Back to work

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Nick
Good to have you back, we have been suffering withdrawal symptoms when you were away. Your timing really was very bad as was your holiday desination. Next time go to Tenerife.

How about more information about the internal workings of Downing Street and their influence on lobby correspondents? So many of your readers do not understand the pressure that a Press Office and "Macindividuals" can put on people like yourself.

My view of the Budget is that it's not a matter of "do nothing Tories" but how do we get out of this mess that Gordon Brown engineered during his 10 years as Chancellor. The Tom Bower article in the Sunday Telegraph was illuminating.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5178686/How-Gordon-Brown-became-The-Gordfather.html

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Remember education, education, education?
Boy have we been educated on tax and waste and missed opportunities and prudence, prudence, prudence; spin, spin, spin; ....

holiday - you won't have any more....

Welcome back Nick, I hope you had a good rest!

I definitely agree with the part on how the Budget will shift focus away from the disastrous events of the last few weeks - but then again, just about anything would have to be better than that.

Brown must be kicking himself about the G20 by now - after a very promising initial reception, everyone turned to the incidents at the demonstrations, and I doubt anyone thinks of the actual summit any more.

I thought you'd come back from holiday feeling refreshed. No change, though, is there!

Welcome back Nick.

Funny how in your abscence,Brown manages to completely blow away his anticipated G20 bounce..eh?

Surely you are interested in how he managed this startling feat,and whether he was aware of the poison being planned for the Opposition?

But...not the slightest questioning of how this all came to pass..quelle surprise!

Theres nothing like investagative journalism, and this is nothing like investagative journalism, and whats worse is "You know and we know, and you know that we know."

There would have been more news worth thoughts if you'd told us about what happened on your holiday.

Nick,

The Treasury leaks/briefings prior to the budget this week have as yet been entirely silent on the inflationary consequences of the actions already taken by the Bank of England (The Treasury's toothless puppet!)

It is entirely absurd not to thing about the very high probability that zero interest rates and generation of a massive increase in the money supply will not have very serious consequences in a proportionately huge increase in inflation. (If this is not the case then the whole basis of the the control of inflation of the last twenty five years has been a lie.)

Everyone draws nice smooth graph going out to 2050 with a big increase in borrowing to 2015. This is rubbish as inflationary pressures will force far more drastic cuts in spending directly as a result of the stupidity of managing inflation to the CPI by the bank.

There is no quick way out of this problem - indeed zero interest rates and Quantitative Easing are making the hole deeper and in the end the public will notice the huge inflationary damage, and know its cause - defective central government policy for the last twenty-five years! That is: a curse on both (i.e. Tory and Labour) of their houses!

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Good to have you back Nick!

Gordon's plan obviously was to feted as the saviour of the world at the G20, have a big giveaway budget and close the polls to a level where a hung parliament would be the most likely outcome and go for an election on June 4th, same days as the Euro and Shire elections. The storm over Jacqui Smith's expenses and Smeargate have torpedoed that plan and the deteriorating public finances mean that this budget will be excrutiatingly painful. I don't see anyway back for Labour from this. The GE will be on May 4th next year, it's local election day and Callaghan and Major went on the equivalent dates in 1979 and 1997. We usually talk about the election run in, for Labour it will more resemble a death march. We're now looking at a Tory majority upwards of 80 seats and then Tory rule into the 2020's as Labour spends the first half of the next decade in a full blown civil war.

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I see the serial referrers are back before the NuLab apologists.

How about reviewing your opinion of the G20 outcome, Nick?

I do agree with you that an early election is unlikely with Duff Gordon at the helm, but do you think that will still be the case after the European Parliament elections in just over a month's time?

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Dear Nick

Welcome back. Life has been boring after the BBC closed your boards while you away.

I listed to your piece on Radio 4 this morning. Did you say that Balls knew all about McBride? You certainly seems relieved by the fact that McBride has gone!!!!

And now McBride has gone - we understand from comment elsewhere that McBride had the parliamentary journalists by the"short and curlies" - will you be a bit more balanced in your pieces.

Gordon Brown's G20 "triumph" is this a reference to the scrapping of old cars ????

No one is being fooled any more,this Government are unable to make predictions on the economy all they will confirm in the budget is the awesome failure of their policies and oversight of the financial system.

We are in for a 12 month period of unrest until there is a General Election,without the mandate of the people no Government should be printing the money that this one is going too.

Much as you posts are interesting, I think you will find the narrative has moved in in your abscence.

What do we make of this morning's attack on the prime minister by none other than Lord Desai; a man who claims that Gordon Brown has had his moral mask ripped off by the events to which you allude? Further. Lord Desai goes on to say that Gordon Brown is unlikey to lead his party inot the next election.

The questions have become so much bigger than the fiscal stimulus new labour vs the do nothing tories; the question now is about a party that cannot distinguish itself from the state and acts accordingly.

A party that cannot distinguish itself from the state should be subjected to a vote of no confidence in the house of commons at the earliest opportunity. They arrest MPs and threaten them with none years in jail for doing their jobs; the police are now being investigated for the beating of G20 protestors and not wearing their badges; the prime minister and his henchman Ed Balls appear implicated in an elaborate Downing Street plot to smear the opposition party and their families.

