The crude public sector good private sector bad which dominates much opposition party thinking is no reflection of the reality of life.
Some years ago I wrote about how we could better characterise and assess public services. I proposed assessing each with three main questions:
Are they competitive or monopolies?
Are they owned and run by the state or by private individuals and companies?
Do they charge customers for their service or are they offered free to users?
These questions reveal that there is more to life than an all public or an all private service.
The two types that get closest to what the public v private thinkers have in mind are
- A public sector provided monopoly service provided free to users using public sector employees and equipment  Defence is the nearest to this model
- A private sector competitive service delivered by many, charging customers for their use and using private sector employees and equipment.. This is the most common model of public service covering things like food supply and mobile phone services
There are then the following
A private monopoly provided free to users – a free local newspaper, a local radio station
Private competitive services provided free to users  Much social media, independent tv
Public monopolies charging customers – Planning services, much licensing activity like passports and driving licences
Public near monopolies using substantial private sector competitive contractors – the NHS buys in all its drugs and contracts out various hotel services to private sector staff
Competitive services delivered in part by public sector owned institutions – Council leisure services that charge, Public sector transport
“Free” competitive services provided by state organisations and financed from taxes  BBC, state museums
You could add to this analysis the provision of services by the third or charitable sector, where their provision may be free to users or may be subsidised competition to the private sector as with charity shops and leisure offerings.
July 25, 2023
Good morning.
But Sir John, none of this is FREE. Unless of course you have arrived here illegally by dingy or have never worked. For the rest of us, we have to pay whether we use it or not.
All I ask is this. Those that have put into the system when the need calls, get something in return and do not have to stand in line or at the back of the queue while those that have not contributed are treated equally or better. And I do not like it I would like the CHOICE to opt-out and not pay for the service(s) I do not need or will never use and set aside the money for the things I will need and use.
But I live under a 1950’s Soviet system of collective responsibility and no matter who I vote for I never win.
July 25, 2023
Opting out – contentious but a discussion that should take place.
July 25, 2023
Not possible we are a generous and social country; only 60% pay income tax, less pay national insurance and only those employed have employers NI 13.8% plus class 1a and 1b + the IR35 people now.
July 25, 2023
++++
I think EQUITY ( the govt. uses it to âtransformâ some lives and ruin ours!) means that those who have less than you get more than you. Equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity
?
So, as you sayâŠback of the queue for us.
July 26, 2023
Yes, Government figures released yesterday:
“show 104,510 households were in temporary accommodation by the end of March this year, the highest figure since records began in 1998. The rise has been sharp, with 9,520 more households being placed in temporary accommodation since last year, a 10% jump.”
It’s a reasonable assumption that these people are British, and either they or their close relatives have, at some point, contributed to the Treasury’s coffers.
Meanwhile, the Government is providing 4* hotel accommodation or high-quality accommodation on barges and other facilities for roughly 80,000 people who have committed an illegal act by entering our country and who have never paid a penny into the system. Yet they also get “free” healthcare, dentistry, legal aid, food, pocket money, sports/gym facilities … and now we’re told, “free” bus passes, taxis and social/sports outings.
Stopping the boats Rishi? No …. you’re providing a “free” socialist lifestyle package that billions in the 3rd world will risk dying for. And meanwhile our own people are left homeless and ignored.
July 25, 2023
Sir John,
Interesting thoughts and certainly makes one think.
Just out of interest, where would you classify foreign aid in general and more specifically, how would you classify the relatively new concept of the state matching each pound donated to certain charities by the public, with a pound from the government’s coffers? Would you classify these as public services?
July 26, 2023
Iâd be surprised if any more than a penny in the pound of foreign aid actually reaches the intended recipient
July 25, 2023
These three questions are about characteristics other than performance and effectiveness. Would it not be more useful to characterise them by how effective or efficient they are in fulfilling their roles then work back to the characteristics that make them more or less effective and efficient? Starting with these measures would require and would benefit from international comparisons to indicate whether the UK is performing better or worse than the equivalent sectors in other countries. If it is at or near the top, it ain’t broke so don’t fix it. Prioritise change to the poor performing sectors that would gain the most for the UK as whole if brought up to the standard of the best performing sectors internationally.
July 25, 2023
There is no opposition party John, you are all singing from the same hymn sheet.
This is one of the most anti business governments in history
Swingeing taxes to pay for ever poorer services, using foreign shipyards to build for the Royal Navy.
Next you will be awarding Hitachi/GE orders for building SMRs.
You penalise tourists and are set to bankrupt the poorest with your net zero nonsense.
Mass immigration is the centre piece of your planning leaving millions on benefits.
No one will believe anything the uniparties put in their manifesto as it will be all lies.
July 25, 2023
+1
Ian,
JR seems to forget Cameron promised his bonfire of quangos 14 years ago! Landsley allegedly reformed the NHS, Boles changed the planning legislation to the NPPF! Cameron claimed he changed the relationship with EU, Rees-Mogg called it thin gruel! Cameron claimed to bring immigration down to tens of thousands, Osborne said no one in private was serious! Less than 2,000 immigrants entered the country under the golden visas scheme ie the brightest and best with skills the UK wanted out of 1.2 million!
Javid was proud to announce at Tory conference when HS that he shut down all detention centres! Where did he and the party think these people were going to be housed? Turns out four star hotels when we have military vets homeless.
A morally and strategic bankrupt party with no soul or direction other than global socialism.
July 25, 2023
I’ve just been checking the last 7 days wind generation. Weekdays from 1.5gw to 2.2gw. Sat and Sunday slowly up to 9gw when you least need it and 2.6gw today. Not bad for 35gw installed capacity. So taking us up to 50gw by 2030 should give us 4gw on a day like today. Priceless
July 25, 2023
and which country’s economies will benefit from this expansion?
July 26, 2023
We’re going to have to get a lot more hamsters and wheels to power all those EV’s we’re supposed to be getting.
July 25, 2023
The determined move to AI will basically end public âserviceâ.
Environmental Health noise âteamâ ( ie ONE bloke) relies entirely on an app for âevidenceâ and will/can no longer come out and witness/put a stop to noise.
OhâŠand within the allowed reporting time (3 weeks) the app is withdrawn by the provider for some reason.
July 25, 2023
The Environment Agency brought in by Blaire at a cost of over ÂŁ3.5 billion, only 500,000,000 on infrastructure projects. The rest in salaries and pensions! The EA were meant to take away work from local authorities, instead of a cut in community charge we have tripled taxation for the same services. For example, adult social care paid three times, council charge, taxation and selling your house. Flood defence in community charge and EA! The list goes on. Get rid of the EA they only implement and instil EU directives for no benefit whatsoever to the taxpayer. You will find most quangos and ancillary bodies are to change our way of life to cultural Marxism and to embed EU laws and directives.
July 25, 2023
But whatever the route,
Donât we pay for it all?
None of these services seem in any way answerable to the paymasters.
I mean, whoever gave them leave to change the day job from public service to ideological celebration?
July 25, 2023
With the benefit of hindsight, it is now apparent that the privatisation of what were once previously public owned infrastructure companies has failed dismally. Particularly, the water and sewage dumping companies, the electricity generation/distribution industry, the railways and council housing.
In each case the proceeds were used for government/council general expenditure rather than being invested for the future, in a British Sovereign Wealth fund for example, or by building replacement social housing. As their NHS collapses due to mismanagement and lack of capacity, no wonder that the electorate has become enamoured of socialism
July 25, 2023
The electricity companies have been legislated against, that market actually works because there is competition. The other examples you cite do not work because the competitive model is false.
Public services need competition and charging models.
July 25, 2023
There is no market in electricity anymore – they saw that one off and now all charge the same. You cannot get a good deal, only a few over-priced fixed deals, and then only for short periods.
