When I go shopping I do not rejoice if I end up spending £75 instead of £60. I concentrate on what I need and aim to buy it at the best prices. If I tell friends and family about what I have bought I do not tell them how much I spent but talk about the great things I purchased and how they can make life better. The only time I might mention cost is where I thought I had found a bargain.
The government does not talk like this. In all the announcements they make about their shopping habits they tell us how much they spent or plan to spend. The opposition always demands they spend more and regularly condemns them for “Tory meanness” as if it was Ministers’ own money and on the assumption that more is always better. No Minister ever comes to tell us they got a good deal on price or have taken advantage of special offers. Public procurement systems often conspire to ensure over specification. Over caution in purchasing can lead to too few bidders or to expensive contracts. The contracts themselves often leave plenty of scope for the suppliers to revisit the price, facilitated by government changing its mind mid contract over what it wants.
It would help control spending and improve value and quality if Ministers insisted on talking about needs and about how you best buy the things the state requires. Bragging about large sums of money invites the Opposition to outbid with imaginary money. Instead of proper consideration of what to buy and how much to pay the debate usually bandies figures across the Despatch Box with an Opposition who still think there is a magic money tree or think a small number of very rich people who already pay a lot of tax will stay if we make them pay even more.
There are plenty of Conservative MPs who think we need to spend more on Defence. They may well be right. Before that is agreed we need to complete two exercises. The first is to decide what additional defence capabilities we need. The second is to root out some waste and bad spending habits with the current budget. Then we can see what top up is needed. We will not be better defended by spending ÂŁ10bn more. We will be if we concentrate on what we need and acquiring by shopping well.
March 19, 2022
Isn’t this what was derisively nicknamed ‘handbag economics’ in Mrs T’s day? Personally, I thought it was an admirable stance.
What it comes down to is that no governing regime has to generate its own income, since it is able to help itself to ours by law, and its bureaucracy rarely, if ever, suffer when funds are mis-spent (to put it politely).
March 19, 2022
Or pissed into mates or party donorâs pockets to put it rather less politely – but perhaps more accurately.
March 19, 2022
Sunak the other day – “I did not get into politics to have to put up people’s taxes I am a Conservative Chancellor” well mate this is certainly what you have done & massively done even before Covid. This from a very high starting base already. It will raise less tax not more and destroy/export jobs.
Sunak you did not “have” to put up taxes at all. You could have cut out all the waste & the misguided red tape. But you did not even cancel the basket case HS2, renewables and EV car subsidies, eat out to help out subsidies, cut the vast bloated government, the vast waste in the NHS… you even persist in attacking the self employed. The tax, CT & NI, red diesel increases, CGT increases for entrepreneurs and all the many allowance freezing that you have made are hugely destructive.
Not a Conservative bone in your body Sunak you are a tax borrow and piss down the drain Socialist. The highest taxes since WW2 and still rising. Combined with rather dire, declining and rather incompetent public services and an insane expensive/intermittent energy by design policy too.
March 19, 2022
That is currently Tory policy, to say one thing and do another. Meaningless manifestos.
March 19, 2022
Why do you think there is 2% target inflation? It is a nice scam to provide more taxes via fiscal drag. But MPs have been unable to contain themselves to “only” 2%. Much more than that is needed to splash out on all and sundry on pet schemes and NGO pressure groups, which is why the national debt has ballooned out of control.
March 19, 2022
+1 and they surely carefully choose the basket of goods that are included, so as to pretend the rate is even lower than it actually is.
March 19, 2022
And they have frozen all the allowances I understand – Income, CGT (not even not indexed for inflation), IHT, Pension Pot Lifetime Limit for the 55% tax.
March 19, 2022
Yes, foot-and-mouth cleanup in the UK, private contractors, about ÂŁ100,000 per farm.
In the Netherlands, direct labour, ÂŁ600 per farm.
The thing is, when you buy stuff, unless you fully understand the product or service, then you can’t judge value properly.
So to contract out complicated matters means that you would have to employ and to pay perhaps as many people at similar cost to those whom you seek to engage just to make that analysis, and yet more to find out whether they had delivered properly.
At a local level councils find this e.g. with Japanese Knotweed suppression. There’s no reason for the contractors to eradicate it fully at all, so they always seem to leave some unsprayed to grow back.
Councils can’t afford people with the necessary expertise to stand over and watch, and if they could then those people might as well do the spraying themselves.
And so on.
That’s privatisation and outsourcing.
March 19, 2022
Strewth! – back to Foot and Mouth again Martin…
March 19, 2022
When will you bring up the ‘Jarrow march’ ?
March 19, 2022
6.5 million animals were slaughtered in the UK
260,000 animals were slaughtered in the Netherlands.
Counting cost per farm is a misuse of statistics NHL.
March 28, 2022
As is concentrating on a month or a quarter period when several years of data are available to make a more meaningful comparison, isnât it P2?
March 19, 2022
The example I gave is just that.
The rest of the post explains the general problem, of which it is just a particular case.
Look at the PPE scandal, if you don’t want to stretch yourselves.
March 19, 2022
Thats it NHL
Claim one thing via dodgy statistics, then when shown it is a nonsense switch to a completely different subject
March 20, 2022
No, fresh examples, but exactly the same point.
March 20, 2022
Or Track and Trace…
March 20, 2022
Please refer to my original comment.
March 21, 2022
Sorry, my reply to SM established my related topic.
I am not interested in an unrelated one which you raise later.
March 21, 2022
I proved your original statement was based on a false statistic.
Wriggle on if it pleases you
March 19, 2022
Good morning.
