Elon Musk is touted as a new Wastefinder General to go into the US government and cut back waste and excessive bureaucracy. He will doubtless find plenty of targets, but will he be able to get control and force through change? Much of the excess takes the form of public bodies, regulators and overlapping Federal, state and local administration. They will be well protected by laws , lobbies and sometimes by Congress.
The U.K. has seen a similar rapid expansion of external bodies and regulators. The first aim should be to stop the increase. It is a bad idea to set up a Football Regulator. Ministers and officials should not be judging the solvency and spending of football clubs. The Sport itself can establish rules for the major tournaments and leagues, with the clubs having a say and deciding which ones to join.
The second aim should be to raise the general productivity level. A recruitment freeze would allow say 6% a year reduction in headcount without redundancies, and give more scope for promotion to those with jobs as vacancies became available.
The third aim should be to reduce the amount of regulation being undertaken. The new government says there is too much planning, so bring on the simplifications. The delays for bat surveys and carbon checks could be pared back. Planning applications are far too long with too many associated consultant reports.
Whole areas of government led activity like emissions trading should be ended. It’s needless extra cost which boosts world CO 2 by forcing energy using industry out of the U.K., shifting to import dependence.
November 8, 2024
Another area to save business costs is removal of ESG regulations. Judging by some company Annual Reports, colossal sums are being spent on consultants to advise and write reports about how woke the business is. This is an unnecessary business cost.
November 8, 2024
Follow up post. I have just read that the Chair of HS2 has said the company has spent 100 million on a “bat shed” to protect the Bechstein bat! This is the most extreme example of regulatory insanity I have come across. At the other end of the scale my younger son and daughter in law bought a no longer used property in the Highlands. As part of the process to obtain planning permission for its conversion to become habitable they were required to hire bat watchers who spent several nights looking for protected species of bats. Luckily there were none. You couldn’t make it up.
November 8, 2024
And HS2 were not required to do it! They are all batty….but its our money wasted.
November 8, 2024
@ Dave Andrews
And yet no-one seems to worry about the bats and other birds being shredded yearly on the wind turbines!
November 8, 2024
All DEI functions should be banned. We should be living in a meritocracy where we strive for the best outcomes
Of course non of this will happen because bureaucracy is like cancer consuming all before
it and spreading,to all corners of government.
Many of the Quangos duplicate functions and act as a barrier to responsibility.
The charitable sector consists of mant taxpayer funded scams. For example the RNLI acting as an illegal immigration taxi service. The whole charitable sector should be examined and government funding stopped.
There’s plenty of scope for savings but we don’t have a Musk.
November 8, 2024
+1 The Government PAYS Quangos and NGOs to oppose its policies which is particularly obvious when it comes to the illegal immigration scam. The first thing they should do is help defund these organisations by withdrawing ALL taxpayer support. The fact that they don’t is the clearest indication (apart from the obvious coordination with France) that the illegal invasion is an undeclared policy.
November 8, 2024
DEI is there to divvy up jobs for all the newcomers to the UK. It is the reason working-class white kids, in particular, can’t get graduate jobs as they don’t have connections. When DEI gets involved in funding the arts, white British kids don’t get the funding/roles in proportion to the number of them trained, as funding is predicated on employing an enhanced number of minorities.
When we allow millions of people to come (even without passports), then giving them citizenship DEI has to exist so that the State doesn’t provide free accommodation and expenses for life.
November 8, 2024
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, says he cannot be fired and will not step down if Trump asks him.
The Federal Reserve was set up in a very strange way all those years ago.
November 8, 2024
Last year £14 billion was given in subsidies to wind and solar projects. This is set to increase by £2.8 billion this year due to Milibrains latest round of licensing. This doesn’t include the climate change levy. How does this square with renewables being the cheapest.
Getting rid of the communist Milibrain would be a good saving of government money.
November 8, 2024
Why are the population so placid, they can see the evil happening, we must stop it for the sake of our children and grand children. The first move must be to ban Social Media, its just an evil that facilitates the brain washing.
November 8, 2024
MFD
Why ?
Because all of the main stream media and most Politicians promote the Idea of Net Zero, and try to close down any debate at all by saying the Science is settled.
Anyone with any sense at all would question such but few bother, hence Ignorance for many is bliss and very, very costly for us all. !
November 8, 2024
No its not, its a means of sharing discussion ,knowledge, dissent , and almost the only medium for speaking the truth. Just because one dare not say it out aloud, it does not mean one should not speak ones’ mind.
November 8, 2024
Indeed, so much fat that could so easily be cut, net zero especially but zero sign that this appalling Labour government will do anything sensible. They are following the ConSocialist agenda we suffered for 14 years but making it even worse.
Have Lammy, Cooper Balls, Angela Rayner and Miliband resigned for their moronic past vulgar abuse of Donald Trump yet? Scatological as Kemi put it.
So are Kemi and her Energy Sec. Claire Couthino going to become climate realists and admit the war on CO2 is mad, gives us absurd energy prices 3 times the UK, the methods pushed do not even reduce CO2 and it destroys living standards. Or are they going to continue to support the idiot Theresa May’s appalling bill? Are they like Trump going the investigate the appalling net harm Covid Vaccines for all scandal. Or will they stick to the Sunak lie of ‘Unequivocally the Covid vaccines are safe’ when this is clearly totally wrong as is shown by all the world wide state and excess death rates and timing? Claire and Kemi should be capable of reading the very clear statistics.
November 8, 2024
Streeting has also said stupid things about Trump it seems. He also said stupid thinks about keep quiet about the (clearly unsafe) conviction of Lucy Letby so as not to upset the “victims”. Do these “victims” want an unsafe conviction victim too? Does he really think this will make them happier?
November 8, 2024
+1
November 8, 2024
+1 truth must prevail!
November 8, 2024
Maybe you could set out a more constructive agenda it is very easy to sit on the side lines & Criticise
November 8, 2024
ESG, DEI and compliance generally with a nod to genuine health and safety.
The workforce is more mobile these days with Gen Z and millennials often leaving roles every two years. They will not stay in companies they have distaste for so the market will do its job in terms of company ethos.
November 8, 2024
Interestingly the above post was blocked by an NHS WiFi hub. They will let me read this “blasphemy” but not contribute to it.
November 8, 2024
I wouldn’t be surprised if Miliband said that every indiviual had to do an ESG self-assessment
November 8, 2024
Good morning.
As someone who ‘knows of’ some of the people pushing this ‘Football Regulator’ I can confirm many of them are Lefties. Putting someone who knows little about the game is a bad idea as there will be someone to overrule those in authority.
One of the simplest ways to stop football clubs from being mismanaged to is to make them all ‘unlimited’ companies. That can be done through a Act of Parliament. It would make the owners of such clubs fully liable for all debts. The second would be to re-introduce HMRC prefered creditor status. ie Before any other creditor recieves monies from a club or company in insolvancy, HMRC must be paid first. The third is again, through an Act of Parliament, to change the rules on ownership and encourage greater supporter ownership. In Germany many clubs are owned by football fans with the 50+1 Rule. ie. 50% plus one share is fan owned and safeguards are put in place giving them extra protection which currently under UK Law they would not have.
I have no issues with the Premier League and EFL Championship. They are currently charging way too higher prices for all things, especially tickets. This means football fans either go without or, support another local and cheaper football club.
I could go on on this but this is not what this is about but it was mentioned. ie You do not need another QUANGO with all the associated costs and nonsense. You just need to use what you already have, but in a smarter way. It seems to me that, like all Socialists, if you want to solve a problem, you need to regulate and / or throw loads of money at it which, as we all know, does not work.
The Premier League, whilst I hate is and do not watch it, is the perfect example of Capitalism. Which is why I think they want to destroy it. ENVY I suppose ?
November 8, 2024
You want Parliament to have a greater say in running the country, Ian B. So would I, but I don’t hold out much hope. As David Starkey has pointed out, the whole thrust of government action since Blair has been to take power out of the hands of Parliament and give it to quangos, regulators or the Supreme Court. Where we are now, there is not the faintest chance that the new government with its roots in the public sector will slim down the public sector. To me, the only question of interest is whether the new Conservative leadership will set out a serious, credible programme for doing so, and for returning powers to Parliament. We shall see.
November 8, 2024
+1
November 8, 2024
Mark B,
It seems to me, that top flight football Clubs see many of their supporters as an inconvenience. They don’t really want the supporter that turns up on match day as it costs the club a great deal of money to facilitate that visit and to police it.
The club wants corporate supporters who will pay for a private box for twenty people, will pay for a hospitality package and will not need stewards and police officers to supervise them.
