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By  David Craig, on August 8th, 2012 Four of our six main power companies are foreign owned. They view the UK as a goldmine because they can make much bigger profits here than in their better-regulated home markets. This is because the overpaid bureaucrats at Ofgem, the gas and electricity regulator, are more interested in protecting the power companies than consumers. Every time wholesale oil and gas prices go up, the power companies raise prices to us. Every time wholesale prices go down, the power companies say they can’t cut prices to us as they’re tied into long-term contracts. And worthless Ofgem lets them get away with this scam year after year. Here’s the proof:
By David Craig, on August 7th, 2012 Before the 2010 election, in a September 2009 policy document A Better Politics for Less, Nick Clegg said he would cut the cost of politics.
But once in government, Mr Clegg forgot his promise. In 2010, he had two special advisers, by 2012 this had risen to fourteen, costing us almost £1 million a year. Though, given Mr Clegg’s ever-increasing unpopularity, it’s not obvious that these advisers’ advice has been that great. Moreover, it seems we’re quite generous with the salaries we pay to Mr Clegg’s many advisers. His chief of staff gets £98,000 a year and three others are on £80,000 a year. These include one who made an £88,000 donation to the Liberal Democrats. Cynics might see this donation as a pretty good investment, giving returns of almost a hundred per cent a year.
Mr Clegg has also honourably/shamefully (delete as appropriate) tried to change our voting systems to either ‘make Britain more democratic’ or to ‘make sure he got more Liberal Democrats into power’ (delete as appropriate). First was the House of Commons. Clegg managed to get the Coalition to hold a referendum on introducing the alternative vote (AV) voting system. We spent about £80m of our money on Mr Clegg’s referendum. This £80m could have paid for five hundred police officers or nurses for five years, perhaps a better use of our money than increasing the number of Liberal Democrats in Westminster. Luckily for us, this proposal got rejected by the electorate and has now hopefully sunk without trace. Had Clegg succeeded, AV would have hugely complicated our voting system and necessitated at least £100m of our taxes being spent on a new electronic vote-counting system.
Clegg clearly learnt something from this setback – that British voters are fairly conservative with a small ‘c’ when it comes to changing our electoral system. So, if he wanted to make other changes, the worst thing he could do would be to consult the electorate again. Sure enough, when Clegg came up with new proposals to supposedly make the House of Lords more democratic by having the majority of peers elected rather than appointed – again a proposal likely to increase the number of Liberal Democrats in positions of power – he passionately argued that there was no need for a referendum. Clegg’s proposal for between 300 and 450 elected peers, all in position for up to fifteen years and all receiving a full salary from our taxes, would have hugely increased the cost of the House of Lords from about £130m to £300m a year.
Now that the Tories have blocked Clegg’s Lords reform, Clegg will block Cameron’s proposal to reduce the number of MPs to six hundred – something which would have slightly reduced the cost of politics.
Once again, Mr ‘Better Politics for Less’ Clegg seemed totally and selfishly unconcerned about how much of our money he would spend on his political cronies. Clegg’s various attempts to squander huge quantities of our tax money on his efforts to change voting systems for the Commons and Lords for the benefit of himself and his party seem to sit slightly uncomfortably with Clegg’s vision of A Better Politics for Less.
By David Craig, on August 6th, 2012 Before the 2010 general election, David Cameron accused Labour of wasting millions of pounds funding ‘a cushy lifestyle for politicians’ and pledged he would ‘cut the cost of politics’. He could not have made his intentions clearer than when he gave a speech announcing that under his government ‘the gravy train would well and truly hit the buffers’.
During his first year in Downing Street, Cameron did take some small steps. He cut ministers’ salaries by five per cent and slashed the number of ministers with a private car and driver from an astonishing seventy eight to a more modest thirteen, saving about £3 million a year. But at the same time, he created 117 new peers. That’s 117 people who were not elected by the taxpaying public; most of whom were probably not even known to the taxpaying public; most of whom had never done anything of benefit for the taxpaying public; most of whom were probably already either wealthy or extremely wealthy and who had no need of taxpayers’ money to support their luxury lifestyles; but all of whom could from then on claim generous and easily ‘fiddleable’ expenses and allowances, paid for by us, till the day they died.