At last, a grown up talking sense.
The analogy of a housewife controlling the family budget, first mooted I believe by Mrs.T, is a good one. We also have the German economic equivalent of the Swabian housewife, known for her frugality and careful planning. But we seem to have a government that really rather reflects the spending habits of the current First Lord of the Treasury.
When I shop I have in mind what I want and try to find the best for a good price. I like a deal or an offer and any chance to reduce my bill. I might try something new but only if I can afford it. I think it is called; “Living within ones means.”
What we have is a pair of rouges, one of which has got his hands on Daddies credit card. It’s not his money, so who cares, he is not going to pick up the bill. As a result, we get all kinds of expensive rubbish that no one wants.
Time to take the credit card off them before it becomes too expensive and the bank forecloses on us.
March 19, 2022
+1
And said housewives would not, presumably, be busily cutting out fake coins from tin cans and passing them off as currency?
March 19, 2022
I think Sir J. writes these kindergarten level economic lessons in the hope that nanny will read them to one Boris Bunter at bed time. It’s possibly our only hope of some sensible economic management while he’s in office.
March 19, 2022
Gold is the Money of kings
Silver is the Money of gentlemen and merchants
Barter is the Money of peasants
Debt is the Money of slaves.
-Franz Norm
March 19, 2022
And when the government “invests” (Gordon Brown language) in a big project, price escalation is a dead cert.
The job is never completed at the quoted price. Why does the government not fix the price?
March 20, 2022
Because if they quoted the correct price, the Treasury would have a fit of the vapours and nothing at all would get done. They think money in the bank is useful whereas people know it is only what it can buy which is actually useful. Therefore low quotes go in, get accepted and when it is too late to cancel, the overuns begin.
March 20, 2022
JH – with a fixed price contract you have to know EXACTLY what you want. The first change/modification (which always happens) and the fixed price is null and void.
March 20, 2022
Indeed, and politicians are invariably incapable of not changing their minds.
March 20, 2022
The possibility of bribery and corruption should also be considered in the selection of contractors / suppliers. We need transparency and independent audit.
March 19, 2022
That is what happens if your are spending other people’s money. And when it runs out there is a simple solution: you just get the B of E to “print” more and the Chancellor to tax more. Both are all too pleased to oblige. That is standard behaviour for most MPs. It is why we have such a colossal national debt. It is why government spending is so high. There will be a day of reckoning and it will be extremely unpleasant.
March 19, 2022
Indeed print more or tax more, the result is disaster either way. Perhaps best expressed by Milton Freedman in his four types of money:-
You spend your own money on yourself.
You spend your own money on someone else (a present perhaps but you are not sure what they want)
You spend someone else’s money on yourself. (the companies money on a hotel or dinner for yourself perhaps).
You spend someone else’s money on something for someone else. (This is Government – you care neither the price not the value delivered – plus far more chance of soft or even blatant fraud to vested interests or donors too – as we see all the time)
Not hard to understand which is most efficient, which is least and which is government.
March 19, 2022
Correct
We either spend our money on things we want or let our government spend our money on things they think we want
March 19, 2022
They wrongly think we want or think will buy them votes. Though after wasting at least half in collection and admin. costs.
March 20, 2022
+1
March 19, 2022
Government is no different to house holders and businesses that source everything carefully and purchase accordingly.
The big massive difference is that the householders and the businesses are dealing with their own money and are responsible and accountable on the end results when it goes wrong. They wherever possible keep waste to an absolute minimum.
Government and their departments are spending our money, are not responsible or accountable for waste, never worry about overspend. When they get it so wrong it ends up in a possible promotion or elevation to a higher place. In the other world people go hungry or without or lose their jobs or the children and family members suffer.
Not a lot of difference then? !! Until government’s change dramatically the way they operate, nothing will change for them, but it sure as hell changes for us.
March 19, 2022
JR is an exemplary shopper.
Better than the bloke who ramped up carbon what-sits by travelling thousands of miles to the shop and returning with an empty basket.
Did he upset the shopkeeper? Was it just a pretend shopping trip?Or did his mum tell him not to buy it anywayâŠwhatever the price?
Maybe he just fancied a ride in a plane?
March 19, 2022
Thereâs no doubt that politicians themselves are profligate. They think boasting about how much they spend will get them re-elected. They waste taxpayers cash on expensive second homes, expenses like having their wisteria pruned and duck houses, and in hiring members of their families. Many also only work as MPs on a part-time basis despite taking a full time salary.
But the idea that government workers mis-spend money simply isnât true. Teachers donât buy gold-plated equipment for their schools. Nurses donât buy diamond encrusted machinery for their patients. Civil servants carry out careful analyses to make sure public money is properly spent. We do impact studies on everything to make sure we are doing the right thing. (Except on Brexit because the Brexitists knew they wouldnât like the findings). But these things do not win elections.
What wins elections is lying.
Reply I do not know any part time MPs. We are all on call 24x 7
March 19, 2022
âWe do …â
Interesting. Civil servant, Andy? Wouldnât it be funny if it was in the DWP?
March 19, 2022
Your compass is pointing true, methinks. Well spotted.
I’d suspected as much for a long time.
March 19, 2022
Andy – I seem to recall you claiming you had your own business. So why do you refer to “we” when claiming that Civil Servants carry out careful analyses to make sure public money is properly spent?
I have never hidden the fact that I am a retired Civil Servant. And I am perfectly happy to say that, just as in any other organisation, there are good and not-so-good managers and that includes the Civil Service (particularly the big spending Departments). The fiasco that is HS2 – with the projected cost continually rising and very poor financial management – is a prime example. As were many of the MoD’s spending/purchasing decisions over the past couple of decades. As for the NHS, it is a black hole where money poured in just disappears with no apparent attempt at cost control.
