How Does Bad Policy Get Made?

How Does Bad Policy Get Made?

From 50 Shades of Planning by Samuel Stafford

January 24, 2026 · 1h 8m · Episode 158

About this episode

The episode explores how bad policy is made through discussions with various experts in the field.

In October 2025 Sam Stafford came across a blog by Jack Airey , who is now a Director at Public First but was the Head of Planning at Policy Exchange and subsequently spent a few years inside Number 10 as a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister. The opening line of Jack’s blog was ‘How does bad policy get made?’ and he writes about “the war of attrition that is Whitehall policymaking”; "backbench pressure"; and the “lack of institutional understanding” within government about the practical impact of policy proposals. There is a link to Jack’s blog below. Sam asked Jack if he would be interested in talking about these themes on the podcast and, pleasingly, he was, so Sam thought next about who else it would be interesting to hear from about life inside the Westminster policy-making bubble. How about a civil servant’s perspective? Sam asked Simon Gallagher , formerly Director of Planning in the Department for Communities and Local Government (as was) and he was keen. How about a political perspective? Sam asked Rachel Maclean , former Minister of State for Housing & Planning and now Baroness Maclean of Redditch, and she was keen. And how about a planner’s perspective? Sam asked…

People in this episode

Host: Samuel Stafford

Guests: Jack Airey, Simon Gallagher, Rachel Maclean, Steve Quartermain

Topics covered

  • policy making
  • government
  • Westminster
  • planning
  • politics

Keywords

  • bad policy
  • Whitehall
  • planning
  • government
  • policy proposals

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Public First, Policy Exchange

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