Tuesday, February 04, 2014
LabConDem Cartel & State Media Reporting Of Qango Jobs
This is a comment I put on the Channel 4 website, in response to an article about how unfair it is that a Labour placeman (placeperson)(placebaroness) has lost her lucrative, useless qango job to the Tories.
Qangos are a very useful way of paying the hired hands for their political dedication.
I am indebted to Mark, a commenter on John Redwood for the amazing listing of (admitted) political connections.
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"Missing are the facts about political use of quangos as a reward:
by looking at the annual reports of the Commissioner for Public Appointments here:
http://publicappointmentscommissioner.independent.gov.uk/publications/annual-reports/
they would have discovered that in 2012/13 just 9% of appointments were of people with political affiliations, which it comments is almost the lowest proportion in recent years. However, the report fails to break down the appointments by party and omits the detailed statistical appendix provided in early years (perhaps an FOI would produce it?). By going back to the 2011/12 and 2000/01 reports they would have found the following information:
Allegiance
_________Con____Lab______LD_____Other___Total___of N appointments
2011-12___1.8%___10.2%____0.6%____0.5%____13.3%____1,740
2010-11___2.0%___5.4%____1.3%____1.7%____10.3%____1,871
2009-10___1.3%___5.9%____0.9%____0.3%____8.4%____2,239
2008-09___2.1%___5.5%____1.0%____1.5%____10.2%____2,417
2007-08___2.2%___5.7%____1.3%____1.1%____10.4%____2,621
2006-07___2.5%___10.2%____2.0%____1.1%____15.8%____3,863
2005-06___2.1%___8.3%____1.6%____1.3%____13.3%____2,907
2004-05___2.5%___8.9%____1.5%____1.5%____14.4%____3,322
2003-04___2.9%___9.2%____1.3%____1.3%____15.2%____2,878
2002-03___3.2%___11.7%____1.6%____1.6%____18.6%____3,480
2001-02___2.7%___14.3%____1.3%____1.3%____20.7%____3,506
2000-01___3.9%___11.7%____1.3%____1.3%____19.0%____3,856
1999–00___2.5%___9.7%____1.6%____1.1%____14.8%____2,840
1998–99___2.5%___12.5%____1.4%____0.8%____17.1%____3,245
1997–98___2.5%___14.0%____1.7%____0.5%____18.7%____1,930
1996–97___5.9%___3.3%____0.5%____0.6%____10.3%____1,753
It is quite clear the extent to which the Labour governments packed the quangos with their own supporters while in office.
So basically Labour have, even under Tory governments, got about 3/4 of the plum jobs. Of course UKIP which polls show on about 3/4 of Labour's votes get none.
It is quite obvious that there are no circumstances whatsoever under which, if C4 are not lying & spinning they can even hint that Labour are being excluded.
If they were in any way aiming at impartiality or even honesty they would have to admit that this looks remarkably like British politics being run by a cartel who divvy up the spoils (perhaps Tory donors get a bigger share of lucrative contracts to make up for Labour getting jobs for the boys & girls). A cartel who only go through a pantomime of democracy at elections, when even there they disagree on so little. And when they can guarantee the state owned media, like C4, will censor and smear any dissident parties or ideas.
I also agree with Keith about C4's biased use of the term "progressive". Labour have a leader who has promised his Climate Change Act will deliberately increase electricity prices, causing recession and fuel poverty. Can C4 really claim that UKIP is not thousands of times more committed to human progress than that? If you aren't in favour of progress then, by definition, you aren't progressive."
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Will Channel 4 actually publish this. Strangely they have a fairly good record of doing so, at least compared to the BBC who censor at every opportunity. We will see.
I do not believe the Tories are so altruistic as to give Labour so many more places than them without recompense and I think my guess that their donors get a disproportionate number of government contracts under "both sides" of politics will be correct.
In which case it does look remarkably like a cartel, particularly when you look at Labour's spending promises amounting to only about £3 bn more than the Tories - a difference of 0.2% of the total economy.
A cartel also maintained by the spinning, censorship & outright lying done by the state owned media to promote the cartel parties and whatever "hobgoblin" scare is being used at the moment.
-----------------------------
And here is the most prestigious quango - with the Greens, an entirely pseudo-party, fit for our pseudo-democracy, who would have zero support (to the nearest round number) were not being propped up by the state media, are also part of the cartel and consequently that it is indeed an anti-democratic cartel:
"The 30 new appointments to Parliament's second chamber include 14 Conservatives, 10 Liberal Democrats and five Labour nominees, as well as one Green, but does not include any representative of UKIP, despite the Party climbing up the polls consistently above the Liberal Democrats and the Greens."