I used to go to watch West Ham play in the early 1960s. A couple of bob to stand in the Chicken Run was all it cost. Now, sixty pounds but that includes a seat. How can a father afford to take a couple of his sons to watch a live game on an ordinary wage?
Corporate punters and television rights are what top flight clubs want, not the ordinary supporter.
November 8, 2024
CD
Not been to see a live Premiership game now for 20 years, do not subscribe to SKY or any other sports channels.
Lost interest in my club when too few home produced players used in the first team.
Too many overseas players now in our leagues, leaving our nation short of players to select for for the National team.
Sport now a huge business, money comes first, the sport second.
Transfer fees and players wages have become obscene.
Perhaps we should have a limit on the number of overseas players allowed in a team, similar to cricket.
November 8, 2024
CD,
Clubs would like to attract tourists who will pay top dollar for a seat. That market is currently controlled by agencies that sell on tickets for inflated prices.
At one time only cup final tickets were sold on at extortionate prices. Paradoxically, the historic FA cup has now been diminished because the top clubs concentrate on the league and Europe. BBC support the FA Cup and to a lesser extent women’s football because they are not costly and other broadcasters are not interested.
Fulham now have £3000 season tickets in their new riverside stand. Clearly these are not aimed at the average supporter.
November 8, 2024
I worked on the Riverside Stand. They have to charge that to get the money back on what they paid. Post Covid and Grendfell they had to take out a lot of the stuff already installed due to changes in the fire regulations. The bit I was working on, the fitness centre, was a complete redo.
November 8, 2024
All true. That is why lower league clubs are better and, don’t let this out – In non-league you can drink on the terraces and there is no trouble.
The Prem’ can keep its Prawn Sandwich ‘supporters’.
November 8, 2024
Did you read about the football regulator banning a 17-year-old girl from playing for six matches (it was initially going to be 12) because she asked a fellow player with a beard if they were a man? The Free Speech Union has picked up the case.
The girl cried during the disciplinary hearing and when she was found guilty of discrimination and persistent transphobia. The girl said she had become confused about the participation of the trans player due to them wearing jewellery and sunglasses and not being in the opposition kit. The moment that player clarified they were transgender, which she said she hadn’t considered, she respected their answer fully, dropped the situation and put her focus back on the game. She raised the risk of injury with the referee because the player was much larger and very physical.
If this girls club knew they were playing a team with trans players, the rules and awareness should have been discussed in advance; the girl is said to be autistic, so she possibly didn’t have the appropriate social norms bred into teenagers now at High School.
November 8, 2024
No. But it would not surprise me. This is the fault more of government pandering to minorities than a problem with fottball in itself.
November 8, 2024
The US deficit is $1.8 trillion. 42.29% of GDP. UK deficit is 3% of GDP to demonstrate how out of control the Biden Administration has been. Wonder why they lost?
Musk MUST cut the deficit + because interest on the debt has now hit $1 trillion.
HS2 has spent £100 million on a ‘bat shed’ to appease ‘Natural England’.
We can’t afford ‘Natural England’
Reply You greatly overstate the deficit as a percentage of GDP.
November 8, 2024
Source Maldon Economics.
November 8, 2024
My error – that is the % of world budget deficit by country, nevertheless the USA accounts for 42.29% of the world budget deficit. Unsustainable.
November 8, 2024
Here’s some perspective:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/217428/us-budget-balance-and-forecast-as-a-percentage-of-the-gdp/
Here’s UK
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-budget
November 8, 2024
6.3%
November 8, 2024
I suspect that the whole edifice of UK planning is designed to bat away things that government and their CS do not like and promote things they do. It would appear that in the UK they have eased SMRs aside for ever more intermittent windmills. The motivation is not what the country needs. It is to satisfy what the heretics of climate change want, leading to deindustrialisation and power outs. The UK opposition can, Don Quixote like, tilt at these windmills, but it is the groundswell of the people, as in the USA, who will end the insanity.
Additionally, Starmer will have to choose between the effective reversal of Brexit and a trade deal with the USA. Nigel exposed the shabbyness of two tier’s Chagos grubby deal that excluded the Chargosians, only last night. Reversing that deal to please Trump is better than losing our fishing industry to the EU as a quid pro quo for a cosier EU relationship. It is a reality check time for Labour now that Trump is back in charge, and the UK population grows ever more restive.
