The government says that the existing service, answerable to the cabinet secretary in London, can be the obedient servant of whatever combination of parties happens to rule in Westminster, Cardiff or Edinburgh.

ECONOMIST: Sunshine and showers

"They were educated in a system that knew nothing of collegiality and were trained to be obedient to the Pope but in a very, very short time - perhaps two or three weeks - with daring, but gently, they threw out the preparatory materials, " he told Robert Mickens of The Tablet.

BBC: Vatican II: Pope Benedict's unfinished business

In the past ten years, obedient to the findings of urban sociologists, American cities have tripped over themselves vying for young, creative people.

ECONOMIST: Age and Californian cities

Well into his 80s Mr O'Brian was content to continue to be the obedient recorder, in fine handwriting, of the exploits of Aubrey, by now an admiral.

ECONOMIST: Patrick O’Brian | The

James Freyn, the narrator, is 106, a dropped-out philosophiser, reminiscing into Cowley's tape-recorder about a trip he made in his 20s into the interior of a god-forsaken British colony in South America, to collect two horses from a French-Swiss religious nutter worshipped by robotically obedient natives.

ECONOMIST: First novels