield College, Oxford’ in House of Commons, Treasury Sub-committee, Regional Spending: minutes of evidence’, HC 234-I of Session  2002-03, pp. Ev 1- Ev 18.

‘Before and after Publius: the Sources and Influence of Madison’s Political Thought’ in S. Kernell ed., James Madison: the theory and practice of republican government (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2003), pp. 14—40.

Iain McLean (Official Fellow) continued his programme of UK public policy research.

The report to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister ‘Investigating the flow of domestic and European public spending into the English regions’, mentioned in last year’s report, is now available on the College and ODPM websites. It has received a number of favourable mentions in HM Treasury’s policy documents supporting the Budget and the Spending Review in 2004. Ministers have adopted most of the changes we recommended and the series Public Expenditure: Statistical Analyses has been revised for years back to 1998/99. Material from this work was made available to the Warden for his work on the measurement of government output and productivity.

Work on the Barnett Formula and its possible replacements continued, but this year Iain’s focus shifted to formula funding of local public expenditure in England, and options for local taxation. This issue continued to trouble central government which set up, and then sidelined, a review of the balance between central and local taxation. Iain has becoming increasingly convinced of the case for the taxation of land values and spoke and wrote extensively on the issue during the year. He continued to serve as a special adviser to the Treasury Select Committee.

The pamphlet examining the establishment of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, and the implications of disestablishment, mentioned in last year’s report, was launched in summer 2004. It was immediately attacked by the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association, which may (slightly) increase its credibility with the Church of England.

The Leverhulme ‘Attitudes to the Union’ project, which stimulated most of the above projects, has now concluded. Iain planned to submit the manuscripts of both the project books in autumn 2004: State of the Union (with Alistair McMillan; OUP), and The Fiscal Crisis of the UK (Palgrave).

A book chapter on Thomas Jefferson was published. An idealised Monticello remains Iain’s dream home, though Jefferson’s magnificent inconsistencies as the slaveholder author of the Declaration of Independence continue to intrigue and infuriate.

Papers were given at the Public Choice Society annual meeting, Baltimore, MD; at the Regulation seminar in the Department of Politics; to the British Academy/Royal Society of Edinburgh conference on the 400^th anniversary of the Union of the Crowns; to the ESRC Devolution Programme conference in Strathclyde; and at government and think tank meetings (including IPPR, Devon County Council, Westminster City Council, Local Government Association, HM Treasury, North-west Regional Assembly). With Colin Jennings (Economics, The Queen’s College), Iain convened a seminar on “Political Economy in Practice and Theory” to which seven distinguished social scientists who are or were involved in public policy spoke. In September 2003, Iain was one of three Fellows who attended an IPPR seminar in Slaley, Northumberland, on social exclusion attended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and our new Visiting Fellow David Miliband MP.

During the year Iain qualified as Controller A (higher grade), Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway. He has not yet been responsible for any head-on collisions.

I. McLean and B. Linsley, The Church of England and the State: reforming establishment for a multi-faith Britain. London: New Politics Network 2004. ISBN 0 9545982 2 9.

I. McLean and A. McMillan, New Localism, New Finance. London: NLGN 2003. ISBN 1 903 447 29 1

I. McLean, ‘Two Analytical Narratives about the History of the EU’, European Union Politics 4 (4), 2003 pp.  519-26, ISSN 1465-1165

‘Memorandum by Professor Iain McLean: Land Tax: Options for Reform’ in House of Commons, ODPM Committee, Local Government Revenue: 9th Report of Session 2003-04, HC 402-III, pp. Ev 149- Ev 155.

I McLean, ‘The history of regulation in the United Kingdom: three case studies in search of a theory’ in J. Jordana and D. Levi-Faur eds, The Politics of Regulation: institutions and regulatory reforms for the age of governance (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar  2004), pp. 45-66. ISBN 1 84376 464 4

I. McLean, ‘Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen’ in Robert Fatton Jr. and R.K. Ramazani ed., The Future of Liberal Democracy: Thomas Jefferson and the Contemporary World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 13-30. ISBN 0 000 000000

I. McLean, ‘Scottish Labour and British politics’ in G. Hassan ed., The Scottish Labour Party: history, institutions and ideas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2004), pp. 146-59. ISBN 0 7486 1784 1

I. McLean, ‘The Purse Strings Tighten’ in J. Osmond ed., Second Term Challenge: Can the Welsh Assembly Government Hold its Course? (Cardiff: IWA 2003), pp. 80-96. ISBN 1 871726 16 6..

Iain McLean (Official Fellow) continued his programme of UK public policy research, with two main new initiatives during the year: a project in the ESRC's ‘Public Services Programme' and a monograph on Adam Smith. He initiated, and is the first Director of, the Public Policy Unit in the University's Department of Politics and International Relations.

The ESRC project is entitled ‘Correlates of Success in Performance Assessment', and details are at http://www.publicservices.ac.uk/our_research/Correlates_of_Success.asp. The Research Officer, Dirk Haubrich, started work in August. We plan to publish both policy-oriented and academic outputs.

The Adam Smith project arose from several recent speeches by Chancellor Gordon Brown, in which he asks whether Adam Smith (1723-90) would today feel more at home in the left-of-centre (John) Smith Institute or the right-of-centre Adam Smith Institute. Iain shares the Chancellor's view that the correct answer is the first. A book is under contract to Edinburgh University Press for delivery in late autumn 2005. It will among other things examine Smith's views on church and state, incorporating some of Iain's recent work in this area.

Papers from completed research projects continued to work their way through to publication. A paper (with Chris Wlezien and Stuart Soroka) analysing the changes made, following our investigation, to the PESA (Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis) time-series on public expenditure in the English Regions is in press at the Journal of the Royal Statistics Society - Series A. Work on formula funding and local taxation policy led to an article in Public Policy Research and consultancy for the Lyons Committee on local taxation. Iain sat on the advisory committee for a project led by James Gallagher (Scottish Executive, seconded to Glasgow University) on possible alternatives to the Barnett regime for Scotland. He managed to combine one of these trips with reading Robert Burns's copies of the works of Adam Smith in Glasgow University Library. (O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!).

Last year's seminar series with Colin Jennings has led to a book in press at Palgrave: Applying the Dismal Science: when economists give advice to governments.  The contributors are an eminent team of scholar-practitioners and we are confident that the book will make an impact.

The Leverhulme ‘Attitudes to the Union' project has now concluded and publications from it are appearing steadily.  State of the Union (with Alistair McMillan; OUP) will appear in autumn 2005. The Fiscal Crisis of the UK (Palgrave) appeared in May. It is too soon to assert that it fell dead born from the press, but Iain does not expect it to make his fortune. Other articles and papers are in press.

The Thomas Jefferson retirement project mentioned last year had to give way temporarily to Adam Smith, but Jefferson will have a walk-on part in the Smith book.

Iain is a consultant to two television documentaries on Aberfan being prepared for the 40^th anniversary of the disaster in 2006. He served as the expert witness to the City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council in their objections to Boundary Commission's proposed apportionment of seats to West Yorkshire, for which he had to give evidence for a day, half of it under hostile cross-examination.

Papers were given at the American Political Science Association annual meeting, Washington, DC; at several ESRC Public Services Programme events in Oxford, London, and York; to the EPOP conference, Oxford, September 2004; to the Canada Seminar, Lady Margaret Hall; to HM Treasury (on the 1909 Budget); and a plenary lecture to the Mannheim Centre for Social and Economic Research. Government and think tank meetings addressed included IPPR and the Scottish Liberal Democrats' Policy Commission (land tax); Tourism Scotland (the future of Barnett), and HM Treasury. With Colin Jennings (Economics, The Queen's College), Iain again convened a seminar on "Political Economy in Practice and Theory", this year under the auspices of the Public Policy Unit.

Publications

• 1. I. McLean, The Fiscal Crisis of the United Kingdom. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2005. ISBN 1-4039-0366-2

• 2. I. McLean, ‘Can local taxation be progressive?', Public Policy Research 12 (2), 2005, pp. 111-7.
• 3. R. Johnston and I. McLean, ‘Choosing between Impossible Alternatives: Creating a New Constituency Map for Wales, 2004', Political Quarterly 76 (1), 2005, pp. 67-81. ISSN 0032-3179
• 4. ‘Memorandum by Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Oxford University: On not scrapping the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921' in House of Commons, Public Administration Select Committee, Government by Inquiry: written evidence HC 51-II, 2005, pp. Ev 44 - Ev 45.
• 5. I. McLean, ‘Scotland after Barnett: towards fiscal autonomy' in G. Hassan, E. Gibb and L Howland ed., Scotland 2020: hopeful stories for a northern nation (London: Demos 2005), pp. 134-48. ISBN 1 84180 138 0

Ukrainian translation of I. McLean and A. McMillan eds, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics Kiev: "Osnovy", 2005. ISBN 966-500-184-1.

Iain McLean (Official Fellow) continued his programme of UK public policy research. It was a good year for publications, many of them resulting from the concluded research projects described in previous Reports. He continued to serve as Director of the Public Policy Unit in the University's Department of Politics and International Relations.

His monograph Adam Smith, Radical and Egalitarian: an Interpretation for the 21st Century, with a foreword by the Rt Hon. Gordon Brown, was launched at 11 Downing Street in July, by courtesy of the Chancellor. The book responds to a challenge thrown out by the Chancellor at a lecture in 2002, when he asked whether the author of the Wealth of Nations belongs more to the Left or to the Right. Iain's book points out that (like the Chancellor) he belongs to Kirkcaldy, and that Fifers are an egalitarian bunch. Other 18^th-century work included a paper on the European origins of the political science of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Iain's continuing work on land value taxation was also partly inspired by Adam Smith, who argues that ‘ground-rents are ... the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them'.

Iain's first publication with his research officer Dirk Haubrich in the ESRC Public Services Programme project ‘Correlates of Success in Performance Assessment' appeared. Several others are in the pipeline. The Programme Director is very keen that results from this Programme should be widely disseminated among senior policymakers, to which end Iain and Dirk have made numerous presentations, including to the Audit Commission (twice); Audit Scotland; New Local Government Network; and HM Treasury.

A previously mentioned paper (with Chris Wlezien and Stuart Soroka) analysing the changes made, following our investigation, to the PESA (Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis) time-series on public expenditure in the English Regions has now appeared in the Journal of the Royal Statistics Society - Series A.  We hope that this paper will become a reference source for those wishing to understand how to construct an internally valid time-series for UK government expenditure data.

Applying the Dismal Science: when economists give advice to governments (edited, and partly written, with Colin Jennings) was the book of a recent public policy seminar series.  The contributors include two former Chief Economic Advisers at HM Treasury and a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. The seminar series continued, but with less stellar contributors this year.

A paper with Arthur Spirling challenged the validity of the ‘NOMINATE' family of programs for analysing roll-call votes in a legislature. We show that they fail to capture strategic voting. They report that the late Bernie Grant was the most right-wing Labour MP in the Parliament of 1997-2001.

State of the Union (with Alistair McMillan; OUP) was the main publication from our Leverhulme ‘Attitudes to the Union' project. The Union in question is the Union of the United Kingdom that celebrates its tercentenary in 2007. Other papers from this project were published in Proceedings of the British Academy and Political Studies. Work is continuing on a spin-off project on church and state, with possible policy implications for the independence of the Church of England.

