Point 4 from Cameron's Blueprint for Britain was this:
"We will cut the number of MPs by five per cent, and ministers' pay by five per cent and reduce the number, size, scope and influence of quangos."
Cutting the number of MPs is a gimmick. I've never heard anybody complaining about the number, it's the total cost (including all the second home allowances, staffing allowances etc) that stick in the craw. Cutting the cost in half by paying MPs a flat salary of £66,000 or £80,000 (depending whether you use the arithmetic mean, the mode or the median of the Fun Online Poll results), with no expenses on top, seems a good place to start.
I don't see why Ministers should get a penny extra. MPs who are only prepared to do the job for an extra £100,000 a year are exactly the sort of people who shouldn't become ministers. Either way, a five per cent cut is a drop in the ocean (they'll just give themselves bigger pay-rises for the next couple of years).
"reduce the number, size, scope and influence of quangos"
Hypocrisy alert!! It was the Tories who invented quangos in the first place, as a nice source of income for MPs, ex-MPs, their families and friends etc. The Goblin King himself promised a Bonfire Of The Quangos in 1995, since when the number of people employed by quangos, fakecharities, advisory & supervisory bodies and futile meddling generally has probably trebled.
I'd worry about the paucity of ambition as well. If you promise to "reduce", then a one per cent reduction is sufficient. How about promising to scrap absolutely all quangos, fakecharities, advisory & supervisory bodies and futile meddlers generally?
Ain't going to happen is it? Just to give you a few examples:
1. We know that the Tories are already cooking up plans to use taxpayers' money to support private providers trying to get the long-term unemployed back to work. Why? There are recruitment and staffing agencies at all levels, from the "headhunters" all the way down to businesses that find short term jobs in catering or warehousing (I've had clients at all levels, as it happens). The system works fine and costs the taxpayer nary a penny.
2. We also read recently that "Tory leader David Cameron pledges that a Conservative government would look at the voluntary sector ‘as the first sector’ and would support it rather than stifle it", at which the fakecharity sector must have heaved a huge sigh of relief.
3. We also know that the Tories are already taking advice from their own kind of fakecharities, such as the Public Health Commission, which is part-funded by the government and part-funded by industry lobbyists.
4. We also know that large "consultancy" businesses are "strengthening their ties" with the Tory party, in the hope of being awarded (or retaining) juicy contracts once the Tories are in government.
I hope that's enough examples to give you an idea of where we're headed...
Flabby
4 hours ago
8 comments:
We are headed where all the main stream parties want to take us. To that place where they control our lives, because they are more worthy human beings than us. They know what is good for us and know how to spend our time, effort and money more effectively than we do. They know that they understand us more than we do, they therefore have the right to decide for us where our lives will take us and how much control we have over our own destiny.
But wait! We gave them these powers, we gave them the authority over us, we allow them to exercise their self serving agendas over us.
What are we doing to wrest these powers back. I mean what are we REALLY doing?
"How about promising to scrap absolutely all quangos, fakecharities, advisory & supervisory bodies and futile meddlers generally?"
Amen, brother. The economy needs cust and these would also target areas where our lives are being destroyed.
But the handout chasers wouldn't like it and would squeal like a 747 coming into LHR. Which is why no party will make a serious play to do so.
"It was the Tories who invented quangos in the first place, as a nice source of income for MPs, ex-MPs, their families and friends etc."
I think you're being a bit cynical about the motives. It was more to do with a misguided effort trying to circumvent 'loony left' local councils. Of course this only meant that they tightened their grip on the councils.
Can't help but think this series of posts should be called "Reasons to Hate Politicians" ... with the exception of single issue parties it seems that they're all the same.
And, did we ever 'give' them this power over us or did they just presume to take it? Governments get elected to power with less than half the possible vote .. .isn't this undemocratic? What happens if we assume the people who didn't vote did so because they didn't want a politician in power? True democracy would require a "none of the above" option (maybe I'm wandering a bit off topic).
DPM, DP, agreed.
Ross, I'm cynical? I'm a democrat is what I am. As long as councils have to raise their own money via council tax/Business Rates, then voters can choose for themselves what kind of council they want, 'loony left' or otherwise. Better a loony left council that you can chuck out than three million quangocrats extending their tentacles into absolutely everything without anybody realising how much they cost.
CM, that's a fair point, but despite I am old and rich, I see very little reason to assume that the Tories will be 'better than the last lot'.
OT, but do you know whether Bublicious Alice is OK? She fell silent weeks ago.
D, I'd noticed that too. I've sent her an email.
Christ MW, if you are old, what does that make me? (Don't answer that!!)
Seriously though whilst the EU is accused of 'power grabs', that is exactly what MPs have done and as DPM says - when are we going to take it back?
Post a Comment