Qangos are a very useful way of paying the hired hands for their political dedication.
I am indebted to Mark, a commenter on John Redwood for the amazing listing of (admitted) political connections.
-------------------------------------------------------
"Missing are the facts about political use of quangos as a reward:
by looking at the annual reports of the Commissioner for Public Appointments here:
http://publicappointmentscommissioner.independent.gov.uk/publications/annual-reports/
they would have discovered that in 2012/13 just 9% of appointments were of people with political affiliations, which it comments is almost the lowest proportion in recent years. However, the report fails to break down the appointments by party and omits the detailed statistical appendix provided in early years (perhaps an FOI would produce it?). By going back to the 2011/12 and 2000/01 reports they would have found the following information:
Allegiance
_________Con____Lab______LD_____Other___Total___of N appointments
2011-12___1.8%___10.2%____0.6%____0.5%____13.3%____1,740
2010-11___2.0%___5.4%____1.3%____1.7%____10.3%____1,871
2009-10___1.3%___5.9%____0.9%____0.3%____8.4%____2,239
2008-09___2.1%___5.5%____1.0%____1.5%____10.2%____2,417
2007-08___2.2%___5.7%____1.3%____1.1%____10.4%____2,621
2006-07___2.5%___10.2%____2.0%____1.1%____15.8%____3,863
2005-06___2.1%___8.3%____1.6%____1.3%____13.3%____2,907
2004-05___2.5%___8.9%____1.5%____1.5%____14.4%____3,322
2003-04___2.9%___9.2%____1.3%____1.3%____15.2%____2,878
2002-03___3.2%___11.7%____1.6%____1.6%____18.6%____3,480
2001-02___2.7%___14.3%____1.3%____1.3%____20.7%____3,506
2000-01___3.9%___11.7%____1.3%____1.3%____19.0%____3,856
1999–00___2.5%___9.7%____1.6%____1.1%____14.8%____2,840
1998–99___2.5%___12.5%____1.4%____0.8%____17.1%____3,245
1997–98___2.5%___14.0%____1.7%____0.5%____18.7%____1,930
1996–97___5.9%___3.3%____0.5%____0.6%____10.3%____1,753
It is quite clear the extent to which the Labour governments packed the quangos with their own supporters while in office.
So basically Labour have, even under Tory governments, got about 3/4 of the plum jobs. Of course UKIP which polls show on about 3/4 of Labour's votes get none.
It is quite obvious that there are no circumstances whatsoever under which, if C4 are not lying & spinning they can even hint that Labour are being excluded.
If they were in any way aiming at impartiality or even honesty they would have to admit that this looks remarkably like British politics being run by a cartel who divvy up the spoils (perhaps Tory donors get a bigger share of lucrative contracts to make up for Labour getting jobs for the boys & girls). A cartel who only go through a pantomime of democracy at elections, when even there they disagree on so little. And when they can guarantee the state owned media, like C4, will censor and smear any dissident parties or ideas.
I also agree with Keith about C4's biased use of the term "progressive". Labour have a leader who has promised his Climate Change Act will deliberately increase electricity prices, causing recession and fuel poverty. Can C4 really claim that UKIP is not thousands of times more committed to human progress than that? If you aren't in favour of progress then, by definition, you aren't progressive."
---------------------------------------------------------
Will Channel 4 actually publish this. Strangely they have a fairly good record of doing so, at least compared to the BBC who censor at every opportunity. We will see.
I do not believe the Tories are so altruistic as to give Labour so many more places than them without recompense and I think my guess that their donors get a disproportionate number of government contracts under "both sides" of politics will be correct.
In which case it does look remarkably like a cartel, particularly when you look at Labour's spending promises amounting to only about £3 bn more than the Tories - a difference of 0.2% of the total economy.
A cartel also maintained by the spinning, censorship & outright lying done by the state owned media to promote the cartel parties and whatever "hobgoblin" scare is being used at the moment.
-----------------------------
And here is the most prestigious quango - with the Greens, an entirely pseudo-party, fit for our pseudo-democracy, who would have zero support (to the nearest round number) were not being propped up by the state media, are also part of the cartel and consequently that it is indeed an anti-democratic cartel:
"The 30 new appointments to Parliament's second chamber include 14 Conservatives, 10 Liberal Democrats and five Labour nominees, as well as one Green, but does not include any representative of UKIP, despite the Party climbing up the polls consistently above the Liberal Democrats and the Greens."
Labels: British politics, Media, Rise of modern fascism