July 25, 2023
You obviously didn’t live in the 60s or 70s when you waited a year for a shared telephone line or endless waits for a gas or electricity connection.
Sewage was regularly discharged to sea and when they were privatised no one knew the government would import half a million bodies annually to finance their ponsi scheme
July 25, 2023
9% year on year increases when water privatised under the guise to bring the sewerage system up to date. Scotland has better services and still part of the community charge not an extra cost where water companies dump hundreds of thousands times a year waste into our rivers! What is the EA doing about it? Sweet FA.
July 25, 2023
Well said. Not only did you have to wait for a telephone, but everything had to be rented from the GPO. This wretched organisation had total control (outside Kingston upon Hull, for some reason).
I also clearly remember travelling by train at great expense from York to King’s Cross in the 1970s and having to stand all the way. When I arrived at King’s Cross, there were scruffy porters everywhere standing around chatting but not available to help.
Used the coach to Victoria after that. Very basic but considerably cheaper.
July 25, 2023
I used to have a shared line, but before that it was the phone box on the corner. And of course the charges were much lower. Water was included in my rates bill in the seventies. Regarding phones, the game changer was the silicon chip.
July 25, 2023
+1
Well put.
July 25, 2023
The Tory government also blocked BT’s plan to roll out fibre to the premises across the whole country thereby making copper redundant entirely, massively increasing capacity and removing the disadvantage those in rural locations suffer from a lesser service. Now fibre is being rolled out piecemeal and a full fibre system will not happen.
With regard to mobile, the Tories selected an American supplier of infrastructure against a Chinese company that was offering a much cheaper service. Of course the Tory Arts graduates were convinced that the Chinese would set up backdoors to listen to everybody’s inane conversations whilst the trustworthy US would never spy on us – ho hum. Actually the Chinese are very keen to sell their products and services and unlike the US do go round the world threatening regime change or invasion.
July 25, 2023
Sakara
Agreed, Norway used the revenue from North Sea Oil and Gas far more effectively than we have.
It helped them fund and improve more efficient hydro electric power generation schemes.
July 25, 2023
That climate activist swedish girl has been found guilty for various protests/damages etc
So Sunak should no longer cling to Net ZeroâŠsurely?
All he has to do is cancel it.
And maybe give us back our police FORCE.
He might just save the tories from obliteration.
July 25, 2023
OhâŠis he wobbling?
July 26, 2023
According to the net-zero minister the government is still 100% committed to their policy of net-zero …that was 2 days ago in the house of lords
July 25, 2023
The NHS is vetting me for a hearing aid. I was impressed that the hospital Trust dealing with me carries out the diagnostics and subcontracts to the private sector the provision and ensuing maintenance of a hearing aid. This seems to me to be a very good example of how the NHS and the public sector can work together for the benefit of the Trust, the taxpayer and the patient.
July 25, 2023
The Conservative Government have introduced ESG into Government services.
The S in this acronym stands for Social. So Government departments are now implementing Social Justice policies. These are the same policies that have been responsible for anti-white racism in the USA and have been called illegal and stopped by Justice Clarence Thomas. the US supreme court. He said Racism is Racism and has no colour.
So Nigel Farage is now pointing out that the Conservative Party have introduced racist and sexist policies that discriminate against those who disagree with mass migration or merit based promotions.
This country has turned into apartheid South Africa and yet the MPs sit on their hands and ask us for their votes.
July 25, 2023
++++
It was always said that SA was the Petri dish ( of globalists? Whoever) to be used for determining future action in the rest of the world.
I know from family that those who could get out did so.
Only to come to a country with a CONSERVATIVE ( !!!) govt. and find themselves on exactly the same path.
July 25, 2023
Ben Habib makes a similar point and the cost attached to every business to comply with ESG ie cultural Marxism promoted by the uni party in govt.
July 26, 2023
Well said.
July 25, 2023
The operative word in the mix is âfreeâ. In our world now of connectivity the word free is misplaced.
