Unlike his predecessor, Sir Richard is by temperament a driver and a centraliser.

ECONOMIST: Size isn��t everything

Mrs Gandhi was a ruthless centraliser of power who eroded many of the independent institutions her father had created.

ECONOMIST: Happy anniversary?

Just as Mr Putin has revealed himself as an insatiable centraliser at home, he is emerging as an incorrigible great-power nationalist abroad.

ECONOMIST: Russia's relations with the West are deteriorating

While Gordon Brown is seen as a bureaucratic centraliser, determined to bludgeon the public services into producing the outputs he requires, it is Mr Blair who is credited with being the would-be reformer, if an insufficiently dogged one.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot