Financial crisis: One more quango and we might burst
The MPs' expenses scandal has, I hope, been a wake-up call to those who rule us that we have rumbled the fact that so much of our money is squandered, says Simon Heffer.
For Gordon Brown, the silver lining in the cloud that is the MPs' expenses scandal has been that, for a fortnight or so, everybody forgot the other great achievement of Labour's time in office: the wrecking of the British economy. That, however, changed on Thursday, when Standard and Poor's, the credit ratings agency, put Britain on notice that the nation would be downgraded unless it became apparent that there was a plan to put the public finances back on a sound footing.
I am well aware that ratings agencies have not had a distinguished record in recent years: they managed to avoid seeing the sub-prime fiasco coming, for example, which would seem to make them as delinquent as the governments they criticise. However, as my colleague Edmund Conway has pointed out, it is far easier to make an accurate assessment of a government's debt than a banking system's. Indeed, it seemed to me that Standard and Poor's was stating the bleeding obvious, and I am surprised it took them this long. Our debt is massive, unsustainable, potentially bankrupting, and potential investors need to be alerted.
The humiliation this warning delivers to Mr Brown and his cronies is stark. Two months ago, we had a Budget that promised almost nothing by way of restraint, at a time when some action is needed to balance the books. Labour prefers to put up taxes rather than cut spending – and even its proposed tax rises, such as the vindictive 50 per cent rate on the so-called rich, will probably end up costing more to collect than they will raise. The Government fears cutting spending in a meaningful way because of the impact that would have on its own clientele. There is a pretence that all public spending is a good in itself, and that only social harm can come of reducing it.
Should you seek further evidence of why that is nonsense, just look again at how your hard-earned money is being spent by Members of Parliament. The other good that must come out of this disgusting scandal is that the microscope now needs to be applied to everything else the state does, to see how much more of our money is being wasted, and could instead be taken off the total deficit. I do not just mean in expenses (though county councillors, the quangocracy and others on the public payroll should now have to endure the sort of scrutiny being applied to MPs). I mean looking at whether many of those quangos themselves are really necessary, whether so many local government posts and budgets are needed (such as those set aside for pointless foreign travel, or Essex county council's notorious foray into banking), and, above all, the value we get from the billions we pour into the Ponzi scheme called the European Union.
For the scandal has, I hope, been a wake-up call to those who rule us that we have rumbled the fact that so much of our money is squandered, and that debt is being racked up to pay for fripperies and other unnecessary indulgences. The party ought now to be over. This is not just about a few million filched by bent MPs; it is about billions extorted from us and put to no constructive use whatsoever.
Were our credit rating to be lowered, the cost of borrowing would rise, and so would taxes. It would be a hole in the head we simply don't need. Since it looks as though he is more likely to be prime minister after the next election than anyone else, Dave can now show some leadership and reassure the financial world that he would not allow this absurdity to continue. It is rare for a Leader of the Opposition to be able to improve a country's position in the world: but a statement by Dave that he has heard the message coming from Standard and Poor's and that he intends a serious rationalisation of our public sector would do just that. After the last fortnight, he would find the public far more in the mood to countenance cuts than ever before.
Shove ha’penny is a truly British panacea
Much has been written about the vileness of Britain’s boozing culture, with the media routinely full of pictures of paralytically drunk youths who make most of our towns no-go areas on Friday and Saturday evenings. Cheap alcohol is blamed, but I have always thought that there are two other reasons.
First, too few young people go to pubs with their parents, who can bring them up to drink responsibly and with a modicum of civility, because too many pubs are horrible to anyone over 30. But the second factor is the demise of pub games, which only a generation ago were a great feature of our cultural life.
This week, a shove ha’penny league in Lincolnshire was scrapped because of a shortage of people to play this very genial game. And I can’t recall when I last went into a boozer and saw anyone playing darts, let alone something that requires intellectual effort, such as dominoes or cribbage.
If all people do when they go to pubs is drink, they will get drunk, and usually offensive. It’s time for a philanthropist to provide every pub in Britain with a shove ha’penny board.
At least he won't get sunstroke in prison
Having been a cricket lover more or less since I could walk, I have continued, despite all evidence to the contrary, to believe that the game remained a repository of decent values. This was, inevitably, shaken by the July 7 bombings: second to my horror at the slaughter was my shock that one of the murderers had been a club cricketer. The last nail went into the coffin of the game’s image this week when Chris Lewis, the former England all-rounder, was sent down for 13 years for cocaine smuggling.
Personally, I’d have given Lewis a life sentence 15 years ago, when during a Test match in the West Indies he fielded all day without a hat under a blazing sun, to show off his fashionably shaved head to his legion of lady admirers, and was felled by sunstroke. We knew he was a twerp; and it’s a short step from twerpitude to turpitude. I don’t think Wisden yet has a section on cricket and crime: it had better now.
Clowns to the left of me
I see that one or two joke candidates are crawling out of the woodwork for the Speakership, such as the preposterous John Bercow. However, so unregenerate is the Labour Party that it may mount a mass movement to vote for this self-publicist: who knows, he could get elected, though the secret ballot may help avoid this.
A Speaker has to be re-elected at the start of every parliament. An inadequate Speaker now would not necessarily have the approval of a vastly changed House of Commons, such as will be elected in the next 11 months. Whoever gets the job will be on probation, not in a job for life.
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