Free apps, web services etc. are anything but, the are first and foremost âclick-baitâ to farm humans, in effect en-slave humans. Data is the modern gold. Some people assume that oh they (the service) just know who I am that’s not so bad. Not realising that cost was also everyone on your contact list whether they wanted you to give their details away or not.
Just to enter Sir Johnâs wonderful diary this morning meant my personal and probably that of those on my contact list was handed over to 4 other entities. The sinister bit is those that accept their data will be stolen donât really get to know who, why and where that data is used. The data is moved off shore and outside the UK legal jurisdiction and then sold and shared by people you will never know whom they are.
Does GPDR are protect the user? No you generally have to read through 30 odd pages of T&C before you are told we steel your data and sell it â so people donât.
It has all been confused by the need to advertise to fund a service, that has been turned on its head to just steel and sell on.
July 25, 2023
Maybe it is time to introduce a levy for using all public services. A small fee will concentrate the minds of users as to whether or not the service is good or even if they require it.
I received an email from my daughter’s school the other day asking for voluntary payments each term. Education is one of few services the government provides to me for my net contribution in tax. I see no reason why I should pay into a public/ private partnership whose employees are demanding more money when benefits claimants’ children who are not net contributors already benefit from my enforced largess.
Those who use services should pay for them.
July 25, 2023
Perhaps the other parents who can’t afford to pay ÂŁ should give that amount of time to the school, and get them cleared. extra hands and eyes on school visits, reading sessions, good behaviour classes for children that need time out if distracting others, break supervision, lunch supervision, and cleaning equipment, helping with sports. You know all the things parents used to do before we introduced paid Teacher assistants.
July 26, 2023
In kind payments – yes good idea.
July 25, 2023
Indeed but state subsidised (from taxes) services like the BBC, social housing, education, soft university loans, the NHS are all unfair competition that prevents more efficient providers form competing and kills innovation and better provision. Far better to have far less state sector and to let people keep their own money and to spend it as they wish on the things they and their families want and need. It is surely at least three or four times as efficient this way.
So much government expenditure even does positive harm – net zero, the misguided energy policy, much of planning controls, the war on motorists, the over high and absurdly complex taxation, the war on landlords (and thus tenants) and on the self employed and small business, most employment laws, much of often misguided health and safety…
Even on of the main drivers of much of this deluded net zero religion and a Greta Thunberg disciple one Micheal Gove finally seem to have realised that the Government is going far too fast.
Not just too fast but totally the wrong policy mate, you daft, socialist, English graduate and supporter of Starmers 20% vat on school fees.
July 25, 2023
On radio this morning, Gove said they will not back down on ICE cars and gas boilers. Let’s see how long it is ’til Rishi overrules him.
July 25, 2023
Graham
Gove has just become a joke over the last few years since he stabbed Boris in the back, no one believes a word he says anymore.
July 26, 2023
I believe him when he says that this mad government is going to continue with its policy of banning ICE cars, gas boilers, gas cookers, fracking shale gas and any further fossil fuel developments
July 25, 2023
Indeed. Farage is exactly right.
July 25, 2023
No judgement on what is good or bad, which makes sense. Said because the quality of impact on their customers is down to their management and frontline service providers. Private providers are possibly the better bet, assuming they are not a cartel or monololy, on the basis that failure to satisfy their customers ultimately closes the business. It does not mean all public run services are bad, however I cannot think of anything government has a hand in working well. The one exception being our armed services who do well despite government.
July 25, 2023
One of the big flaws in the term âprivatisationâ is that things are chucked/dumped onto private holders without the need or desire for them to offer competitive services.
For the UKâs security, safety and existence some elements are essential â deemed critical. The obvious ones at the moment are electricity supply and water. These entities exist from not only payment for service by the consumer also then the taxpayer funding the infrastructure and backbone. That’s just a tax give away. Water Companies have a captive user base, but get to own all the taxpayer created facilities, yet don’t have to work in a competitive market place to maintain them. Then when things go wrong, their dividends are not as high as their investors want it is the taxpayer that gets to fund their improvement â basically dole out money without a vote. The majority of our water and electricity is now in foreign hands and a good chunk of that is foreign state owned and the Government cant any longer ask for service. That is not a Government in control and keeping us safe and secure.
Where the structures are wrong is were market forces cant be brought into play, the ownership of the facilities should remain with the State, the State then contracts out the running by competitive tender. Never forget the last thing anyone wants is the State trying to actually physically run things. Just look at the NHS, a massive a basket case, so-called trusts employed to run things within and on budget, and then the Government negotiating expenses and costs â it cant work.
Reply There can be competition to supply power and water. When these were state monopolies they were poor and dear. Competition is the key to driving value and quality where customers pay the bills.
July 25, 2023
â Reply There can be competition to supply power and water. When these were state monopolies they were poor and dear. Competition is the key to driving value and quality where customers pay the bills.â
I see no evidence to support this.
In the case of water, many of the water board employees were there for life. They knew the industry and most at least had some sense of public service.
Now we have privatised water companies. Many are owned by overseas enterprises with no experience whatsoever of the water industry. They have used their business as a cash cow to extract maximum dividends and maximum rewards for the top executives. There has been insufficient investment and the infrastructure has failed to handle demand over the years.
There has been no oversight and now we are literally up s*** creek.
The various regulators are useless and are there merely for show. It looks like the public will once again be required to pick up the pieces.
July 25, 2023
Sir John, you say there can be competition to supply Power and Water and I agree! but the contracts are written by idiots. The contract should be for running the infrastructure, but not the ownership, which should remain in public ownership with the public finance if modernisation is needed. At present we have a system built for the population the Fifties supplying a country with millions more hangers on! This would allow for performance criterion and the ability to remove the company if it does not do the job intended, as Is happening now with the water infrastructure all over the country. Not one company but all of them are failing so that is the fault of Government. Ian is totally correct
July 25, 2023
MFD,
â The contract should be for running the infrastructure, but not the ownership,â
A franchise?
Because that worked so well on the railways.
July 25, 2023
Reply to reply
We had competition in electricity (but not anymore) – never with water. Prices are now the highest they’ve ever been with people put into hardship to pay the bills and the billions taken out in profits which do not get re-cycled into the business. The government even had to pay peoples electricity bills from our taxes. The water companies are particularly egregious having made tens of billions and putting only a small fraction back and belatedly at that. Why don’t the government allow competition in water? Water was not dear under the state, it was much cheaper than now.
July 25, 2023
A successful new water company takes out as much as possible from the business in dividends and rewards for directors. Investment is minimal.
A really successful one then makes it known how profitable the business has been and flogs the whole lot off to another investor for a large premium on the price it originally paid. This next investor operates with exactly the same objectives. And so it goes on, like musical chairs.
July 25, 2023
What competition is there in the distribution of clean water and the filtration/sanitation of dirty waters when there are only one set of of pipes distributing water and one set of sewers/wastewater treatment by region.
âCompetition is the key to driving value and quality where the customers pay the billsâ.
The only âcompetitionâ might be through the way the customers are billed, not on the âvalue and/or qualityâ of the water provided.
But what we have recently seen is that the private model of water provision in the UK is simply not working, despite the ooh-aah of people who have not moved from what they were thinking in the 1980s (and have been stuck with it for 45+ years).
July 25, 2023
Would you like food, another vital product to only be organised by the state hefner?
No private supermarkets allowed?
July 26, 2023
Are you talking about provision of mineral water in private supermarkets, MiB?
July 26, 2023
No
But well dodged hefner.
July 25, 2023
but how to protect against a cartel, or rigged market?
July 26, 2023
@Reply âThere can be competition to supply power and waterâ On present form that would seem impossible. Who competes with Thames Water? Who could compete with Thames Water? There is no market place pressure, their only pressure comes from their shareholder who understandably wants a reward, the payer is the consumer who is denied choice. There is no Market Place.
There are endless illustrations of were it falls down for some sectors. As always the bailout for essential services comes from the taxpayer â that is also wrong. I am against Governments running things, they are the worst of the worst. So it would seem more appropriate that the taxpayer owned the physical stuff, and the running was by a contracted provider. That way the taxpayer doesnât have to pay twice.
July 25, 2023
Sir Redwood, interesting but in my opinion not the main issue.
There are really only two main classes, NHS Is similar to defence, we pay for it through general taxation.
The main distinction is between competitive and non competitive services, but apart from the very mildly energy sector all the rest (rail, water, council etc.) are emphatically non competitive.
Certainly water should be nationalised (this from a firm Thcherite).
July 25, 2023
“Certainly water should be nationalised”
Depends on what they do with it.
There’s no water shortage in this country, just a shortage of storage.
July 25, 2023
but unlike a Government Budget which is leaked 100%, the Water Companies only leak about 25%.
July 25, 2023
No entity that exist with taxpayer(includes compulsory monopoly payments)money should be set free if the taxpayer also doesnât get to vote directly on how it operates. The taxpayer is an equal shareholder by default.
The word âprivatisationâ or even private has been distorted. The word implies something operating in a competitive market place. As it is competition that keeps prices under control.
Most of what UK Governments do/create is just a fudge, they donât create a free and open market. Therefore they are devoted to giving taxpayer money away. Then you get to question the association of our political class with these protected taxpayer funded entities.
July 25, 2023
We also have highly regulated sectors such as banking and power supply. The more regulated they are, the more they act like the public sector.
For example, customer service at banks and power companies is generally poor.
July 25, 2023
Another intrusion into the Marketplace by the interfering Government is the threat by the SNP to cause any house with a gas boiler to not be sold.
We already have the arbritary EPC checkbox (no check for geothermal energy, only for the useless but profitable âair-sourced heat pumpsâ. Anything rated G canât be sold, Anything rated F or below canât be let. Those properties are effectively without value.
Time the Government butted out of the vast majority of transactions done in all fields.
July 25, 2023
The further left the country votes, the bigger the state funded sector becomes and the poorer we all become until finally we reach the Russian stage of âthey pretend to pay us and we pretend to workâ together with relentless BBC propaganda, severe restrictions on freedom of speech to counteract any opposition to any policy, Chinese regulated life and Stasi size and style of infiltration into every aspect of daily life.
All made immeasurably worse by the implementation of unilateral Net Zero designed to bring us back to pre-industrial living standards.
July 25, 2023
Public services exist because of a basic need . The trouble is they do not have to compete in a manner that is profit motivated and hence driven by continuous efficiency . Management and supervision depends on how objectives are set and constantly required to answer to an authority that has a background that is effectively related and skilled . The key always reverts to who makes the choice of key leadership and how often they are checked .
July 25, 2023
… didn’t realise that a local newspaper was a private Monopoly …
July 25, 2023
If find it strange that Public Service can have so many titles, but everyone still gets paid.
Surely true Public service is given freely by one person to another, expecting nothing in return.
Local Authorities now just seem like a huge money collection and distribution organisations.
Monies collected via huge range range of charges, fines, and from Central Government etc. Then distributed through a whole host of Benefits (some means tested some not) with Social Services taking up in many cases half of the income !.
If you are lucky some may repair the roads, collect your refuse, cut the grass, or clear out the ditches, but that sort of service seems to be in decline.
I often wonder if the Government often use Local Authorities as an excuse for their own policy failures.
July 25, 2023
Unfortunately, many of these business models are bad for national productivity and worsen the delivery of services. If you look at the evolution of service models over the years, they follow a depressing pattern:
1. A new service gets invented to improve everyoneâs lives. Entrepreneurs take up the ideas and create businesses to provide the service. The competition encourages innovation, and the best companies take a significant market share. Everyone is happy with the new service.
2. Greedy managers connive with governments to allow them to create monopolies. This approach removes costs and provides short-term benefits. But with competition removed, the need for innovation and investment to continually improve the service is lost.
3. Socialists decide the answer is more regulation to control these monopolies. This intervention fixes issues in the now but further restricts the ability of niche players in the market to complete. The monopoly services continue to decline.
4. Socialists decide it is now an âessential serviceâ, and subsidies start to be applied. The government becomes more critical to the company than its customers, so the services worsen.
5. Socialists get annoyed subsidising the profits of these companies, so they nationalise them. Providing a good service is now even less of an imperative, which declines even more.
Where Conservatives have rolled back these models, as is the recent case with schools, standards have improved. We know this by comparing the performance of English schools to those in Scotland and Wales, which stayed the same. Sadly the lesson has not sunk in, and the Conservatives have facilitated other industries down this socialist path.
July 25, 2023
Amazingly, your government is collecting things like fines and extra taxes concerning driving offences very fast and efficiently.
Does the passport charge cover the cost of the passport department or not? I know someone that lost a work opportunity because they couldn’t get their passport, a job they’d waited six years to get and is now off the table.
Does the probate fee fully cover the cost of the probate department? We had a situation where it took ONE YEAR to get probate on a small estate under the tax threshold, less than ÂŁ150,000, with all paperwork checked and submitted by a registered solicitor; he had three other cases similarly delayed. One year when the home had to sit empty (can’t be sold without probate), the buyer lined up and dropped out. One of the main inheritors died before it concluded.
Highways Agency spending is that considered a monopoly, which department controls who gets contract awards? Aren’t all the motoring taxes covering it? Is that why they can sit on problems for over TWO YEARS? Any private company would fix and not frustrate customers.
July 25, 2023
a-tracy
I have to say that the Passport Office surprised me when I had to renew my old one very recently.
Used the On-Line service with a degree of trepidation, but the form was straightforward to complete, the Photograph (taken professionally, and so correct) uploaded when the password storing it was entered, and I received my new Passport in 4 working days. 6 days in total as it was over the weekend.
Received a number of automatic e mails about every stage of its progress.
Your application has been received, Your application is being checked, Your application has been passed, Your passport is being printed, Your passport is in the post.
I have to say I was astonished, but delighted.
July 25, 2023
”no new homes will be able to connect the gas network from 2025 as part of the Future Homes Standard. Instead, they will be equipped with energy-efficient insulation and heated by a low-carbon heating source such as an air source heat pump or hydrogen boilers”
Thats not public service, thats social engineering ….under the tories their net-zero policy hasn’t changed …despite losing 2 out of 3 by-elections
I’m not sure that the average joe realises that come 2030 there will nolonger be a gas cooker or gas boiler in any new or retro-fit build and that british gas will put up their prices due to fixed costs & reduced revenue
This government needs to start telling the people the facts of net-zero
July 25, 2023
Well they conspired to hide the prison terms of joining the EU, so this should be much easier.
July 25, 2023
I think a problem is created when Public Services become Public Authorities. The Public âServantsâ then get the idea that we work for them and much of the authoritarianism that we have endured over the last three years stems from that shift in attitude.
The Public Sector could work very well providing due credit is given to those who pay the bill.
July 25, 2023
If I had to buy gardening services for a council area, I certainly wouldn’t pay the current cut-leave and wilding crew. I’m pleased to report we did actually get a few flower tubs on railings since my last moan about this, but the local High Street central reservation looks like it’s neglected and over-run with chin-height thistles and brush. As they leave the majority of grass cuttings, we now have grass growing on pavements; along the length of curbs, half the footpath width has disappeared; even though they now allow cycling on pavements, we had a spell where you couldn’t see to turn right out the end of certain streets through overgrown grass. Because it is all being left, littering is increasing.
July 25, 2023
a-tracy
Same in Wokingham.
You are not alone. Many residents with cats and dogs now complaining about vets bills due to grass seed in pets ears, not being able to pick up dog poo easily in long grass.
