Julian Le Grand has come a long way since being tear-gassed on the streets of Chicago on an anti-Vietnam war march. His involvement with the anti-Vietnam war movement, which took in various parts of the United States, taught Le Grand about what he describes as "the power, but also the dangers", of government. Nowadays a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he juggles high-flying academia with influencing the political agenda, previously acting as Tony Blair's senior policy adviser and now as chair...