Anyway, two little points to add:
1. Notice how, at this very moment when the construction industry is laying off workers, when Estate Agents are going out of business (who would have foreseen that!) and when, in my own little area, there are a lot of unsold houses, at this very point in time, the Regional Development Plan has been unveiled with huge eco-towns all over the Region. Out of touch or what? (I suppose it is preparing for all the unwanted, and so often illegal, immigrants. Also, of course, for all those one parent families).

2. The Labour party is now £21,000,000 in debt and Lord Levy has gone. So, let me ask, who do you think is bankrolling the party now? And, of course, the EU is right in there with its disastrous economic recipe for all its workers…..

A competent government would accept that some pain is going to be necessary, and that property prices need to fall. It should allow reckless lenders such as Northern Rock to go to the wall, concentrating its efforts on protecting the interests of savers as far as that is possible.

None of this would be popular with the electorate. Sometimes though governments of any colour need to take deeply unpopular decisions, and it is their willingness to do so that determines their fitness to hold office.

My first suggestion is why not allow private companies to start their own police force and prison? We would then get the efficiency of the private sector into the public sector.

If my local police force is providing an inadequate service why shouldn’t I be able to ask their competition to deal with crime that is committed against me? At the moment the police and prisons have a monopoly why shouldn’t there be competition in the sector?

You are also correct in noting Brown’s need to satisfy the unions. A high & growing proportion of union membership is in government employment & whether the opportunities for school leavers would be better in the private sector of a growing economy or the public sector of a stagnant one the unions NEED to keep up public employment.

This then is a quite unusual situation in British politics where it is almost impossible for one party to steal the policies of the other. Labour cannot deliver a major cut in public employment, or indeed in their benefits such as inflation proof pensions & job security irrespective of competence. If, as I believe, these paying for these benefits is strongly resented by most of the population it is therefore ground on which the Tories can happily fight.

Just slimming back the functions of government to where they were in 1997 would be a great start.

Reply:My advice today is to this PM for now - of course a sensible governemnt will want to remove functions and quangos

Fine words John but where is our Ballymollee? There is no way we are going to get “there” unless we get back to “Zero Based Budgeting” across the whole of the public sector, this will be a big task for our next government. The only way will be to get a solid grip on the short and curlies of HM Treasury. Fortunately, there is a little band of renegades at the Treasury who are trying to codify who is spending what; gods bless them. They are called the Whole Government Accounts Team.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/public_spending_reporting/whole_of_government_accounts/wga_guidance_index.cfm

As you introduced the “name that tax” game recently, I would like to suggest another game. This will require Redwood fans to name the top 10 Quangos / NDPBs etc for elimination from the 1300 odd that are available on this spreadsheet. I suggest we give the “British Potato Council” a break, they have been taking some flack lately – yes it is there. Notice there are now four worksheets on this Excel spreadsheet – tabs at bottom of page.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/A/0/wga_200708_appendix_3_list_of_bodies_and_cpids_v2.xls

Unfortunately this spreadsheet does not allow us to link to the money pages, but that may be available to you John, perhaps you could arrange access for us?

Who knows, if the Citizen Initiative Bill, or even the Citizen Convention Bill accidentally become law we may be able to shut down a few of these spenders. Meanwhile, I will continue studying PESA 2008; I have made it my mission to understand it by Christmas – sad bugger.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/economic_data_and_tools/finance_spending_statistics/pes_publications/pespub_pesa08.cfm