It comes back to the fact that if a Department doesn’t spend the budget it is allocated, the budget shrinks in the next allocation of funds. So the incentive for Civil Servants is to ensure it IS spent – and that leads to poor decision-making towards the end of the financial year. As we saw with DifD which sprayed taxpayer-funded Aid at Quangos and “Charities” because it had a legislative obligation to spend 0.7% of our GDP on Aid ….. with the objectives a lesser priority.
March 19, 2022
Spot on. Annualised accounting has a lot to answer for. I remember when we were under spent we asked our suppliers to bill us in this financial year and deliver in the next.
Sir JR never shares why things canât or will not change..
March 19, 2022
Donna
The answer to your opening paragraph is that the guy posts messages daily on this website direct from Fantasy Island, hence the inconsistencies.
March 19, 2022
Spending rules are set by politicians. Like most people in this country I donât vote for the Tory pensioner minority who run the country – badly.
I used âweâ in the âthis countryâ context. Surely not hard for even Brexitists to understand?
March 19, 2022
Of course you did. Imprecise communication, supercilious attitude, denial of responsibility and blame shifting. Smells like senior civil service to me.
March 20, 2022
Indeed Donna well said.
March 19, 2022
Come off it Sir J. We all know that for many it is a part time job. They may be on call 24/7 but do they turn out? Do you get a sensible reply when writing asking them something, or any reply at all if they don’t like what you say? We know many do extra jobs and I recall at one time an MP who had 50 directorships. No-one else can do it – employers would not allow it. This should be a full time job, no outside interests and it is well enough remunerated compared to the average worker. If it is not enough, don’t do it. There are never any shortages of candidates whishing to get on the gravy train. Supply and demand does not apply here.
March 19, 2022
Andy
Perhaps Government ministers do not spend All of our Money, but certainly Government Departments do, and I would suggest that is where they/we have a huge lack of control.
Family members who have worked in the NHS will certainly outline huge waste and overspending.
Indeed our local hospital years ago spent ÂŁ53,00o on a custom-made reception desk, 3 years later it was ripped out under yet another modification programme.
Our local authority spent ÂŁ26,000 on a Town Centre “Feature” bench which seats just 4 people, no one sits on it because it is so uncomfortable, and being made of slatted (end grain upwards) timber, remains wet long after it has stopped raining.
No one seems to accept any responsibility or seems to be held accountable, that’s the problem.
March 19, 2022
You literally vote for the people in power. If you donât like it vote for somebody else. With the exception of 1997 I have never once voted for the party which has formed the government. I keep getting bad governments inflicted on me by people like you.
March 19, 2022
Yes you voted for Blair, and then thought ‘OMG what have I done?’.
Lots of the electorate voted for Johnson and are now thinking ‘ OMG what have I done?’
March 20, 2022
I thought “yes, that’s better”, for thirteen, wonderful, Tory-free years, when this country stood tall on the world stage.
So did millions of others.
March 20, 2022
Iraq?
March 21, 2022
Libya?
Tunisia?
Egypt?
March 21, 2022
Nothing by comparison to Blairs wars.
March 19, 2022
My ex was a nursery school teacher in Bognor Regis. There was an interesting one-day training course in Bristol. The headteacher decided to let the staff who were attending to go by plane. I joke not. They duly flew there and had a very jolly day out. This in a school catering to some of the poorest people on the South Coast.
So teachers can be happy to waste their budgets.
March 19, 2022
Yes – these are the sort of untrue stories which spread easily online. But are still untrue.
March 19, 2022
If you are continually on call then they should close the bars at Parliament.
March 19, 2022
Well, well, well. Having worked with Civil Serpents in the past I can categorically state they know the square root of………….nothing and live in a very different world to the rest of us, out here in the real world. Come out and join us some time. We can’t get around without our cars as public transport is non existent or going places we don’t want to go. Cycling/walking to get our shopping is not an option. We need our boilers to heat our homes. We don’t want millions of immigrants, especially those chipping up in dinghy’s and not being deported but housed in 4* Hotels at ÂŁ5 million a day at our expense. We don’t need foreign aid as well as the immigrants as we’re paying twice at home and abroad! We don’t want or need HS2, a pointless EU directed transport system. We want to be energy independent not import fracked gas from America or Qatar, coal from Russia. We are getting the word out to remove the green high tax socialist occupying No 10. Perhaps his Party may remove him when they realise he’s a liability not an asset.
March 19, 2022
Time action . Post of the week! You’re bloody right. We don’t want anything this government is offering.
March 19, 2022
However NHS IT managers *do* buy massively expensive and useless IT systems for the NHS so Iâve no idea what point youâre trying to make.
Howâs it going with your offer to house Ukrainian refugees ? If you update us it may shame those of us you dismissed as bigots for questioning the scheme ?
March 19, 2022
Reply to reply. âI do not know any part time MPs. We are all on call 24x 7â
Well I do. What about the Sin Fein MPs who never take their seats yet are claiming full time salaries, pension rights and no doubt got a nice little place in London at taxpayersâ expense. Or what about the 117 MPs elected outside of England who have a large proportion of their workloads done for them by AMs and SMPs in their respective parliaments. Are they not part time yet on full time salaries? Yes they might be on call 24/7 but what for? Oh yes thatâs it, so they can meddle and interfere and vote on matters which are purely English. Time those with devolved parliaments participate by zoom and ONLY for matters relating to their constituents. Fortune saved.
