Conversely, as one example of many ‘quangos’, BERR reportedly runs as a fifth column within government working for corporations to undermine democracy and the public interest – it’s budget since Mandleson returned is reported to be £1.92 b (taxpayer funded).

Mrs Thatcher faced an unenviable task clearing up the last mess created by Labour – when the going gets tough, the tough get going. There’s far more to Britain that Nuliebor as the local election results confirmed.

Cuts will have to be made and the Tories will need courage because for the cuts to be beneficial they will need to be deep and often painful.

Presently they are portraying the cuts as something that can be made with very little pain, and this is an impossibility given the almighty mess this Labour government have made of the economy.

The printing of money always leads to inflation although it takes time to feed through but, it is inevitable, so, the Tories will have the unenviable task of cutting costs whilst inflation is moving into third gear and whilst the economy continues to stagnate.

Better warn the electorate now

We know you’re planning to abolish the cards. The government has now admitted that they will never be made compulsory anyway; however, the cards were never the problem.

The problem is the database, the all-encompassing hackers’ delight that will hold all sorts of personal information on everyone, be accessible to huge numbers of officials, yet be totally secure, etc etc etc.

THAT is what we need abolished.

But I hear nothing definite from the Tory leadership on this.

I fear a weaselling-out operation is planned, or possibly some retreat along the lines of “the EU made us do it”.

Please tell me I’m being too cynical.

I assume we will stop the lot.

Does the opposition have the resources and foresight to have legislation prepared on this and other important matters so no time need be wasted on coming to office and starting to repair the damage?

2. We mention again our suggestion to get the civil service and the public fully engaged in the savings culture.

The new government should estimate, quantify and regularly measure and update our progress/success in reducing the cost of the state and the elimination of waste.
Call it ‘The People’s Piggy Bank’ (‘No more snouts in THIS trough!’) and publish estimates and actual figures monthly in an imaginative way.

Techniques that we have all used in sales and company incentive schemes should be used unashamedly and so should some of the catchy slogans that we regularly advocate here.
This is a deadly serious business but to connect with the public and get everyone genuinely onside we shouldn’t use just dry economic language and tired cliches.

Free Bus Pass Scheme was, of course, not affordable even at the time Labour introduced it – a gimmick to gain political support.

The electorate have two simple choices – ’socialist totalitarianism’ or a return to the principles of democracy – free enterprise, free opinion and free speech.

Labour favour Federal Europe with Blair as next president

The quangocracy is a symptom of the problem not a cause.

Close down the health police in their entirety, no more government contributions to charities, half the number of salaried government ministers, no more consultants or advisory committees on anything unless they give their advice for free in a spirit of public service, no subsidies for the arts, no advertising of government projects on television or in the press; the list can go on and on. The size of government must itself be the subject of attack if the reduction in spending is to be anything like enough to pay for the damage done by twelve years of Mr Brown getting every decision wrong.

Some can definitely be disbanded altogether: the NHPAU is one such which has failed totally to understand the drivers of the housing market – it seems to be a fig leaf to support Brown’s pre-crash policies Ponzi scheme of driving house prices higher through ever increasing mortgage lending, financing imports of consumer goods on the “wealth” created. They’re the idiots who were saying that houses were going to increase in “value” by a further factor of 10 over 2007 values (so you’d need to be a multi-millionaire to buy the average house), ignoring the role of migration in population forecasts and myriad other nonsenses. Just one column on housing from Merryn Somerset Webb contains much more common sense than the entire output of NHPAU.

I’m sure that others can identify similarly useless candidates.

The Tory’s need to discuss the drastic cuts needed. I thought Ian Duncan Smith talkd very good sense. Tell the truth about the state of the finances. Very good advice there as I know John Redwood has been doing. The leadership needs to get more honest about how bad things are.

There needs to be a fundamental rethink about the need for and accountability of quangos and quango-like bodies. Perhaps the Conservatives should consider a zero-base solution to quangos – abolishing them all and then only recreating those where there is an absolute need.

Outside of central government there are also quanlgos – e.g. the joint procurement organisations such as ESPO. These are hidden bureacracies which are demonstrably not benefiting the local communities and are used as an excuse by the stakeholding members from the local authories for discriminating against SMEs. These need to be tackled so that some real savings can be achieved in local government procurement.

I don’t mind paying public sector bonuses, but these should also go while the government is running a deficit. This is exactly the same as best practice in the private sector where companies generally don’t pay bonuses when they make a loss.

Please could you clarify the policy with regard to the National Identity Register, or whatever they are now calling the giant computer database which will hold all sorts of private details about me, and to which I will have to give information next time I have my passport renewed ?

For example, will there still be a £1,000 pound fine if I do not tell the state when I move house ?

ReplyI assume it too will go -that’s what I want