'EMA is simply part of a system that expects so little from our kids, giving them everything for nothing, never teaching them the vital skills of planning long term, working hard to be rewarded, valuing learning for learning’s sake. EMA tells our children that education is something they need to be paid to undertake – not that it is a privilege they need to take advantage of in order to better themselves. Hence taking/demanding EMA and doing nothing with it, except to sit in a school building every day and feel satisfied for having done so.'

The wonderful Katharine Birbalsingh in The Telegraph in a piece that deserves reading in full. This woman should be given a role in Michael Gove's team; soon.
Else maybe Toby Young should offer her a position in his free Schools organisation.

What does the EU really cost us?

Dizzy Thinks has a summary but the item that caught my eye was this:

'from Chris Huhne's Department of Energy and Climate Change... Directive 2009/28/EC, which is about promoting the use of energy from renewable sources (sounds like legally required advertising doesn't it?) which they do know the cost of, and, helpfully the alleged cash terms benefit.

This little treasure will cost £19.85 billion to transpose into law, yes, £19,850,000,000, and the benefit? Well that's going to be £11 billion, which by my simpleton GCSE maths means it's being implemented at a loss of £8.85 billion. Bargain!'

Look around you, can you see any better uses for £8.85 vbillion? In fact let's be reasonable do you really think that the £11 billion of benefits can be justified?

Why Public Spending cuts are necessary

Gordon Brown's proligacy and deliberate stoking of a credit boom has left this country in a parlous state. As in 1979 it is the Conservatives that will have to fix the problems and so become hated. Wich reminds me of the Batman - Dark Knight quotation:

"Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it, but that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice. "

Maybe that is the point of the Conservatives to do the right thing and so be hated.

The ninety-third weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to management consultants Knox D’Arcy, as reported in The Telegraph for their simply incredible research to discover that found that council staff 'waste two-thirds of their day'.

A large number of public sector employees are wasting their time and our money - "No shit, Sherlock"

Government Spending Projects US style but I am sure there are plenty of UK examples as well...

The extent of Labour's scorched earth policy becomes clearer

The Mail have had some analysis of Labour's last years of wasteful spending analysed and the results are eye-watering. Do go and read the whole article but are are some of the highlights that illustrate the deliberate wasting of money by Gordon Brown and his cabal:

'Around £1.6billion was given to the European Union to distribute to poor countries, despite the UK already having its own Department for International Development (DfID).'

'public expenditure rise by 15 per cent over two years'

This spending was criminal and Gordon Brown & others should be held to account and prosecuted if at all possible.

More of Lord Myners comments in the House of Lords

From Hansard's report on yesterday's debate (my emphasis): 'The Government can create jobs but they cannot create the capacity sustainably to support those jobs if they are either imprudent in their fiscal policy or if the public sector begins to bear too heavily on the economy. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said, there is good work done in the public sector. We must ensure that during this period, when we face the need for fiscal adjustment, we do not denigrate those who work in the public sector.

We clearly need a policy of fiscal caution. It was right to support the economy during the global recession but there now needs to be fiscal adjustment, as evidenced by the last Government in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. There is nothing progressive about a Government who consistently spend more than they can raise in taxation, and certainly nothing progressive that endows generations to come with the liabilities incurred by the current generation. There will need to be significant cuts in public expenditure, but there is considerable waste in public expenditure. I have seen that in my own experience as a government Minister. I hope that the Government will pursue with vigilance their search for waste and efficiencies without making cuts which are injurious to the provision of public service. The difference between the Government and the previous Government was on the issue of timing and when those cuts should take place.

There was flawed thinking about job creation in the past. I found it very frustrating to sit in meetings with some of my fellow Ministers talking about creating jobs in the green economy and biotechnology. The Government cannot create jobs. The Government can create an environment that is conducive to the creation of jobs, but they cannot create jobs and we mislead ourselves if we believe they can. We need to create a context for competition, incentives for capital investment, protection for intellectual property and promotion of high standards of governance. We also need high quality business inputs in infrastructure, human capital and physical infrastructure-a subject that I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, will speak to in a moment. We need predictable and business-sensitive administrative rules, and a technological infrastructure which promotes innovation.