Sick to death of 650 MPs claiming millions of taxpayersâ money between them for their nice cosy apartments (some who already own their own apartments) in London with heating costs and council tax and travel to work all thrown in and paid for by us mugs the taxpayer. No wonder most of them, especially Johnson and Sunak, havenât got a clue about the hardships about to hit the rest of us. My son cannot afford to carry on working as a Junior Doctor in London because of high rental costs coming out of his meagre salary, not to mention student debt and the highest level of taxes for over 70 years and about to rise further. Why the hell should our mostly waste of space over paid pampered MPs be any different?
March 19, 2022
âThere are plenty of Conservative MPs who think we need to spend more on Defence.â
Are they the same people who approved spending on Ajax armoured vehicles that vibrate so much that soldiers cannot use them?
The trouble is defence manufacturers get a few retired military types and former politicians on their board and these sort of projects simply get nodded through without too much thought or investigation.
March 19, 2022
Yes but donât forget there only a very few (one?) supplier with Civil Servants neither having the project management nor technical skills to challenge them.
5 billion spaffed on not fit for purpose tanks. You would think it is not difficult to push back and demand restitution on something so obviously wrong.
Looks like HS2 getting away again. It cannot be difficult to use a traffic light warning system to review each project say bi monthly with a Minister âheading upâ each one plus the ability to refuse payment authorisation if performance unacceptable or going over budget.
HMG should also write in every contract overspend is the responsibility of the supplier.
March 19, 2022
Sir J, totally true point on spending efficiency. People spend their own money on themselves and buy things they value. Government is spending other people’s money on a different group of other people which is the most inefficient model possible.
Much better not to let the Government raise debt or taxes in the first place.
Have people forgotten that during the industrial revolution Britain grew rich on private spending. New factories, railways, worker housing, even schools in some cases and not a government grant in sight.
March 19, 2022
It was private spending plus national and individual confidence. Confidence has been sapped by wokedom.
March 19, 2022
Yes, confidence sapped and innovation stymied by regulation
March 19, 2022
Wokedom has been legislated in by equality laws to silence the masses to stop their resistance to mass immigration and differences between cultures. Very obvious out here in real world when we see every day how some behave but we’re not allowed to comment. ITV adverts anyone!
March 19, 2022
And not to mention the canal systems – built in the days when produce was carried on muddied, rutted tracks passable only by pack horses. The canals became a major factor in the industrial revolution, all privately funded and hugely successful until, eventually, the railways took over. Can anyone imagine today how the canal network was achieved without government getting in the way, let alone the H&S and woke brigades we suffer from these days? Thought not….
March 19, 2022
“The only time I might mention cost is where I thought I had found a bargain”.
Or when I fill my oil tank and find I have to pay nearly two thirds more than last time.
Or when I get my council tax bill which has taken all of my pension rise.
Or when I go to fill my car and. wonder how much longer I can afford to run one.
Or when I shop for the same boring items in the supermarket and see how much things have gone up by.
Its not just bargains we talk about John as they are few and far between now. Most ordinary people are talking about the cost of their household bills much of which is driven by energy costs.
March 19, 2022
Indeed. An energy crisis caused by the deliberate net zero policies driven by the Tory Party over the last 12 year and the Labour Party before them with their ridiculous Climate change Act written by a non academic. They have to go. We can’t afford them. Think and act REFORM and then decide what Party should we all vote for?
March 19, 2022
Time action. I’ve known for months who I’m voting for. We need REFORM.
March 19, 2022
If you find yourself sweating at the petrol pump you probably have car-owner virus.
I have to pay ÂŁ2,700 council tax pa. No choice. I don’t even get the streets cleaned for that. I have to clear up the area after the open top recycling has been done.
I honestly don’t mind the idea of paying a lot of tax for good service but good service is not what we get.
March 19, 2022
Council tax is an abomination, Iâve been dreading ours arriving. ÂŁ3,000 a year and we live in the middle of nowhere, no street lights, no pavements, no public transport. We pay the equivalent of two weeks state pension every single month. ÂŁ300 is towards adult social care. We are being ripped off left right and centre by this socialist bunch of fake Tories.
March 20, 2022
Council Tax has many elements of a poll tax.
For instance Sandringham is only charged the same as an ordinary detached family home.
As such, it is therefore the very epitome of a reactionary, anti-progressive, Tory tax.
March 20, 2022
What extra costs does Sandringham create for the local council compared with another property in the same band by just being a bigger land area?
March 21, 2022
Police security attention, for one, I’d expect, plus waste disposal for that generated by the household staff, etc.
That isn’t the point about regressive taxation though, which has been made many times here.
March 21, 2022
Waste disposal would be defined a commercial matter paid separately by Sandringham to private waste companies away from Council tax
The Police protection is a small matter covered by Crown expenses.
PS
There is a case for having further bands above the current top ones to allow for more valuable homes and estates but the extra revenue would be small because there are not very many of these homes.
March 19, 2022
Apart from Lisa Truss ,in charge of the Foreign Office, do we have any other Ministers who challenge their civil servants?
March 19, 2022
Let’s face it. It’s wonderful to be able to go shopping with other people’s money. It’s funny how you just don’t have to be so prudent. It’s just there for the taking.
March 19, 2022
Totall agree fus. I want to lob a brick at the TV when MPs come on moaning that the ÂŁ10 billion plus we borrow to give away in foreign aid isnât enough.. Wonder how many will donate to charity from their undeserved ÂŁ2,000 plus a year pay rise. Doubt theyâre as generous with their own money
March 19, 2022
JR
You have put this so well! The governmentâs language is back to front. We need to buy some more ships, aircraft, need more soldiers, not âwe need to spend more on defenceâ.