Thinking of Remembrance Day, if Labour cannot control a few (hotheads Ed) bent on disruption, then they are looking at their own obituary.
November 8, 2024
I agree. I think Trump (following Nigel’s briefing) will offer Keir-Ching! a trade deal which is too good to refuse … but won’t be compatible with his objective of dragging us even further back into the EU’s orbit.
I’m looking forward to him addressing Parliament, with the assembled hordes of Trump haters forced to listen politely and, I hope, tell the truth about the Net Zero scam.
November 8, 2024
+1 with reference to the threatened disruption of Rememberance Day by the enemy within!
November 8, 2024
@agricola – the labour energy team still insist as Gordon Brown did that Nuclear (SMR’s included) has no place in the UK
November 8, 2024
@agricola – the Chargosians had no say in what happened to their Islands, instead in their usual dictatorial way our Government our Parliament is to hand the islands over to a nation some 1300 miles away that has no real connection to them. The UK governing these 2 different entities under one administration didn’t change their history as separate entities. Even then the Chargosians themselves will have no rights to return. They have been screwed by 2TK old boys network, in the same way the taxpayer is being screwed by the same group harbouring ‘none’ jobs at the taxpayers expense – Kier’s 2 Tier Society. Confirming parliament its members will fight against democracy rather than fight for it
November 8, 2024
@agricola – these hot heads have the same controlling sponsors as 2TK and labour as such are untouchable
November 8, 2024
If you take a similar stance against this Governments actions, you will be locked up, forcing real criminals to be released to make room for you. Political dissension will not be permitted under the two tier dictatorship
November 8, 2024
Do not forget who is in charge at the Foreign Office.
Sorry to spoil your day.
November 8, 2024
I hope the Republicans get the House of Representatives, otherwise the delivery of many of their plans is in trouble.
We need the US example to show the western world what can be done about bloated government (assuming it’s successful).
We then need our media to tell our public honestly about the US success in cutting size and scope of government/quangos/regulations/deficit.
We then need political parties here to say they will emulate the US example.
A lot has to fall in place before we can start addressing our problem.
November 8, 2024
Getting close. 211 so far, with 218 needed for a majority and 24 still to declare.
November 8, 2024
A hilarious meme went round Russian social media yesterday-it showed a picture of Kamala Harris and Zelensky standing at their lecterns during a press conference in Washington earlier this year ; Zelensky looks across to Kamala with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth:”See,I told you, you should have cancelled the elections.”
November 8, 2024
The first thing that should be done is to stop the break-up of England into what will resemble the kingdoms of Alfred the Great’s time. All that will do is install yet another layer of government with even more jobs for the political guys n gals and their legions of bureaucrats and administrators.
The English people have not voted to have their country broken up in this way.
November 8, 2024
No half measures no middle ground, we either have a complete united kingdom or we have four separate countries
November 8, 2024
Four seperate countries, please.
November 8, 2024
Donna
+20
November 8, 2024
Apologies, Sir John, but I do not agree with this statement:
“The third aim should be to reduce the amount of regulation being undertaken.”
I think this ought to be the very first aim! With fewer (and fewer!) regulations the need for box-tickers would decrease rapidly, thus money would be saved. As for an increase in productivity: why not impose penalties on ‘regulators’ who do not fulfil a given set of tasks, e.g. issue so many drivers licences per day …?
November 8, 2024
We once had lots of Elon Musks and they were all the Government ministers in the Thatcher and Major administrations. I believe I am right when I claim it was required of all those Ministers to cut waste and operate efficiently and they did that.
Since 1997 that discipline eroded and look at us now. In aggregate we have a bloated, unproductive and inefficient public sector. For efficiency and responsibility to be restored these standards must exist in the PM. We can evidence from the Autumn budget they definitely do not exist in Keir Starmer (nor Rachel Reeves). I hope they exist in Kemi Badenoch.
Regarding UK productivity, please feel free to look at page 10 of this report from the NIESR. The UK’s annual labour productivity between 2008 and 2020 was just 0.5%. This is even lower than between 1790 and 1840 (when it was 0.6%).