The economies of the state are not the same as the economies of the business or the family. There is an important role for the Government in supporting economic activity. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, made that very clear in a penetrating contribution to the Queen's Speech Debate last week. The economy is still operating at a rate in excess of 5 per cent below productive capacity.
Sensible words from an ex-Labour Minister, it's just a shame that he didn't have the guts to say the same to Gordon Brown when he was a Minister that man's failure of a government.

Just a small example but how many more such examples are there?

The Mail reports that:

'TEENAGE girls have been taught how to walk in high heels as part of a Government-funded college course.

The bizarre six-week 'Sexy Heels In The City' course was offered to 16-year-old students at South Thames College in South London.

It claims to prepare young women 'for the business world and their social lives' but has already been blasted as 'pointless' and 'a waste of time'.

The course is run by Chyna Whyne, a former backing singer, who claims her life was made a misery because she wasn't taught how to walk in high heels at a young age.'

Sunday top posts

1. The FT explain why Danny Alexander has not been caught 'bang to rights' over his CGT non-payment:

'But this morning’s story about his not paying capital gains tax on a London property appears overblown. Alexander bought his London flat in 1999 and started claiming on it only in 2005 when he became an MP; at that point it was his only home.

When he sold it two years later he paid no cgt - even though by then he had a home in Scotland (bought in 2006) and had designated the flat as his “second home” in respect of his Parliamentary allowance.

How come? Because under HMRC rules, if you move out of your main abode there is a three-year grace period during which you don’t have to pay any capital gains tax on selling it. As a result there was no obligation on Alexander to pay the levy and therefore he didn’t breach any rule. It is neither a “legal loophole” nor a piece of cunning tax avoidance.

In fact, I’m not sure the country wants a Treasury minister idiotic enough to go out of his way to pay taxes he was not liable for.'

2. Anna Raccoon beautifully explains the 'Bureaucratic Pecking Order':

'Those who can peck,
peck.

Those who can’t peck,
teach pecking.

Those who can’t teach pecking,
administer the teaching of pecking.

Those who can’t administer the teaching of pecking,
regulate the administration of the teaching of pecking.

Those who can’t regulate the administration of the teaching of pecking,
advocate at the bar, for or against the regulation of the administration
of the teaching of pecking.

Those who can’t advocate at the bar, for or against the
regulation of the administration of the teaching of pecking,
legislate about advocating for or against the regulation of the
administration of the teaching of pecking.

And this whole house of cards, legislation about advocating for
or against the regulation of the administration of the teaching of pecking,
is all paid for only by those who can and do peck...'

3. Blazing Cat Fur details (in his words, not mine):

'Ali Mallah a notorious Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Union Thug Assaults intrepid blogger Blazingcatfur! Mallah, who is also a Vice President of the virulently anti-semitic Canadian Arab Federation, is well known for his anti-Israel derangement and is shown in the video as he attempts to prevent Blazing from filming an anti-Netanyahu protest sponsored by the Leftist Islamofascist alliance in Toronto.'

This story may run and run.


4. Anna Raccoon has found another example of wasted public money:

'The financially pressed NHS has commissioned the Mother’s Union in Somerset to hand knit 150 breasts.

They are ‘cheaper than’ the £35 a boob version they used to buy.

The fake breasts will be issued to health visitors and community nurses who help support new mothers.

...


Before we could afford outreach workers to go and teach new born babes how to suck……

Jeez, no wonder the country is broke.'

There are examples of this sort of waste throughout the public sector, but if the Conservative/LibDem coalition propose any cuts the cry will be 'doctors, nurses and teachers' not outreach workers and teachers of tit sucking.


5. And talking of breastfeeding, And there was me thinking reports on a most peculiar fatwa:

'One of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institutions is to discipline a cleric after he issued a decree allowing women to breastfeed their male colleagues.

...

Dr Izzat Atiya of Egypt's al-Azhar University said it offered a way around segregation of the sexes at work.

