Recent governments have entered power offering localism, but sometimes offering something more muscular. A decade or more stuck in opposition gives incoming administrations the zeal to announce greater freedoms around government information. Transparency has been a great rubric for the coalition. On taking power in 1997, Tony Blair steamed ahead with the Freedom of Information Act, a move he later branded his most naive and foolish blunder. In the Cabinet Office's annual report (see adjacent), Francis Maude cites the Government's commitment to drive transparency and open data across Whitehall as a new way of running government that will remain undiluted.
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