I knew a self made millionaire whose daughter was a lady farmer in Scotland. She rebuilt the farm house, and because she couldnât afford it on her own, daddy helped out. I recall âdaddyâ telling my husband and I that said daughter hadnât questioned any of the kitchen fitterâs cost. âThat kitchen cost me ÂŁ75,000!â Perhaps, âdaddyâ should have questioned the daughter, we thought at the time.
This is surely what someone should be doing to the government spending? Questioning the cost. Someone must be agreeing to the absurd amounts?
Looking back at government spending there have been ÂŁbillions of wasted tax money⊠the public tax money is treated like that of a rich daddy. âHeâs got plenty more, so we donât need to worry.â
Utterly irresponsible and spoilt brat behaviour⊠and wholly unprofessional!
But who will hold the spending to account?
March 19, 2022
Just look at Bunter lavishing ÂŁ400,000,000 on the Ukraine with no care of how it gets paid or what it’s for and welcoming an unlimited number of refugees from there to add to the Syrians, Afghans, dinghy people, up to 3000,000 Hong Kong Chinese plus 650,000 from everywhere every year at ÂŁ3000 each (Boat people excluded as that’s ÂŁ5,000,000 a day). We’re all paying or adding to the National debt to pay for their prolificacy.
March 19, 2022
Not their money it is? Just the tax payers we can just get Sunak to tax and tax some more, so what do they care about the cost or indeed value delivered? This shows up everwhere you care to look. They have wasted ÂŁ billions on net zero, renewables, HS2, the EUâŠ
Wera Hobhouse (history and fine art at the University of MĂŒnster) MP was on any question assuring us that renewable could provided all the energy we needed. Sure dear, are you lying or is it just that know nothing about the subject? She is the Libdims shadow minister for women and equalities. She was not asked about all 18-60 year old men being locked into Ukraine when the others can leave. A bit sexist I would have thought.
March 19, 2022
In 2015, our wonderful NHS England spent ÂŁ142 million on prescribing paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin which could easily have been purchased over the counter for about 10% of this sum. Doubtless it is about double this sum now. This saving could have performed about 10,000 extra hip operations PA. But it is not their money – nor their hips or they might have seen it rather differently.
March 19, 2022
My GP (or more exactly the random GP I could recently talk to via video call in the surgery, and that usually only after a few days) has not been prescribing aspirin, ibuprofen or paracetamol for at least six-seven years.
Now it seems that only stronger painkillers (fentanyl, -codone or -morphone based) are ever prescribed in a written form in my surgery.
It is self-understood that the over-the-counter painkillers (OTC PKs) like aspirin, ibuprofen, paracetamol are not anymore appearing on prescriptions, even if advised by the GP in a lot of cases. It is also true that generic versions of these OTC PKs are available from (some) supermarkets at much lower prices and some of my GPs even advise to get them from there.
When I once asked what the main difference was apart from the price, I was told that some branded ones might have an effect in less than 30 mn whereas the generic ones only have to fulfil the criteria put by the MHRA namely to be active within 45 mn.
March 19, 2022
Bob Seely was more than a match for her – which was why the BBC presenter allowed her to shout him down.
March 19, 2022
Politicians love to spend other Pembrey.
How many times has a government spokesman said in answer to a question….we have allocated X millions on this problem etc.
Never any details of how it will be spent.
The size of the budget reflects the importance of the politician.
Locally the council is putting in new kerbs and runways to waste the end of year budget. The roads badly need resurfacing but that’s not so glamorous.
March 19, 2022
Exactly. Never any strategy, they just announce yet another enormous spending spree.
With regard to, for example, the NHS, I want to hear what they’re going to *do*! Eliminate waste, stop overpaying locums, retain staff that have cost us to have them trained, cease the ripoff pharmacists and drug suppliers.
March 19, 2022
Most unusual to spend ÂŁ35 billions to make people miserable, afraid and despairing.
And to bring an economy to its knees.
And use the victimsâ money to do so.
Not really a good shopping habit!
âAnd we mean to treat you all,” added Lydia; “but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.” Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
March 19, 2022
Over 35 years umpteen reviews have demonstrated the MOD not fit for purpose with billions wasted and most projects behind schedule/over budget and it continues to fail to demonstrate that it can learn/improve indeed its spokesperson was in denial when commentating on Meg Hillerâs 2021 report.
Knee jerk calls from MPs for more money are typical of the âmore money spent must be good syndromeâ that infests government both local and national.
My take is that weak Ministers have neither the skills or strength to take on the wasteful blob secure that it is not a political game changer. They think that all the public want to hear is more money spent. They donât, they want efficiency but with a similar view across all parties, we have no choice. We are stuffed.
March 19, 2022
Good morning Sir, you are shining a light into the tunnel and that gives me a good feeling. I do get angry some times when I see, in my opinion, money being carelessly thrown around.
The saying is good money after bad!
Please keep your pressure on.
March 19, 2022
+1
Yes! Tighten the screws!
I love seeing and hearing them squirm and mutter in incoherent panic.
Regarding shopping ( and all other matters) they have not a single clue!
But then, maybe they arenât there to make things better?
March 19, 2022
On P&O Ferries one should perhaps remember that whenever unions do manage to achieve higher pay, better protections/conditions then they always do so by causing the employers to employ fewer of their members. The more their members cost to employ the fewer such people companies will obviously choose to employ. This as private businesses have to remain competitive otherwise they go bust or get taken over by someone who is.
