Tuesday, May 27, 2008
WE CREATED THEM & WE CAN GET RID OF THEM
Labour MP Martin Salter, who left a comment here a few days ago supporting the warming scam has done a, quite intelligent, article on what he correctly describes as the "disaster in Crewe". He criticises the way the campaign was run, which I cannot comment on, but more importantly
"...keen to send Gordon Brown a message. His image of being a political genius has been shot down in flames, the game is up. He needs to find something to say that voters will believe in, he is seen as a liar, a liability on the scale of Tony. We created all the quangoes and brought in all the management consultants, we can get rid of them. "
This is actually rather intelligent & matches what John Redwood has said:
"Spend less in the public sector by cutting waste and needless spending, and the UK economy will start to improve"
However it is easier to be in favour of cutting waste & quangos in theory than in practice - would Martin cut the Sustainable Development Commission on which the government pays to give Jonathan Porridge a platform to assert that windmills work better than nuclear? That is why quangos are established - to give nice little earners to those & such as those.
To be fair I am not that convinced that the Tories generally are much more active about doing so but as the people who didn't create them they perhaps have a better claim to be able to get rid of them. If the Tories (or indeed LDs) want to look credible on the economy they should select a few specific quangos & announce they will cull them. There would be screams of outrage from them but some relief from some of the others. More impotantly it would dish any Labour claims if the Tories cut spending they will cut services. A common trick in opposing spending cuts is to choose the most important & visible expenses & say that is what the opponents want. This would spike Labour guns.
"...keen to send Gordon Brown a message. His image of being a political genius has been shot down in flames, the game is up. He needs to find something to say that voters will believe in, he is seen as a liar, a liability on the scale of Tony. We created all the quangoes and brought in all the management consultants, we can get rid of them. "
This is actually rather intelligent & matches what John Redwood has said:
"Spend less in the public sector by cutting waste and needless spending, and the UK economy will start to improve"
However it is easier to be in favour of cutting waste & quangos in theory than in practice - would Martin cut the Sustainable Development Commission on which the government pays to give Jonathan Porridge a platform to assert that windmills work better than nuclear? That is why quangos are established - to give nice little earners to those & such as those.
To be fair I am not that convinced that the Tories generally are much more active about doing so but as the people who didn't create them they perhaps have a better claim to be able to get rid of them. If the Tories (or indeed LDs) want to look credible on the economy they should select a few specific quangos & announce they will cull them. There would be screams of outrage from them but some relief from some of the others. More impotantly it would dish any Labour claims if the Tories cut spending they will cut services. A common trick in opposing spending cuts is to choose the most important & visible expenses & say that is what the opponents want. This would spike Labour guns.
