assumed control over billions of pounds of public money. Through an expanding network across Whitehall they glide effortlessly into the heart of government, from where they can ensure the gravy train carrying taxpayers' money to their colleagues' sumptuous offices keeps steaming along.
These days another firm is closest to power. McKinsey, the original and still the most prestigious American consultancy, won its place in the Government's affections through its association with John Birt, former director-general of the BBC, who lavished tens of millions of pounds of licence fee-payers' money on the firm as it transformed the Beeb into a marketplace.
When Birt moved into Downing Street in 2001 as the PM's "blue skies" thinker (not letting go of his £100,000-a-year McKinsey retainer), others soon followed and the cabinet office became a McKinsey outpost. Now no government re-organisation - from sorting out defence logistics to merging the Revenue and Customs and "creating a commissioning market" in the NHS - can be performed 