Unlike in government alas where they just tax ever more until they destroy or export the wealth creating companies.
March 19, 2022
If those employees weren’t taxed so heavily (half the money gone in tax after employer’s NI, employees NI, income tax followed by VAT), and they didn’t have to spend so much of their income on housing costs – inflated by international speculators, second home and holiday let sales, the companies could employ them on lower wages but with the same standard of living.
All the attention on the behaviour of P&O, not on the government taxation policies that are going to make this sort of thing more likely.
March 19, 2022
Lifelogic
Would agree if that is what the Unions have done, but have they ?
P&O it would seem have Government contracts and have taken taxpayers money with regards to Furlough, unacceptable behaviour to its employees (and that is the case) is thus not acceptable as a return.
March 19, 2022
I do not know the history in this case but unions nearly always push for higher pay for their members not always unreasonably. I am just making the point that this generally destroys jobs for their members and the better they are at it the more jobs are lost.
The RMT union has certainly helped to cause very many London rail cancellations and other problems as I know to my cost.
March 19, 2022
That made me laugh. Mr. Redwood, your government stood accused of finding a magic money forest during the so-called pandemic.
And your magic money tree has been shaken to provide billions more for the useless money pit that is the NHS.
Please, please do not try to provide the illusion that the Tories are competent and the âOppositionâ is not. You are as bad as each other.
March 19, 2022
+1
March 19, 2022
Mike, of course there is a magic money tree; it is a necessary component of a sovereign fiat currency economy; but, you won’t find a Westminster politician who will admit to it, you are required to believe that the government’s budgeting is the same as a household.
The “tree” is the National Loans Fund (National Loans Act 1968), an Act based on a total misconception of how a fiat currency actually works. Have a look at pages 21 to 23 in the following https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1018480/CCS0921300902-001_HMT_National_Loans_Fund_NLF_Web_Accessible.pdf
Notice “Net transfers to the Consolidated Fund”, the government’s current account, ÂŁ371.8 billion” (basically the government’s budget deficit for the year). It sold / issued “Net issuance of government stock ÂŁ387.5 billion”. So where did the Pounds Sterling come from to buy that government stock? It could only have come from previous years “Net transfers to the Consolidated Fund”. It’s musical chairs in a smoke filled room where chairs are added when the music stops, not taken away.
March 19, 2022
Government is institutionally profligate and your very proper calls for change echo those we have heard down the ages.
We know its inflexible year by year budgeting system means unspent grants are lost to the beneficiaries at year end so they spend on anything rather than lose out, we know Whitehall thinks bigger budgets mean more power, we know fraud runs at ÂŁ29 billion (how is that possible?). We recall overhauls of defence procurement that were to revolutionize efficiency and cut out waste and eliminate delays and cost over-runs and mean the armed forced obtained the best.
If anyone in government was going to provide a remedy, it would have been done by now. I do hope your message is acted upon though.
March 19, 2022
Increasing spending commitments wouldnât be so bad if set within a framework of a firm policy of growing the economy quickly in tried and trusted ways. Instead we a have a minister Greg Hands and his job title âMinister for business, energy and clean growthâ, which really means âbusiness, energy and Net Zero growthâ.
March 19, 2022
Again, the obsession with growth? Why?
March 19, 2022
We need as a first step to define what government is for. Without getting into detail it is fair to state that in the last two hundred years the function and cost of government has grown vastly. At the same time our influence in the World has shrunk, for better or worse. I can say from experience that we are getting very poor value for the tax in myriad forms that is extracted from us. Dreadful roads, indifferent railways, questionable broadband, poor education bottom to top, an NHS that fails to deliver, untapped energy the reality of which will cost the population a fortune due to governments adherence to the green religion, inadequate housing, homeless veterans on the streets, and government serving the lobby rather than the people. I live in a country much lower down the GDP pecking order where by no means everthing is perfect, but the quality of life is infinitely better on a reduced tax take.
So ask the question, what is government for. Let the population be taxed for things they cannot do for themselves, but let them make provision for all those things they could do. For those that are in employment already in fact work through tax for government for approaching half the year. Much of this is to pay for the 5.4 million public sector workers many of whom do very badly things which we could do for ourselves. Imagine one supermarket with only one brand of indifferent potatoes, that is a good illustration of what government provision is. No choice, a fixed high price, dreadful service, and a phone number that never gets answered. Many large service providers use the same customer interface. Get it sorted before it blows up in your face.
March 20, 2022
The trouble is, how to put the Genie back in its box ?
March 19, 2022
It’s not a surprise that government are composed of people wedded to spending. Judging by the election leaflets we get through the letterbox, the candidates all compete with each other about what they promise to spend money on. No one prints a leaflet explaining how they plan to reduce government spending.
I’m half tempted to stand for office, say local government. I would look to identify areas where money is wasted and then print an election leaflet telling people I want to reduce their council tax and how I would do it.
But then I couldn’t do it as well as run my company, so I have to accept useless people will have to do it.
March 19, 2022
The Not-a-Conservative-Party first adopted the LANGUAGE of the Left.
That is where the problem really starts. If you cannot use the correct term to describe a policy because those on the Left control the language, you cannot make an argument to change it. Example: Investing / spending.
Most Governmental spending is not investing, it is paying day-do-day running costs. Using the household budget analogy, “investing” could be adding a conservatory to improve the value of the house; whilst “spending” is buying the essentials of life.
