Is Oliver Letwin a liar, a fool or both?

This week, Tory MP Oliver Letwin was on TV defending his local council’s decision to spend around £10m of our money on nice new offices for council bureaucrats while cutting funding to schools, elderly care, childcare, police and so on. Buffoon Letwin claimed that splashing out £10m on building new council offices would save money. What this prat didn’t mention was that the majority of projects run by the public sector end up costing between three and ten times the original budget. The Scottish parliament – budget £40m, actual cost £413m; the 2012 olympics – budget £2.4bn, actual cost £14bn; NHS IT system – budget £2.4bn, actual cost maybe £12bn if it’s not abandoned; Leicester hospital – budget £286m, actual cost £711m; Barts hospital – budget £620m, actual cost £1,000m and so on (I could list a few hundred more similar cases).

So by not considering that his council would massively overspend their £10m, Letwin is either a liar, a fool or both. I would say both. But then the ruling elite of politicians, bureaucrats and bankers will do and say anything to keep on feathering their own nests while imposing cuts on the rest of us.