A red squirrel in the woods at Wallington, Northumberland, where they are under threat. (Owen Humphreys/PA Images)
Analogies in the parliamentary strengthening world are like a one-metre high jump – the bar isn’t very high so almost anything will get a medal. That said, over my time working for the UK government and as Chief Executive of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, I have heard some very good ones. Greg Power, founder of Global Partners Governance, once told me the one about parliaments being like football teams – you can buy great players but you can’t guarantee that they will work together and win. And Alina Menochal, senior research fellow at ODI, has used a sailboat analogy to illustrate that parliamentary development does not move in straight lines but is subject to cross-winds and occasional tempests.