Iain was filmed for two television documentaries on Aberfan being prepared for the 40th anniversary of the disaster in 2006.  This involved about ten retakes of a spontaneous meeting with disaster survivors in the village, and of a green Toyota driving in. The City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council's objections to Boundary Commission's proposed apportionment of seats to West Yorkshire, mentioned last year, succeeded at the Inquiry but were overturned by the Boundary Commission; there may be further work on this.

Papers were given at Charles University, Prague; the Gerst Conference on Politics and Economics, Duke University; and at several ESRC Public Services Programme events.  Government and think tank meetings addressed included IPPR (Adam Smith; land tax); the Italian Ministry of Finance (conference on the regional distribution of public expenditure); Audit Scotland; the Department of Trade and Industry Economists' Conference; the Committee on Standards in Public Life (following up a report on the Electoral Commission which Iain wrote with David Butler); and HM Treasury. 

Publications

• 1. Adam Smith, Radical and Egalitarian: an Interpretation for the 21st Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2006.
• 2. With C. Jennings ed., Applying the Dismal Science: When Economists Give Advice to Governments. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2005.
• 3. With A. McMillan, State of the Union: unionism and the alternatives in the United Kingdom since 1707. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005.
• 4. With D. Haubrich, ‘Assessing Public Service Performance in Local Authorities Through CPA - A Research Note on Deprivation', National Institute Economic Review, Vol. 197, No. 1, 93-105 (2006).
• 5. With A. Spirling, ‘The rights and wrongs of roll calls', Government and Opposition 41 (4), 2006, pp. 561-8.
• 6. With S. N. Soroka and C. Wlezien, ‘Public expenditure in the UK: how measures matter', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 169 (2), 2006, pp. 255-71.
• 7. ‘The eighteenth century revolution in social science and the dawn of political science in America'. European Political Science 5 (2) 2006, pp. 112-23.
• 8. ‘Financing the union: Goschen, Barnett, and beyond', Proceedings of the British Academy 128, 2005, pp. 81-94.
• 9. With A. McMillan and D. Leech. ‘Duverger's Law, Penrose's Power Index, and the Unity of the UK', Political Studies 53(3), 2005, pp. 457-76.
• 10. ‘The dimensionality of party ideologies' in J. Bara and A. Weale ed., Democratic Politics and Party Competition (Abingdon: Routledge 2006), pp. 125-40.
• 11. With A. McMillan, ‘England and the Union since 1707' in R. Hazell ed., The English Question (Manchester: MUP 2006), pp 24-44.
• 12. ‘Land tax: options for reform' in W. Paxton and S. White ed., The Citizen's Stake: exploring the future of universal asset policies (Bristol: Policy Press, 2006), pp. 69-85.
• 13. ‘The politics of fractured federalism' in J. Bartle and A. King ed., Britain at the Polls 2005 (Washington, DC: CQ Press 2005), pp. 97-123.
• 14. ‘The politics of land tax - then and now' in D. Maxwell and A. Vigor ed., Time for Land Value Tax? (London: ippr 2005), pp. 17-31.
• 15. ‘The national question' in A. Seldon and D. Kavanagh ed., The Blair Effect 2001-5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005), pp. 339-61.

Iain McLean (Official Fellow) continued to work in UK public policy research but tried to keep some sidelines going as well. He served, for a final year, as Director of the Public Policy Unit in the University's Department of Politics and International Relations.

In public policy, work from his now-concluded ESRC Public Services Programme project ‘Correlates of Success in Performance Assessment' continued to appear. Our finding that the performance regime for English local authorities was subject to gaming and perverse incentives was widely noted and mostly welcomed, but not by the Audit Commission.