Also look at page 9 to see how the UK’s productivity compares with USA, Germany and France between 1890 and 2019. We currently have about a 15% productivity gap with all of them. This is in aggregate so it will include the UK public sector’s long-term productivity stagnation as well as its recent productivity collapse:
file:///C:/Users/paulf/Downloads/Productivity-in-the-UK-Evidence-Review.pdf
Whatever all the reasons are, solving this should be an urgent priority of the government so we can boost GDP.
November 8, 2024
Apologies, new PC. Here is the link:
https://www.niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Productivity-in-the-UK-Evidence-Review.pdf
November 8, 2024
“I hope they exist in Kemi Badenoch.”
Something tells me you are going to be dissapointed.
November 8, 2024
Not sure freezing recruitment is either adequate or a good idea. Any organisation needs to be able to recruit competent and enthusiastic new people. What needs to happen is less productive public sector workers are made redundant. That’s much more tricky of course – it means running the public sector like a business. Perhaps Elon will be able to do this in the US, but our union-dominated Labour govt here won’t even think about it.
November 8, 2024
Back in 2006 the tax payers alliance produced a book “The bumper book of government waste” which was an eye opener. Things have got worse since then with a significantly expanded and unproductive public sector.
November 8, 2024
Why on earth do GB News employ Nigel Nelson he is always totally wrong on everything. Talking rubbish about energy and the recent electricity rationing report and power cuts on Rees-Mogg last night.
November 8, 2024
I assume he is the comedy turn. They have to comply with Ofcom’s warped idea of balance, so they’ve found the most ridiculous lefty they could to provide “balance” against the sensible right of centre commentators. The same applies to the idiot who spouts the climate change nonsense (whose name currently escapes me).
November 8, 2024
+1
November 8, 2024
He is not even funny with it. I assume he know no science, logic or energy engineering.
Mathew Parris is always wrong too – but he at least can occasionally be amusing.
November 8, 2024
Roland Rat
November 8, 2024
LL
To keep Ofcom off their backs for not being balanced?
November 8, 2024
ESG, Net Zeroand Diversity all unnecessary business costs – indeed money spent doing huge net harms to the business by employing the wrong people in the wrong positions rather than on merit. Also thus destroying incentives for others as this discrimination becomes obvious.
November 8, 2024
The Football Regulator was a Conservative idea now taken on by Labour demonstrating how little difference there is between the two. The Premier League is one of our great success stories, it is the leading football league in the world however you measure it – left-wing politicians can’t resist meddling in success.
Unless Trump/Musk get a majority in Congress – currently still looking doubtful – there is no chance at all of them making meaningful cuts any time soon.
November 8, 2024
RG,
‘ The Premier League is one of our great success stories, it is the leading football league in the world however you measure it ’
No it isn’t.
It’s a money-making racket. Aided and abetted by satellite TV and dubious individuals and countries who try to use it to promote a better image for themselves.
Football used to be affordable and games were easy to get into. No expensive season tickets required. Cash payment at the turnstile. Bob Lord of Burnley was quite right about keeping TV out of it. Even his one great achievement of banning televising games at 3pm on Saturday is now under attack.
I packed up watching games when I could get a Saturday job in Woolworths. I do have a season ticket now (a sensibly priced one) but I can see the huge damage done elsewhere.
November 8, 2024
The Premier League is a huge financial success but, given the fact that most clubs in it lose money suggests that there is a problem that must be resolved. A Government QUANGO will be as much use as all the others – ie None !
November 8, 2024
But all of what you are suggesting would put an awful lot of lefties out of work, so, desirable though that might be, l cannot see it happening any time soon!
November 8, 2024
The Football Regular proposed by a Conservative Government after a report by a Conservative MP, Dame Tracey Crouch, must represent the nadir of the post-Brexit Conservative Party. Presumably it was argued that BAME players are under-represented in the game! I cannot think of a better example of what the Government shouldn’t be doing.
I agree entirely with Sir John that we need a British Elon Musk, but there is no chance for the next 5 years to sweep away the whole raft of regulatory, consultative and grant-awarding bodies with the regulations that they promote and the taxpayers’ money that they spend.
November 8, 2024
Its days like November 5th, that provide the seed corn for British humour.
Yesterday I read the headline. Guardian offers its staff counselling to ease them through the trauma of the Trump..
I laughed at their willingness to admit how much of a snowflake they all are.
I dread to think what state George Monbiot’s mind is in.
You have to laugh.