...

His fatwa stated the act would make the man symbolically related to the woman and preclude any sexual relations.

...

According to Islamic tradition, or Hadith, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.'

There are some really strange people around.


6. Burning Our Money explains why the poor have not got poorer but richer and why the definition of poverty needs updating:

'Yes, there are plenty of people who live sad dysfunctional workless lives. But that's nothing to do with lack of material resources. That's to do with poor education, destructive personal behaviour, and our grotesque level of welfare dependency. None of which will be solved by yet more welfare cash.

Which is why we have long argued for reformulating our definition of what constitutes poverty. Ideally, we'd like to switch to an absolute standard of poverty such as they have in the US. But if we have to stick with a definition measured relative to median income, we'd settle for dropping the current poverty line at 60% of median income, and switching to a 50% line.

Why?

First, because we estimate it would save £20-30bn pa from the current welfare bill. And second, because it would increase the attractiveness of work relative to welfare (ie it would make the poverty trap problem a whole lot easier to solve).'

The BBC admit...

The BBC have an interesting piece on comparing the economy in 1997 and 2010, take a look:
Inflation: 1996 ~ 1.9% 2010 ~ 3.0%
Government borrowing: 1996/97 ~ £27bn 2009/10 ~ £178bn
National Debt: 1996/97 ~ £347bn 2009/10 ~ £799bn
Growth: 1997 ~ +3.0% 2009 ~ -5.0%
Interest Rates: 1997 ~ 5.94% 2010 ~ 0.5%
Health Spending: 1996/97 ~ £42.8bn 2009/10 ~ 119bn (Do you feel the NHS is three times better?)
Education Spending: 1996/97 ~ £37.8bn 2009/10 ~ £88bn
Average House Price: 1997 ~ £55,621 2010 ~ £161,320
Unemployment: Jan 1997 ~ 2.23 million Jan 2010 ~ 2.45 million
Personal Debt: 1997 ~ £492bn 2010 ~ £1,460bn

So it's inflation up by 57%, Government borrowing up by 659%, National Debt up by 230% and Growth down from a healthy 3% to negative growth of 5%.

In return for that we have interest rates down albeit because the economy is tanking, massively increased spending in health and education (might this have anything to do with the deficit and National debt being raised?).

Average house prices are up thanks to Gordon Brown's deliberate creation of a housing bubble and I think that might be somewhat linked to the almost trebling of personal debt.

Unemployment is only slightly up but I think that figure needs to viewed with some suspicion bearing in mind the off-the count figures.


So 13 years of Labour rule - on balance good or bad for the economy?

'Brown has been trying to use the tools of state to rig the election since he took over'

Fraser Nelson has a must read piece in The Spectator about the Labour government's propaganda war, do read the whole piece but here's an extract or two:

'Gordon Brown has been shameless in using the tools of state to advance his party political objectives – to him, government is electoral war by other means. Anyone who has turned on a commercial radio station recently will have worked out his latest trick: a mass propaganda splurge before an election campaign. Get on a bus, and it can be 100 percent state adverts – advising how Big Brother will help you get a job, buy a car, see off door-to-door salesmen, give you a job in the prison services – anything you want.

...

As we say in the Spectator’s editorial in tomorrow’s edition, Brown has been trying to use the tools of state to rig the election since he took over. His tactic is to employ as much of the electorate as he can (for every three private sector jobs since 1997, there have been five public sector jobs – a million more state workers) and his propaganda budget is simply another means to achieve the same end.'

Busy day - so here are some links

It's going to be a busy day today and anyway the themes for my blog would have been the same as they have been for some days now: the BBC's obsession with Lord Ashcroft and accentuating every piece of positive economic news whilst hiding the bad economic news, the Labour party's leaderships willingness to obfuscate the truth and the media's relentless attempts to demonise Israel. So here are some links that I think you should read:
1. The latest BBC article about Lord Ashcroft, fisk it yourself, I can't muster the enthusiasm let alone spare the time.