Iain's report, with David Butler, for the 11^th Inquiry of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, on the boundary-drawing function of the Electoral Commission, seems to have been influential. The Committee referenced it extensively in its report. Our suggested changes to the statutory, but mutually-contradictory, Rules for the Redistribution of Seats are perhaps being taken seriously in government for the first time in the 15 or so years that Iain has been campaigning on the issue. Furthermore, the Electoral Commission announced that it would again use the Ste-Laguë method to apportion the UK's reduced number of seats in the European Parliament to its 12 regional constituencies in time for the next EP election in 2009. In 2003, Iain led the campaign to persuade the Commission to drop all four of the methods it had proposed and substitute Ste-Laguë, which had not been one of its methods put up for consultation. Our consortium proved to the Commission that Ste-Laguë (alias Webster) uniquely satisfied the fairness criterion that, as close as possible, each voter should have an equal share of an MEP.

Work on church and state did not lead to any publications this year, but may have had a background role in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's announcement in July 2007 that he was withdrawing from the appointment of Church of England bishops. This more than compensated for the failure of any of Iain's applications to the AHRC/ESRC Programme ‘Religion and Society' to be funded.

UK devolution led to only one publication but lots of activity during the year. Two trips to Scotland with collaborators at ippr failed to persuade the Scots that the parties (especially the Nationalists) were campaigning on incoherent fiscal manifestoes. Iain declined to let his name go forward for the post of Budget Adviser to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, as (logistics apart) he felt his advice would be roughly equally unwelcome to all parties in the Parliament.

Iain prepared a book proposal on the UK constitution in the light of the collapse of Diceyanism. One chapter from the proposed book was published in Public Law and another (on the Larne gunrunning of 1914) appeared as a Nuffield Working Paper in Politics. At the time of preparing this report, the constitutional changes proposed by the Brown administration seemed to be pointing in the same direction (which may be bad news for the book proposal).

Beyond public policy, Iain's work with Arthur Spirling (Rochester) continued to challenge the validity of the ‘NOMINATE' family of programs for analysing roll-call votes in the House of Commons. We were particularly pleased to have a methodology paper on this published in Political Analysis. Two historical social choice papers were published, one on medieval voting and the other on an overlooked 18^th-century figure, Nicholas Collin.

Papers were given at the ICER Conference on Constitutional Political Economy, Turin; the First World Congress of Public Choice, Amsterdam; the PSA Conference, Bath; Charles University, Prague; and several ESRC Public Services Programme events (one of them in Rotterdam).  Government and think tank meetings addressed included ippr (two Edinburgh meetings on fiscal policy and public expenditure in Scotland) and the Guardian Public seminar.

Iain's grade card at the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway currently qualifies him to act as steam locomotive fireman; diesel driver; guard; blockman, and controller (higher grade). He started taking singing lessons for the first time in his life.

Publications

I. McLean and A. McMillan. ‘Professor Dicey's Contradictions', Public Law 2007 Autumn, xxx-xx.

A. B. Urken and I. McLean, ‘Nicholas Collin and the Dissemination of Condorcet in the United States', Science in Context 20 (1), 2007, 125-33.

I. McLean, D. Haubrich and R. Gutiérrez-Romero, ‘The Perils and Pitfalls of Performance Measurement: The CPA Regime for Local Authorities in England', Public Money and Management 27 (2), (2007), 111-18.

A. Spirling and I. McLean, ‘UK OC OK? Interpreting Optimal Classification scores for the UK House of Commons', Political Analysis 15 (2007) 85-96.

D. Butler and I. McLean, ‘The Electoral Commission and the Redistribution of Seats', iii + 33 pp, Report to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Eleventh Inquiry, The Electoral Commission, at http://www.public-standards.gov.uk/11thinquiry/research.aspx

I. McLean, ‘The national question' in A. Seldon ed., Blair's Britain, 1997-2007 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 487-508.

I. McLean, H. Lorrey, and J. Colomer, ‘Voting in the Medieval Papacy and Religious Orders', in V. Torra, Y. Narukawa and Y. Yoshida ed., Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 4617, (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2007) pp. 30-44.

D. Haubrich and I. McLean, ‘When the grass is greener on the other side', in C. Grace ed., Comparing for Improvement (London: The Guardian for SOLACE Foundation 2007), pp. 37-9.