November 8, 2024
Unfortunately it will be the British who will become the Left’s whipping boys in the punishment for the Trump victory. They will take out all of their frustrations on us.
I dread to think how we’ll fair in trade arrangements with the US now but it will be good to see Labour humiliated as the worst government in the free world at least.
In many ways the harder and faster Labour push us the better. I just wish the Tories would get out of the way.
November 8, 2024
+99
November 8, 2024
Did you see Patrick Christie, on GB News, drinking a pint of Rory Stewart’s tears? Comedy Gold.
November 8, 2024
Shame I missed that, The opportunity to see the Woke getting a true dose of democracy in action, has been the most therapeutic event I have gad in a long time.
Can’t be long before they come out with, ‘it was the wrong kind of democracy’ 🙂
November 8, 2024
Oh god, how disgusting.
November 8, 2024
And James O’Brien’s !
November 8, 2024
Let us hope Trump will bring out the climate realists. The whole CO2 devil gas religion is clearly a huge exaggeration and a massive hugely damaging scam. Monbiot has stated that his “political awakening” was prompted by reading Bettina Ehrlich’s book, Paolo and Panetto, while at his prep school and that he regretted attending Oxford (Zoology). He did eventually come round to approving of nuclear energy.
His book – Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning the only one of his I have looked at is totally bonkers!
November 8, 2024
These Zoologist and Biologists! That which is not physics is stamp collecting’. This quote (and variants thereof) is widely attributed to the Nobel prize-winning nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford.
November 8, 2024
@Rod Evans – a big +1
November 8, 2024
Musk dislikes Starmer.
We have Starmer for the same reason that America has Trump.
The Tories failed to deal with illegal immigration, gave us too much legal immigration and failed to tackle woke and identity politics.
Britain may at least stand as a warning to the free world as to what happens when you allow Marxists to rule but we are finished be sure of that.
I just wish that the remaining Tories would get out of the way and let us have our own Trump.
November 8, 2024
“The U.K. has seen a similar rapid expansion of external bodies and regulators.”
Also the Civil Service and all institutions. This is the deliberate creeping Sovietisation of our country. The eventual aim is for everyone to work for the state. The Civil Service, quangos, regulators, academia and institutions etc. are filled with Far Left parasites feeding off the workers in the wealth creating private sector. Because they have so much time on their hands and tax money they are able to waste both on developing and promoting their ideology, an ideology that we should not forget led in the last century to the deaths of at least 100 million people.
November 8, 2024
It would be good if Elon Musk could succeed in this task – it would help to throw light on the wasteful actions and quangos in the UK.
It’s unlikely MSM will publicise any such wins for Musk or Trump, but it’s important that they be recognized to encourage a similar function over here.
November 8, 2024
I have built a number of new houses over the years and extended and improved others.
On three occasions I have had locals tell the planning office that they have seen bats flying in the area.
We were then required in each case to have a bat survey at a cost of £250-£450 each. In not a single case, the inspector said that there was no evidence of the presence of bats to be found. The locals, having failed to stop our developments, simply employed what the architect said was the “well know Bat Defence.” There was, of course, no come back on the persons making the accusations which were obviously lies.
I could give other examples but the planning system is riddled with them. My last planning application was for a small extension to our home and this was made doubly difficult because the planning officer was working from home and steadfastly refused to visit the site where her concerns could have been satisfied in a five minute conversation. Friends tell me that the simplest of applications now take almost twice as long to process and I read that planning fees are going to almost double. Local government at its absolute worst.
November 8, 2024
It is a natural law of bureaucracies that efficiency and productivity decline as scope, reach and complexity increase. The solution, obviously, is to reduce scope, reach or complexity, or all of them. It is human nature to resist change. Pain and pleasure incentives are necessary to effect change. Musk has probably never encountered this conflict in person since his employees have, for all of his career, been highly motivated and competent. He would succeed if the bureaucrats want to change but they will more likely resist very strongly.
November 8, 2024
My feeling is that those that want, need our Taxpayer money should always be under direct Political Control.
What we call WOKE, those that setup departments for Diversity, Inclusion and Equalities are making ‘political’ statements – pushing an agenda of discrimination. That’s a Political Choice, the Taxpayer shouldn’t be funding political campaigning of any description, certainly without direct say in the choices being made.