2. The BBC's article revealing that 'The public sector wastes at least £25bn a year because of a failure to reform outdated procurement and outsourcing practices'; just remind me which 'prudent' politician has been Chancellor or Prime Minister for the last 13 years.


3. The Telegraph's news, not covered by the BBC, that 'Labour does plan to raise taxes next year if it wins the election, Lord Mandelson revealed yesterday. The First Secretary admitted that “further” raising of taxes beyond the range of measures already announced would have to be considered a year from now.

Public spending cuts would also have to be examined, he said.'. Now why would the BBC not want to report this news?


4. The Mail's article revealing that ' Millions of pensioners could lose up to £200 in a 'penny-pinching raid' on the elderly, it emerged last night.

The Government will freeze vital top-ups to the basic State pension after quietly dropping a pledge to increase them in line with inflation every year.' Again not a word on the BBC about this matter.

5. The Mail has details of Tony Blair's multitude of sources of income - very interesting reading for believers in Iraq war conspiracy theories.


That should keep you busy until I get back...

Somehow fitting

It seems somehow fitting that if you try and access ClunkingFist.co.uk you get the message:

"This account has been suspended. Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources."

A domain about that great waster of money, Gordon Brown, may have run out of resources; now that's apt.

Wasting our money

The FT report that:

"An investment by taxpayers of £74m into regional venture capital funds has been marked down to just £5m according to a report by the Whitehall auditor, which is highly critical of the government’s wider venture capital programme.

Since 2000, the Department for Business has invested £338m in 28 venture capital funds – through seven umbrella schemes – that have provided seed money to more than 800 companies.

...

The regional venture capital funds – one of the seven schemes – has reported an interim rate of return of -15.7 per cent, far worse than the -0.4 per cent delivered by other similar European funds.

Meanwhile, many of the funds have been paying high costs to private sector fund managers. The RVCF, for example, spent £46m in fees against £130m invested up to December 2008.

The taxpayers’ investment of £74m in the RVCF is now worth only £5m – a drop of about 93 per cent.

...

The National Audit Office revealed in December that these venture capital funds had taken a loss on four out of five investments they had sold – 189 write-offs since 2000 against just 45 profitable exits."

And now for the punchline....

"“Whether the investments represent value for money is entirely unclear,” says Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons committee. "

Unclear? Unclear!

Does Gordon Brown really think we are stupid

Gordon Brown's comments on Government Waste are widely recorded today and I found this passage almost beyond belief:

"Money which should be spent on health, schools, policing and social services is in some cases going on excessive salaries and unjustified bonuses far beyond the expectations of the majority of workers. This culture of excess must change and will change."

Has Gordon Brown really just worked out that not all of his 'investment' was going to front line services and some might possibly be being spent on highly paid Labour voting bureaucrats? This pretence anger at the waste that he has discovered really angers me. The man has deliberately created a Labour client state with our money and now he seems to think that we will believe him when he seems to state that it all grew up without his knowledge.

It's 'Mandy' time

Just two Peter Mandelson stories this weekend, but they do, I think, say so much about the man and his motivations.

The first is from The Mail and concerns the

"Anger at Peter Mandelson's £13m plan for ‘minimalist palace’ after he calls for pay restraint"

It seems that:

"With its moody lighting, low-slung sofas and plasma TVs, there is only one Cabinet Minister who would feel truly at home here – this is the £13million new Whitehall ‘palace’ being built for Peter Mandelson.

The Business Secretary’s London HQ – the nerve centre of the ‘empire of Mandelsonia’ – is being given a slick, minimalist refurbishment to reflect
his growing power in Government.

But last night Tory chairman Eric Pickles accused Lord Mandelson of hypocrisy for demanding pay and spending restraint while lavishing funds on his own department. "

How odd to see the word 'hypocrisy' and the name 'Peter Mandelson' in the same article, how very odd. As with most ex and indeed current Marxists, nothing but the best for the members of the politburo.