Then it accepted the OBJECTIVES of the Left. The objective being termed by the Left as “Progressive” which implies continual change and progress ….. whereas conservation implies preserving what you already have. The NaCP hasn’t conserved anything because conservation doesn’t fit in with the agenda they have accepted.
Next, the NaCP accepted the AGENDA of the Left. Which is why the size of the State is continually being increased with more and more “parasite jobs” deemed necessary to ensure that the Agenda is delivered:
equality/diversity departments; 5-a-day champions; climate change managers and all the rest of the monitoring/nannying State jobs which are generally filled by people whose personal political inclinations are left-leaning.
Then, having given away the language, objectives and agenda, the NaCP copied the POLICIES of the Left.
Heath in the 1970s did not govern as a Conservative. Cameron announced he was a liberal-conservative and governed accordingly, only too happy to have a coalition with Clegg so that the genuine Conservatives in the Party could be suppressed. Theresa May pushed through Labour policies; and Johnson’s government is more left-wing than Blair’s.
Sir John laments that the Government is a poor shopper. What he should really be lamenting is that the NaCP gave away the ability to improve its shopping habits and is doing nothing to try and change that situation. It won’t even deal with the BBC.
March 19, 2022
Second paragraph – ‘too few bidders, expensive contracts’.
That is just the way ministers like it, less work and (they think wrongly) less risk. So they employ the same old big companies which have failed time and time again. They never give smaller firms a chance. Small firms can’t even get a local authority contract, let alone a government one. So we pay more and get the same old same old.
Regarding ‘its not their money’ the same is true of big companies. Look at what the oil suppliers are doing, just ramping up prices endlessly even when wholesale prices drop. We are taxed not just by the government. These firms have so much money they don’t know what to do with it and are even buying their own shares to get rid of it and force prices up. They have no care for the consumer, just their own greed.
March 19, 2022
big firms complacent and inefficient, small firms hungry and cut waste.
March 19, 2022
Sensible back to basics economics Sir John. So refreshing to hear we still have your no-nonsense down to earth realism so desperately needed at this crucial time.
Gordon Brown used to spend one hour rattling off his expensive annual budget day list until the magic money tree failed to materialise. The lesson still hasn’t been learned but ordinary citizens still bear the consequences.
O/T Ukraine is suffering a war of attrition by Putin who remembers the siege of Leningrad by Nazi forces who cruelly starved them whilst Ukraine remember Stalin’s famines and Nazi forces destruction too. Putin mis- labels Ukraine the same. Ukrainians tell Russia they don’t need liberating …. We just pray it ends soon.
March 19, 2022
The Government, by that I mean our elected representatives in Parliament, are not âthe shoppersâ.
It is the Civil Service who are âthe shoppersâ. We never hear of any Civil Servant or public employee being sacked for over-spending or in fact for laziness, negligence, incompetence, malfeasance or misbehaviour.
The Civil Service are in control of all big projects which is why we have EU directed HS2 costs rising from an initial ÂŁ50bn to ÂŁ150bn, a doubling in costs for Hinkley Point C because we are paying the Chinese 9% for financing, the economy destroying Net Zero Strategy and the bottomless pit that is the NHS, immigration, etc..
National debt means nothing to senior Civil Servants with their gold plated inflation related final salary pensions and lucrative jobs in the public sector supplying private sector and lobbying positions after retirement.
If these jobs were banned as they should be, and a portion of their pension was reversely dependent upon the national debt we would quickly find the Civil Service looking after the countryâs spending and finances.
March 20, 2022
Whilst I am no fan of the CS, we need to remind ourslves of who sings these things off – The Secretary of State responsible, that’s who !
The USA have a law called the, ‘NunnâMcCurdy Amendment’ which, if a defence contract goes over budget by 25%, it is reported to Congress. If it goes over by 50%, it is cancelled outright. Perhaps that is what we need, a law that does that for ALL government spending / contracts.
March 19, 2022
Sir J, what you say is true for the purchases whose costs are already known – eg buying something in a shop where the price is stated. But how to handle things like Defence research where the costs are not really known beforehand? – if they were it would not be research! Defence ‘development’ is a somewhat better known entity in terms of likely costs. Some suggest buying Defence products ‘off the shelf’ from other countries. However very recent events have shown that being dependent for critical things on other countries has its own dangers.
The Treasury prides itself on ‘knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing’. Hmm, I wonder how they handle the point that if the enemy is one step ahead of you in terms of armaments then you lose bigtime?
March 20, 2022
There is a thing called a, Budget ! Many private companies (eg Apple) may not know the true cost of developing a product and getting it to market. But they do know the cost if they do not. Remember, Sinclair ?
March 19, 2022
This madness of government in its own belief that spending all our money is a good thingâŠ
Spend billions on nuclear weapons when we need boots on the ground
Spend billions on HS2 when we need commuter trains on time
Spend billions on the police force when we need boots on the beat
Spend billions on refugees to get a higher number then our neighbour
Spend billions on wind-turbines when we need cheap energy
Spend billions subsiding electric vehicles to please the green lobby
March 19, 2022
Spend billions on NHS when we need a health service to be available.
Spend billions on concrete and bricks when we need land for food production
March 19, 2022
I’d forgot about ÂŁ38bn on track’n’trace
March 19, 2022
Most people have some idea about where to go shopping if they don’t want to be ripped off; why, then, does the government continually go shopping in the US for defence equipment? The US Military/Industrial complex is a well oiled machine for extracting money from the US taxpayer and any contributions from other mugs are most welcome. Furthermore, comparing the costs
according to the price tag whilst ignoring whether such expenditure would affect the current account positively or negatively is not wise husbandry irrespective of what economic theorists proclaim.