Now I find wild grass seed has blown all over my gravel drive and flower beds, making a lot of extra work for me next year !
Then we have pot holes, which seem to be breading like mad.
July 26, 2023
I was driving back from somewhere I’d not been to for some time, recently. I found myself confused because where everything was overgrown, the area looked run- down, I didn’t recognise where I was!
July 25, 2023
I think a more appropriate term for wilding is neglect. Although it does seem to make the masses wild.
July 25, 2023
All very interesting analysis, but nothing here about sovereign ownership of intellectual property that is acquired by sovereign investment. Would that not deserve a share of the profits? Why is that not counted as a shareholdĂŹng? Does this happen anywhere?
July 25, 2023
Its not a public service
We the taxpayer donât fund or build petrol stations, so why are we funding and building EV charging stations
We need less government
July 25, 2023
yes fewer MPs, Peers, Ministers, and PAs to each. Fewer Spads, but more experienced advisors.
July 25, 2023
”New research suggests 40 Trillion gallons of water vapour was injected into the upper-atmosphere by the Tongan underwater volcano eruption, increasing the mass in the stratosphere by 13%, and likely to warm the earth for years to come. Initial estimates are “likely off by a factor of 3” Net-Zero-Watch
So we don’t need a policy of net-zero, nor ban ICE cars and gas boilers, as CO2 isn’t the issue …water vapour H2O is !
July 25, 2023
This was announced by NASA on 2 August 2022. How comes it has taken you 11 months to react?
July 25, 2023
which reminded me of ‘The Day the Rains Came’ Songwriters: Mckinley Morganfield.
Sung by Jane Morgan 1958.
extract:
We looked across the meadowland
And seemed to sense a kind of a miracle
Much too deep to understand
And there we were, so much in love
The day that the rains came down
Mountain streams swelled with pride
Gone the dry river bed
Gone the dust from the valley
The day that the rains came down
Buds were born, love was born
As the young buds will grow
So our young love will grow
Love, sweet love
Rain sweet rain
July 25, 2023
There is almost nothing honest and free in England wherever you look for service, free or public. Just look at advertising, TV in particular. The images shown do not illustrate anything like the country I live in and see daily.
Your party in government manipulates and dictates to them everywhere how they must operate and how they require us to think and behave.
But don’t worry folks, Sir John will be loyal and supportive of his party whatever it does and in any difficulty he will cover something else.
July 25, 2023
One lasting trend throughout the UK’s public services is the country’s curious attitude to ‘elective management’: choosing which bits of the allotted public task to observe and enforce, and which to ignore.
One example: it is a criminal offence, subject to a ÂŁ1000 fine, to knowingly provide an incorrect address for a driving licence, and not to inform the DVLA of a change of address.
A few years ago I was contacted at my address by a car hire firm demanding payment for someone else’s hired vehicle: the driver had given my address while failing to give valid credit card details. It turned out that the driver had lived at that address for a brief period twenty years previously, and had never informed the DVLA of his change of address – several hundred miles away.
The DVLA civil servants in Cardiff when contacted said (rather strangely) that there was ‘nothing they could do’ (although they did know his current address).
The police, when I asked them to intervene given the alarming potential for fraud, said it was ‘too unimportant’ for them to deal with.
I wrote to the Met Commissioner, who did think that it was important enough to depute a detective to sort out. The officer phoned me and very grudgingly said he’d contacted the driver, who ‘was very nice about it’ (!) and had ‘agreed'(!) to inform the DVLA of his real address. The police officer went on to say that a driving licence address was ‘not all that important’, and that he himself, though living in London, put his mother’s address on his licence to reduce his insurance costs.
July 25, 2023
GB News currently reporting on a ‘sting’ operation in which a number of immigration lawyers were caught offering to make up back stories for migrants including torture, persecution and sexual assault in exchange for large payments. But of course these stories wouldn’t be accepted unquestioningly without the willing collusion of the judges and the Government.
July 25, 2023
+many