David Craig, on March 30th, 2025Sunday-Monday blog
I know readers don’t come to my blog to hear me moaning and complaining about my own unimpressive life. But I thought I might mention just one thing.
I wrote an article for THE DAILY SCEPTIC. The article was based on a blog I wrote a week or two ago and explained that the £3.25 billion of your money that Britain’s greatest ever female Chancellor had earmarked for cutting the cost of the public sector would almost certainly be wasted by civil service stupidity and incompetence and probably even lead to even higher public spending:
Why Britain Can Never Cut Public Spending
To write the blog and article I read a document put out by the Office for Value for Money (OVfM) (so you don’t have to) about how it intended to cut the cost of providing hotel accommodation for homeless Brits and all the engineers, doctors and scientists invading Britain across the Channel in spite of the Starmer/Cooper promises to “smash the evil people-smuggling gangs.” The OVfM was apparently set up by Reeves in October 2024 and from what little I understand it has been given about £3.25 billion of your taxes in order to save money.
I based my prediction of the OVfM achieving the square root of sweet Fanny Adams on the fact that during my working life I have been involved in helping design organisational improvement projects in almost 100 organisations in both the public and private sectors in 15 countries. So, perhaps immodestly, I considered that I had a bit of an idea of how the OVfM should have gone about its money-saving work.
When I get articles used by websites, I like reading the readers’ comments – not because I’m looking for praise for my obvious genius, but because many commenters can add to my work using their own experiences and insights. But with this article, I was somewhat taken aback by some of the invective and bile hurled at me.
Here are just some examples:
Even though my article was highly critical of Reeves, one commenter wrote: “Honestly record your own voice and see it if sounds any different from Rachel’s from accounts. Lets face it she is you and you are her.” The commenter went on to write: “Please find a way stop people like her being your gods. Maybe it means you have to give up the money worship, Is the money worship really worth it given the squalid existence that it has led to in your life?” I guess this reader doesn’t like me very much though I suspect he has never met me. If he had met me, then he would possibly be justified in his loathing of me?
Another wrote: “I stopped reading at this point. David Craig demonstrates he has no understanding of how a free market works.” And goes on to writing: “I suppose Mr Craig’s next step is Government commandeering private rental property.”
And there was: “By proposing a police investigation into an undefined offence of “profiteering†the author disclosed his socialist economic views”.
And one commenter wrote a long piece in which they suggested that I “stick a cork up my arse“. I think it was because the reader felt I was talking through my arse when writing the Daily Sceptic article. But I reported this and it seems that this useful and helpful comment has been removed.
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Clearly upsetting the right people. Sadly in my experience these type of comments are often coming from UK and Nato funded social media monitoring units. I have immediate engagement on some posts particularly if you criticise the Ukraine war or big state socialism – even online dating i had some woman trying to convince me Putin was evil which may be anecdotal but i had brexit on my profile to scare off the braindead which proved to be a red rag to a bull.
I am surprised at the comments you quoted. I don’t see how any of them are relevant. But it is what happens on social media. It is an opportunity for people to express their views and some will say anything if they disagree. The comments are mostly in the form of insults rather than constructive criticism. Another way of looking at them, is that your points are well made. I have noticed a trend with websites that initially they attract people who agree with the approach of the owners, but in time they attract the critics who contribute nothing.
I don’t see how the government can determine value for money. I’m not even sure what it means since if there is a choice of options it will be more of a personal decision. Cheapest is not necessarily the best option. But in the case of the government purchasing services how can they determine this when they are not the consumer of the services. In the case of the OVfM Thomas Sowell came to mind. It seems like a good idea, but it is the outcome of the policy that matters and Reeves has no idea what that will be.