The Guardian is reporting a speech that David Cameron is to make tonight to a Californian audience in which it is said "he will publish in full any contract between government and a third party supplier worth more than £25,000."
Questions arise:
What is the definition of a 'third party supplier' and who decides that?
How will this enable the public to hold ministers and civil servants to account?
How much will this cut government spending; how will it 'root out' waste; and how will it empower the public?
Where are the costings for this programme; costs such as staff, offices and 'support'? Where are the figures to show the waste 'rooted out'? How and by what means will the public be 'empowered'?
If a 'duff' contract has been negotiated, what means is there for the minister - or civil servant - to be 'brought to book'?
Unless Cameron puts some 'meat on the bones' this idea, like so many suggested by politicians, will be no more than 'empty words', another 'soundbite' and yet another bit of patronising rhetoric! Like, I suspect, the rest of the electorate I am totally p'd off by these 'half-explained' policies that actually deliver the exact opposite of what the electorate thought they were getting.
In any event, to take the environment as one example perhaps David Cameron can explain how the public will be empowered to hold ministers to account about a contract to build wind turbines, when the reason for that contract being enacted was decided by a government alien to the British people? David Cameron needs to be reminded that when things go wrong it is not the head of the office boy that one wants, it is the head of the boss!
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