Cameron’s plans to reduce the number of MPs and their costs, when fully implemented, might have saved us taxpayers around £12 million a year. However, the increase in the number of peers could cost us over £10 million a year. So, theoretically Cameron’s policies would save us about £2 million a year. But, whereas the 117 new lords could start energetically siphoning off our money immediately they were appointed, the cuts in the number of MPs would not happen till after the next election – in 2015 – if at all. So, in the period of Cameron’s first and probably last five-year premiership, his cutting the cost of politics might save less than £20 million from reduced ministerial salaries and cars, while the increased number of peers could cost up to a staggering £50 million. The net ‘benefit’ to us taxpayers would thus be around minus £30 million. Not quite what most ordinary people would call ‘cutting the cost of politics’.
What is perhaps most surprising about Cameron’s ‘cutting the cost of politics’ speech is that he managed to keep a straight face while fooling us about his real intentions of hugely increasing the cost of politics, mostly for the benefit of himself and his buddies.
By David Craig, on August 5th, 2012 About 30,000 soldiers, sailors and RAF may be thrown on the scrap heap. But if you’re one of the British military’s top brass, you can carry on with your luxury lifestyle.
There’s £36 million a year being spent to subsidise the homes of 413 military leaders – around £87,000 per year each. Of these, thirty two receive a total of £5 million a year – over £156,000 a year each. One army general was reported to have kept a sergeant and a corporal back from going to fight in Afghanistan so they could work as servants running his home. A Tory MP and former military officer criticised the use of trained personnel as servants, ‘they are being misemployed shaking out napkins and polishing cutlery when they should be with their units practising firing mortar bombs and going out on operations’. Several top officers also have full-time gardeners, all paid for out of the military budget. The father of a Lance Corporal killed in Iraq didn’t seem impressed by the top officers’ taxpayer-subsidised lifestyles:
“My son was not given a battery for his radio or a £1.50 distress flare so he was not able to signal for help when he was attacked. Yet the MoD seems to be able to find ridiculous amounts of money so the top brass has somebody to mow their lawns and water their plants.”
Moreover, the military have the most expensive car pool of any government department, yet its bosses spend millions more being ferried around the UK in helicopters which perhaps could be more usefully deployed supporting our troops. In response to criticism of the amount being paid for top officers’ homes and servants, an MoD spokesman said, ‘senior officers filling certain posts are expected to entertain in order to enhance defence objectives’.
By David Craig, on August 4th, 2012 As the Government throws about 30,000 poorly-paid soldiers, sailors and airmen on the scrap heap, one could wonder why there are so many highly-paid officers and levels of officers in our shrinking armed forces.
In the Navy, for example, there are two admirals, six vice admirals and thirty three rear admirals – so forty one big cheeses in all. Plus eighty Commodores and three hundred Captains. That’s 421 officers for less than forty fighting ships and submarines. How do all these officers fill their working days when so few of them have ships, submarines or other big boys’ toys to occupy their time and efforts? When criticised for having so many admirals, the Navy claimed it actually had a couple more ships than were reported as the newspaper article didn’t include two landing craft. In the RAF, we have twenty six Air Vice Marshals, ninety Air Commodores and 330 Group Captains for around 820 planes, included in which are only twelve fast-jet squadrons.
So, our navy hasn’t enough ships for all its top brass and the RAF has about two planes per senior officer. This makes it look as if we have too many officers at too many different levels. (Tomorrow, our military officers’ luxury lifestyles)
By David Craig, on August 3rd, 2012 Much has been written about whether Britain’s exams have become easier over the years. Teachers, of course, deny this. But the evidence suggests our exams are laughably simple. In an English GCSE (for 15 to 16 year-olds) pupils were asked to “Describe a place you do not like” and to remember to “Choose the place carefully”: “Describe the place in detail”: “Make clear why you do not like it”. Seems easier than writing an essay on the characterisation in Macbeth! As for maths, here’s a sample question where you have to match simple fractions with simple percentages. The exam board even does the first one for you. I rest my case. Yet even with these pathetically easy questions, over half of all children cannot get a decent grade. What the h–l are our teachers doing?
