Comments on: Waste Line

By: A Ellis

A Ellis — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:36:13 +0000

All unelected regional government

If Conservatives don’t support the above, then why do conservative councillors sit on these quango’s?

By: Neil Craig

Neil Craig — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:15:20 +0000

Index linked pensions for government employees.

Government departments, indeed government, expanding beyond core functions.

Housing planning depts whose main effect is to stop housebuilding.

Farming subsidies, including that MAFF has more emplotees than there are farmers.

Governemnt enquiries where high court judges & their staff spend a year, to avoid government having to make a decision, & come out with a report which reports the obvious (or in the case of Hutton doesn’t).

To often when asked about savings people jump on ministerial stuff but when you look at the actual costs of these they are miniscule in the big picture.

By: James Strachan

James Strachan — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 13:49:02 +0000

Hohn Redwood himself contributed to a Centre for Policy Studies leaflet which concluded that, out of

By: Arachnaphobe

Arachnaphobe — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 23:41:35 +0000

Let’s stop introducing unenforceable laws and then inventing a myriad appeal systems that merely benefit the lawyers and just bog down the police and judiciary, and bring them both into disrepute.

Immigration - well it’s been a mess for ages, and it’s about time someone grasped the mettle and put it in order. We have unlimited obligations to our fellow EU member countries and their peoples. I do not allow people to enter my house and then justify their right to be there afterwards. It is NOT a racist concept, it is a simple concept common to all humanity. I do not care what the colour of the people affected are. If we continue with the current situation, it would be cheaper and as effective to scrap all border control and allow unrestricted entry.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:38:30 +0000

I have one that hasn’t been passed yet. The government is planning to pass another criminal justice bill in April that will make possession of certain sorts of pornography illegal. That will mean that many hard working, law abiding, currently tax paying citizens will risk being thrown in prison for up to three years because of their private sexuality. This will be at a cost of

By: Thor

Thor — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:05:19 +0000

The Iraqi civil war, which we precipitated and are now sitting in the middle of, and the ID card debacle.

Also, it doesn’t look good that Prescott is spending

By: Serf

Serf — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 07:17:59 +0000

Mr Redwood,

I can highly recommend the Blog Burning Our Money, which focuses entirely on this issue.
http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/

For myself, I think the two biggest wastes of money are the EU and John Prescott.

By: Fidothedog

Fidothedog — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 22:21:33 +0000

That dome fiasco, made the UK the laughing stock of the world. Oh and John “Pink Gin” Prescott happily spending our money and doing not a jot for it.

By: Jorgen

Jorgen — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 20:31:09 +0000

Apart from your list:
- Spending on the socalled “Global warming”
- Hosting the Olympics
- Cameron’s “relative poverty”
- Probably whatever else Cameron and his Green friend(s) dreams up

By: Alan Connor

Alan Connor — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:26:51 +0000

I also want to know why when I married recently, I could not put “english” for nationality on the Registry office forms? The same happened in the local library, can be british or nothing why?

By: Alan Connor

Alan Connor — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:21:33 +0000

Money wasted on being in the EU..
Money wasted on illegal war
MP’s Pay Rise of 66% for less than 5 months work…. Part timers you all need a pay cut!
Childrens Database…. not legal yet going through!
ID Cards .. unworkable, unwanted and still the idiots in charge will not listen

By: Chris M

Chris M — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 17:18:26 +0000

Rather than a specific instance, I have a tale which highlights all that is wrong with the way the public sector does business.

I work for an internet agency which has been involve with various small projects for government departments. During the quotation phase for one of these projects we offered to carry out the work for what we felt was a reasonable price.

To our total disbelief we were asked to double our quotation! The reasoning behind this was that if this department failed to spend their allocated money in full then their budget for the next financial year would be cut. This reasoning cost the tax payer over fifty thousand pounds.

Until this mindset is wiped out from all levels of government the tax payer will never achieve value for money.

By: Elaib

Elaib — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 17:09:36 +0000

Good list there Mr Redwood, other than missing out on the collosal waste of cash that our continued membership of the EU is it could have been written by any stupid UKIP member or supporter.

By: Jonathan Sheppard

Jonathan Sheppard — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:45:45 +0000

Its always interesting to see how much money Government Departments pay on things like stationery. How much they spend on first as opposed to second class postage. How much money has been spent on rebranding. How much money has been spent on internal magazines - and that’s just looking at central Government departments. Im sure the bumper book of government waste has looked into much of this.

The real issue here is why haven’t we been effective in portraying savings that can be made by cutting waste as being completely different to how it has been often portrayed - which is service cuts due to proposed cuts in spending.

By: Jon M

Jon M — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:01:07 +0000

- Hosting the Olympics
- Keeping UK forces in Iraq
- Planned state funding of political parties
- Replacing Trident