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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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.