By David Craig, on August 2nd, 2012  As local councils claim they have to cut key services to save money, I thought it might be worth showing a picture from my book Fleeced How we’ve been bettrayed by politicians, bureaucrats and bankers. In the period 1997-2008, the number of people in Britain earning more than £50,000 a year went up by a factor of three. In local government it went up by a factor of eleven, suggesting that our councils have become fat with legions of overpaid, unnecessary bureaucrats. Here are some of the councils where the number of people earning over £50,000 went up by even more than eleven times. All of these councils should be getting rid of their bureaucrats and not frontline staff and services.
By David Craig, on August 1st, 2012 The Olympics. Budget £2.4bn – spent over £9bn. Plan – London to be flooded with big-spending tourists: actually London deserted with shops and hotels suffering as people shun the city during the Olympics (as they have shunned every city that has held the Olympics). Plan – Britain to come fourth in medal table: actually Britain 20th so far. Plan – Olympics to give Britain a much-needed economic boost: actually Olympics have been an economic disaster.
Plan – Mr Coe and other olympocrats to take lots of our money in salaries, expenses and undeserved bonuses and become very very rich indeed: actually this has happened. So, one part of Mr Coe’s great plan did work – he and his mates pocketed huge amounts of our money while fooling the rest of us with their Olympics ‘scam’.
By the way, I wonder if all the money Mr Coe and his mates are taking is being declared as income and taxed as income? Or is it being paid into companies owned by Coe and the other olympocrats so they avoid income tax? Wouldn’t it be nice to know?
As for whether the ‘miracle’ Chinese swimmer takes drugs. Firstly, the Chinese are too smart to get caught and secondly, even if she does take performance-enhancing drugs, the Chinese have such power over the utterly corrupt IOC, that we’d never find out anyway. I’d also like to become better at sport, so to quote from When Harry Met Sally – “I’ll have what she’s having”
By David Craig, on July 31st, 2012 Did you know that Britain has about twice as many supposed government ministers than France, Germany, Italy or Spain? We have 109 fully-paid ministers. Most are completely unnecessary and civil servants complain it’s difficult to find enough work for all these ministers to do. The whole thing is just a scam letting our greedy, lying, self-serving MPs steal even more of our money. Here’s what all these supposed ministers cost us:
By David Craig, on July 30th, 2012 I realise that a certain Mr Coe will make piles of (well-earned?) money after spending £9bn of our taxes on an Olympic Games that should only have cost us £2.4bn or so. Plus, keeping a straight face, this Mr Coe has apparently claimed the Games are on budget. At least he’s got a sense of humour. But has Mr Coe got greater ambitions? Is he using the London Games as a springboard to get himself a nice, well-paid sinecure as boss or senior official at the notoriously corrupt International Olympics Committee? Let’s hope so, then he can waste their money. We don’t have any left after his great spending spree on himself and his olympocrat mates, oh yes, and a little bit of sport too.
Good heavens. What a surprise. Apparently Greece is still bankrupt after bailout number two or three or maybe it’s number four – who can remember any more? However, our lying, incompetent euroleaders have a solution to save their project of an EU superstate run by them for them. Yes, having poured €250bn (€1,000 for every man, woman and child in the eurozone) into the lazy, corrupt black hole that is Greece, our eurobosses are about to write off most of Greece’s debt. That will mean at least €250bn of european taxpayers’ money vanishing into thin air. This is truly theft on a massive scale – and they’re going to get away with it.
You’ve got to hand it to the ruling elites like Mr Coe and our euroleaders – when it comes to their great plans for using/wasting our money (often on themselves), they’ve got balls of reinforced steel. At least you have to admire them for that.
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