But it is this part of the article that annoyed me the most as it sums up the wastrel habits of this vile Labour government:

"A Business Department spokesman said: ‘Currently, staff in the department are split between this and a second site – as we are surrendering that site, it is a cost-neutral project.’ "

There you go there is an amount of money to spend and so long as we don't exceed it that's fine. Might a better option have been to consolidate the two offices but not spend £8-£10 million on the office re-fit? Was a cheaper option even considered? I doubt it, after all it's not Peter Mandelson or Gordon Brown's money their future income is safe and the massive tax increases will hardly dent Peter Mandelson's enormous EU pension.


The second article is from The Times and concerns the believable claims that

"Gordon Brown is facing demands to make Lord Mandelson foreign secretary in a row that risks tearing apart his government.

The business secretary is secretly pressing Brown to hold a cabinet reshuffle so he can achieve his life-long ambition of running the Foreign Office. Mandelson made the request after he was snubbed for the post of European Union foreign minister at last week’s Brussels summit.

Mandelson’s reshuffle call puts the prime minister in a perilous position as he struggles to retain the support of the most powerful figures in the cabinet.

If he bows to Mandelson’s wishes, he risks alienating David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and his ally Ed Balls, the schools secretary, who is still eager for promotion. If he refuses Mandelson’s demand, he risks losing his loyalty with potentially devastating consequences for the election."

Peter Mandelson scheming for advancement in public office, who would have thought it? Is the UK really ready for an unelected Prime Minister with a twice disgraced and now unelected Foreign Secretary; and don't forget the never elected Baroness Ashton as the EU high representative. Democracy Labour style - makes you sick doesn't it?

£40.55 per comment

I read that

"A pioneering online consultation on Gordon Brown's much trumpeted government relaunch has received only 233 comments since its launch in June, according to Cabinet Office figures.

Building Britain's Future was designed to lay out the government's work on improving the economy and allow the public to make suggestions for the legislative programme in the next session of Parliament.

But the comments are sparse, and where they exist, scathing.

"This is obviously one of Brown's latest lamest attempts at a relaunch, it's therefore a Labour policy document and should not benefit from taxpayer's funds, " said one comment.

"How out of touch can you get? No substance, just more gesture politics and spin!" reads another.

The web site aimed to promote interaction through different channels but only five people responded to the consultation by making a video.

The Cabinet Office said the site cost £9,449 to set up."

Compared with the rest of the money Gordon Brown and his Labour government have wasted, £9,449 is small beer and £40.55 per comment probably seems reasonable to someone wedded to public expenditure as the solution to almost every problem.

A refreshing view of Labour Britain

Take a listen to last night's Radio 4 Front Row interview with Michael Caine; some thoughts on taxation and government waste that go against the BBC's views.

Brainwashing enviromentalist style

That's what our taxes are being spent on; scaring people with half-truths.

Now take a look at the Act on CO2 website and enjoy such rubbish as

"The sea-level rise across the UK is projected to be between 20cm and 80cm by 2100. In the worst case scenario, rises of up to 1.9 metres are possible (albeit highly unlikely)."

"The summer heat wave experienced in 2003 (which resulted in over 2,000 extra deaths in the UK and over 35,000 extra deaths across Europe) is likely to become a normal event by the 2040s or the 2050s. By the 2060s or 2070s, the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe."

But best of all this one

"The scientific community agrees – climate change is happening and human activity is almost certainly the cause."

"The scientific community agrees – climate change is happening and human activity is almost certainly the cause."Really, all the scientific community, really, are you sure?

So has Gordon Brown admitted that much of the public spending he has overseen has been 'inefficient' and 'unnecessary'?

"Labour will cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priority budgets. But when our plans are published in the coming months people will see that Labour will not support cuts in the vital frontline services on which people depend."

That's what Gordon Brown promised in his speech yesterday and the only reading that I can make of it is that up until now Gordon Brown's Labour government were happy to spend money on inefficient projects and unnecessary programmes, but now will stop. Well "hurrah"; maybe someone at the BBC could ask Gordon Brown how much money he calculates has been wasted so far on inefficient and unnecessary programmes.




Here's Conservative Home's take on Gordon Brown and "cuts".