The government needs to analysed its expenditure by department and compare with other
countries in terms of what the pay and what they get for their money. For example, we need to know why other European countries have better healthcare than we do as well as why they are not filthy and run-down like so many of our cities.
March 19, 2022
No one would, in their sane and sober senses budget in that manner! Only Government, and especially socialists.
How about that other civil service bad habit in the same vein. The one where, when there is money over at the end of the financial year, it is spent regardless of need. Squandered in fact, so long as it is no longer in their hands and they can get an equal amount or more for next year!
March 19, 2022
As the Russians have just blown up the bunker near Romania where our missiles were stored using a hypersonic job, perhaps we could get a discount on a large order for some more. Have we got any left or have we given most of them to Mr Zelensky?
March 19, 2022
What intelligence do you have for that claim?
March 19, 2022
The Canadian Defence Minister has just admitted they have already exhausted their stocks,sending them all to Ukraine.
March 19, 2022
Oh dear.
March 19, 2022
Canada’s contribution is but a relatively minor part of the international effort to support Ukraine.
I read that a fifth Russian senior commander has been killed. If so then that is one-in-four of them in the field.
That should be focusing some minds.
March 21, 2022
And now a sixth.
Keep ’em coming guys!
March 19, 2022
The useless and moronic government is not only poor at shopping, but at governance in general. They are reactive, trather than pro-active. They are slow to agree a policy. They are unable to implement their own ideas, and instead are slaves to consultations, asking others what they should do. They are indecisive and constantly flip-flop. They have no firm ideology or doctrine or goal. They lack courage, national pride or patriotism of any kind. They are stupid, incompetent, gutless traitors.
Every day brings more evidence of how utterly useless this government is. Today we have the P&O debacle. The government was informed in advance of the mass sackings but did not stop them. The company have broken the law by giving insufficient notice, but the government has not yet begun prosecuting them. The government has not given the sacked employees any reassurances that they will get sufficient compensation. The government has, basically, sat on its hands and done NOTHING. Who in their right minds would vote for these morons again?
March 19, 2022
We know who the real traitors are and the net is now closing on them.
They’ve been a bit quiet of late though, despite all that triumphant swaggering noise that they made on June 24th 2016, for some reason.
March 19, 2022
Another of your unsubstantiated generalised slurs NHL
Very poor.
March 19, 2022
“The contracts themselves often leave plenty of scope for the suppliers to revisit the price, facilitated by government changing its mind mid contract over what it wants.”
This is the key point. Also, there’s often an element of “Ah well, if we’d know about THAT, the price would have been different”.
Secrecy about the problems opens the door to price changes. I know of a govt NHS site where 105 people were employed to correct “data errors” in interfaces between their pensions system and their HR system.
No other company has this problem – it turns out that the people are all related to someone in the small town where the facility is sited. This is the real cost – nepotistic behaviour. Often the “inefficiency” is simply deliberate misappropriation of taxpayer funds to someone in their own circle. many of the problems were due to paying people who didn’t have an NI number (!) which meant that their record on the HR system had no identifier to match with at the other end, so it went into an error bucket waiting for manual attention from one of the army of data error people.
Of course, this won’t be disclosed to a bidder – when they find out, they change the price.
NB Paying people who don’t have an NI number… if you ever wonder how all those illegal immigrants are getting by. This was pre-RTI days by the way, not sure how it panned out now.
March 19, 2022
Sir John – are you ever going to do anything about the border down the Irish Sea cutting our country in two? You must have seen this Tweet from Sam McBride (respected editor of the Belfast Telegraph): https://twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/1505086409543200769
He states: “Last month, NI civil servants took advice from someone â Whitehall says the EU â to harden the Irish Sea border, but didn’t tell their minister. Firms lost money after GB loads were arbitrarily turned back by secretly altered rules – with no compensation.” So we now have a situation where British civil servants, paid for out of the taxes of British citizens, are acting at the behest of the European Union, and against the interests of Britain.
How have you allowed this situation to develop? Your friend Steve Baker has responded by saying: “Shocking. Ministers cannot avoid responsibility for correcting the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, rescuing the east-west provisions of the Good Friday Agreement. We need @trussliz and @BrandonLewis to act with firm resolve, now.” Yes, he’s right, but these ministers haven’t done so yet, and there is no indication that they are going to do so. So what will YOU do? Anything???
reply I have been endlessly pushing and briefing for the U.K. to take control of GB/NI trade
March 20, 2022
Reply to reply: yes, I know that you you care about this, and if you were PM we would not be in this situation, but your endless “pushing and briefing” has not had the desired effect, has it? What was it that Einstein said about repeating the same actions but hoping for a different outcome? Perhaps you need to take a much, much more forceful and aggressive approach…
March 20, 2022
X_TORY – the whole system is too “nicey, nicey”. No one sticks the boot in.
March 20, 2022
JR – how does it feel to be part of an organisation so hopeless, incompetent, in many areas useless etc., etc, and have the population as exemplified here so disgusted by it? You must be happy about it as you stay in it when you can do nothing to change anything. Am I right?
March 21, 2022
That’s a bit harsh, Dennis. For example. As our kind host pointed out not long ago, there are some 500 MP’s who believe in climate change and support the Climate Change Act. How can a long or minority voice hope to win over that ? But he can highlight it and, as we are seeing from current events and the various ramifications from them, the blind stupidity of these 500 MP’s becomes nore apparent. We are entering a situation where we, and above all they, see that the Emperor has no clothes, and to continue with this folly will result in many of tem being turfed out at the next GE.