On the premise, that everyone is born equal, has equal rights as being the way we are governed an the way our Parliament and Laws work, for those in receipt of taxpayer money to then suggest one entity is more equal than another and as such is using Taxpayer funding for political purpose is at odds with common sense
November 8, 2024
I would love to know who has lent the United States $28triliion.
Funny money
November 8, 2024
I like Elon Musk and his personal drive. His Brother has created my favourite restaurant chain.
The irony is that once he sold PayPal and started his next ventures he has grown them for the most part by acquiring taxpayer funding- ‘I will build this, if you give me taxpayer money’ and they did. So he will have challenges when he takes on the very people that give him taxpayer money. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try.
Here in the UK to many of our Quangos have become shielded Political entities in their own right, demand our money offering nothing in return, with no democratic accountability or responsibility attached. In essence they come over as being just ‘jobs for the boys’ to keep individuals well paid and quiet, because that couldn’t get a real job.
The BoE, the OBR and others hived off from the Treasury so Chancellors can say not ‘me gov’ its them, is the Country the taxpayer better off receiving better results and services than before?
November 8, 2024
The main area of waste in the US is warmongering and the associated costs of the military/industrial/security complex. Neither the US nor the world needs the Rules-Based Order; indeed, it is doubtful the average American can even find the locations on the map where the US is interfering either politically or militarily. Musk needs advise the clear out of the US State department of the warmongers and treble his personal security detail at the same time.
Trump has indicated in the past that he does not support the major cost of NATO to the US and believes we Europeans should fund our own defence. However, it was the US which triggered the Ukraine war, the wars in the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Middle East and are now threatening Iran.
As the UK does not have its own defence policy but simply follows the US in all its adventurism, there would be a cost saving to the UK taxpayer as well.
November 8, 2024
133 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France
November 8, 2024
It is a mistake to believe that just because these non-documented arrivals turn up on our shores means they share our values, culture and belief in equality, democracy and freedom of speech.
November 8, 2024
And for their crime of entering our country uninvited, how many were brought before a Judge and sentenced to prison ?
November 9, 2024
The laws been there for over a year, so why haven’t any been brought before the courts ?
November 8, 2024
Off Topic.
A US oil firm has blamed the impact of the windfall taxas it confirmed it will end all its operations in the North Sea by the end of the decade. Apache, who took control of the field in Scotland in 2003, said the recent Labour Budget had made production “uneconomic.”
The firm, based in Texas, suspended new all drilling activity last year in the Forties field, east of Fraserburgh.
It comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed in the Budget that the tax on oil and gas firm profits would rise and be extended to 2030.
November 8, 2024
They don’t want to be working with nor assoicated with a communist regime (labour & tory) …the state will either own or control everything
November 8, 2024
And who do we have as our Wastefinder General? One Dave Goldstone, the man who nearly broke the bank with his HS2, which ran way over budget. It looks like Starmer has picked fools gold instead of the real thing.
Can we loan Mr Musk please?
November 8, 2024
Trump also wishes to prevent US central bank policy blindly and stubbornly following discredited out-of-step policies in the name of ‘independence’. Here in the UK, the Governor of the BoE has failed the country several times over, by selling billions of debt at a great loss, and most recently by cutting interest rates just as the post-budget inflationary pressures are flashing warning signals. Bailey should have stuck with 5% until there is more clarity. Anyone might think central bankers had never heard of Keynes’s suggestion that when the facts change, one should change one’s mind.
And yet the day after the budget, it was obvious that it would make all kinds of costs and prices rise steeply, added to transport costs and the benefits bill. It is difficult to believe that such comprehensive economic damage is not deliberate. The only alternative would be to assume a staggering level of stupidity and arrogance.
November 11, 2024
In general reduce all government control and interference in peoples lives at all levels both local in national.
Government control should restrict themselves only to those issues which can’t be dealt with other than nationally, ie Roads, National Security, the Judicial System and Welfare for example.
If it can be left alone it should be, including, NHS, Education in short leave people alone to decide for themselves whenever and wherever possible
November 12, 2024
You do not improve productivity by giving people the right to work 4 days a week. My experience of flexi time was that staff pretended to work for longer hours (took longer to do certain tasks) to save up hours so that they could take off Fridays for long weekends. I did not see any improvement in productivity by staff when flexi time was introduced so fear the same will be for 4 day weeks. Also, staff working from home do not have strong supervisory applied to them so I do not see how improved productivity will work.