Won't This Government Ever Stop?

On January 12, 1995 in Westminster: a fresh-faced shadow chancellor (destined to become a sallow faced Prime Minister) stood up and delivered a speech shot through with confidence. "The biggest question… is why our constitution is over-centralised, over-secretive and over-bureaucratic and why there is not more openness and accountability...... The real alternative is a bonfire of the quangos and greater democracy." 

The Labour Party's 1997 manifesto railed against the Tories for supporting "unaccountable quangos" that were "opposed to the idea of democracy". But more than nearly 14 years later the great "bonfire" Mr Brown spoke of remains unlit. Not only does it remain unlit but he is throwing more wood on the unlit bonfire! To coin a phrase - Strike a light!

Having nationalised half the UK's banking sector and established a shiny new quango to "protect and create value for the taxpayer as shareholder, with due regard to financial stability and acting in a way that promotes competition.", Nulab are now going on the safe side and hiring yet another two hundred and sixty taxpayer-funded penpushers to oversee the bits that are left.

Ironically, the bits that are left are mainly HSBC and The Nationwide Building Society, which appear to have been soundly managed and in no particular need of closer supervision.

The cynic in me asks: if the bits that are left appear to have been soundly managed and in no particular need of closer supervision - is there a hidden agenda?

The reason I ask is that I just do not believe anything this conniving, lying, preening, self-important collection of politicians that comprise the government and its Party say and who can only be the dregs of humanity!

HT: Mark Wadsworth