This is Joe Queenan's fifteenth Brief History for Radio 4 and this one ... explains the relevance of Pournelle's Iron Law: "In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy ...

If there's one enduring lesson from my career, it's this: Bureaucracy is the enemy of innovation. It stifles creativity, clogs decision-making and traps bold ideas in endless loops of approvals.