That one’s easy. Sell off the Beeb. Sorted. Ends the “salami tax” licence fee as a bonus.

The forthcoming cuts aren’t Tory cuts, they are Labour cuts caused by the Labour government spending more money than they had coming in, and borrowing to make up the shortfall. At some point the borrowing party will come to an end and the money will dry up.

The cuts will happen whoever is in power; the only difference being that a putative Tory administration will likely wield the axe before being forced to do so by an inability to sell Government bonds.

But above all, get this over to the public: the cuts are coming and voting Labour cannot magically suspend reality.

All Public Service people are funded by the wealth of those working in the Private Sector, from their taxes, from Corporation tax, and from VAT on the goods and services they provide.

The sooner the Public Sector realise this the better.
The sooner they realise that it is not sustainable the better.

Most especially, any pension rights must be reported as salary equivalent to get the same pension benefit in the private sector.

Then ensure that all remuneration packages above, say, £50k, for all public sector bodies, are published on the internet. Let us see what we are paying, so we can decide if it is worth it.

Capitalism as such doesn’t exist as a political or economic philosophy. It just is. It’s what you get when free people get on with dealing with each other in a civilised way with minimum state interference, the rule of law, the rights to enjoy private property, a sound currency, democarcy, a free press and goverment as umpire not player. Adam Smith’s invisible hand ensures that wealth creation then ensues.

A good test case will be Michael Jackson’s funeral. How many people will the BBC send to Los Angeles to cover it? Will there be enough five star hotels to accommodate them all? Will there be enough Club Class seats on transatlantic flights? Will it break the world record for the number of employees of a media organisation covering an international event? The BBC should produce a business plan for the Michael Jackson coverage and at the end of the event tell us the total number deployed, the total cost and the variation (plus or minus) against budget. Alternatively, if money was no object, they should tell us so.

The over-paid public sector managerial class has been created by stealth and magic whilst a supine press failed to notice. It was simply not around when the Conservatives fell from power in 1997. Prudence has not been the name of the game in the public sector for the last 12 years.

In the private sector, I have choices of providers, where I am the purchaser of a particular bag of goods or services. I may also be the consumer of those purchases or provide them to someone close to me. It is easy to see the results of my purchases. What I can’t be sure of is, have the prices I was offered been manipulated by a cartel, or hidden tax/duties. I make the choice, I decide if it is value and can I afford it.

In the public sector it is impossible for me to see the relationship in the triangle. Often, I consume these state goods and services for free at the point of use. I pay for them (and usually someone else’s) by a mechanism of taxes quite remote from the transaction. I haven’t got a clue if I am getting value for money via the tax system. Or; if the purchaser and the provider have any interest whatsoever in my tax value for money. Particularly as the purchaser and the provider are basically one and the same entity.

Over ninety percent of UK taxes are raised nationally, until we reduce that to a much lower proportion, that is, more raised by local government for spending on recognisable local goods; services and desires, (make them all unitary counties and limited companies with proper accounts), “we need commonsense and discipline in public spending”, ain’t going to happen.

The power is where the money is. Let’s have national taxes for national government and local taxes for local government with all Quangos operating as de-facto local government departments, included as local government spending for now. We will sort out the bank accounts later. That’s if we decide we still need them. I think we will be amazed at the amount of unnecessary spending that will be flushed into the open, just going through the process.