There is no appropriate reply from the general public to these outrages other than scorn; there is no appropriate reply form our MPs other than a vote of no confidence in a government now at once incompetent as it is morally and financially bankrupt.

Hard times indeed.

Call a vote of no confidence.

Welcome back Nick, hope the hols were enjoyable - it does you good to get away from everything for a while

I really don't see where the gov't can go with this budget. We have no money to spend on tax cuts and the 'forecast' spending cuts will strangely not come into effect until after the next election! so no way to prove if they are there or not - the lack of cost savings will be blamed on the next government

It's sad to see but Labour really do seem to be tearing themselves apart at the moment, if they aren't carefull they will be out of power (and possibly not even in opposition) for at least an entire generation, it's a slippery slope now they've started amongst themselves......

Nick,

Despite your obvious high intelligence, these past two weeks were so ground shifting that you will need a few days to catch up. What happened in these past 2 weeks was not just a "Westminster" story. This emails:
1) destroyed a main pillar of Gordon Brown's image for about a third of Labour voters - that Brown was a ethical politician.
2) for undecided voters, it settled it;
3) for voters already leaning to the Tories, it closed the deal.
Etc.

Brown is a dead politician walking.

And the rest of the Labour party knows that now. And Brown lost his teeth and control over them.

Nick, you have a lot to catch up.

And your own past work has been exposed too, as a lobby journalist that was complicit of these unethical practices. You did not honour your constitutional duty as the main member of the 4th power (yes, the main one, as the main political journalist of the main British broadcaster)

Good luck.

My advice is that you do some very deep self-examination, admit and recognise your unethical past role, then come clean, expose all, and apologise - sincerely.

Good luck.

(I told you you ha a LOT of catching up to do.)

re-enforced the went straight

For about Gordon Brown's image have you will need a few days to get

Nick,

We seem to have a particularly picky set of mods today, who think the following two paras were off-topic. As Nick's text above includes "I returned to a series of polls", I'd have thought that mentioning that the "poll ratings have plummeted" was very much on-topic, but I'd better add that I don't think this week's budget will deflect public attention much from the fundamental issues of NuLab sleaze and spin.

I'm sure your return to allowing comments will be welcome to many needing to let off some steam after a fortnight, but I'm surprised that you don't report how Duff Gordon's poll ratings have plummeted or how ill-received was his cabinet awayday to Glasgow.

No. On reflection, I'm not surprised. Same old, same old...

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A few corrections and suggestions:

Re G20: Perhaps still worth reading The Economist, not really a right-wing magazine, that there will not really be a trillion of extra money injected into the world economy.

Re elections: Ms Smith's and her hubby's expenses were the first barrier to a G20 bounce and hence to elections.

Re expenses: We still haven't heard whether Brown reported the rental income from his illegally sublet constituency office in his tax return.

Re smeargate: Allegedly Balls used to send McBride up to 20 emails a day, indicating that McBride wasn't the isolated maverick the labour elite now claims he was.

Re smeargate 2: Did Gus O'Donnel go through all these Balls emails to McBride before deciding no further enquiry was needed.

Re south-east London labour candidate selection problems: what a story, postal votes for the Blairite new labour new kid on the block versus the candidate supported by the unions and Mr Whelan, who was also on a McBride email address list and is a close friend of Brown, and now we have a broken ballot box seal in labour hq.

Postal votes, postal votes, postal votes: these will be the world's focus after the next general elections. Remember Grlenrothes? A fourfold increase in postal votes and subsequently the voters register went missing.

Oh yeah, re the budget: anything with growth higher than -3.5% this year and 0% next year and anything with less than a 12% deficit for the next two years can immediately be referred to the dust bin because it will be way too optimistic.

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Nick,

One of the other major changes since you have been away - is that Labour's spell over journalists seems to be broken.

Journalists everywhere, for years, seem to have been writing 'news' based on what the government has told them is news - otherwise the spin doctors easy source of stories would dry up. Journalists have started to fess up to this spin fed culture.

You need to be aware, after just one week, that it now seems like Narnia after the White Witches spell had been broken, the ice is melting and people are coming out and talking freely.

There will huge public outcry from the people if we think we are getting 'spin fed news' again.

One or two commentators were speculating whether Darling might stand up to Brown and make a Budget speech for the benefit of the country, rather than for political advantage akin to Healey's last budget. Is this likely? As you are closer to the Westminster village, has Brown loosened or tightened his grip on the job of Chancellor?

Has the bickering between the Blairites and Brownites always been this vicious, but we (the public) were never allowed to see or hear of it or has it worsened. Also I believe that Mandelson was brought back at the instigation of Blair as a peacemaker, yet the weekend press reported Lord M as livid - not exactly peaceful and lovey dovey is it?. So, has Blair now washed his hands of the Labour party completely?

Could you please do some analysis on this as a kind of background to events. We can surf the internet for more info, but sometimes we are unable to put all these events into context. Just an ordinary blogger that is confused and quite upset to what is happening to a once great country.

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It's now apparently also off-topic to agree with another poster, resulting in the following two paras being removed, so again I'll add that Nick's entire post does not paint anything approaching a fair picture of how the week is likely to play out in the court of public opinion, no matter how much he's correct that Capn. Darling and his chums will be banging along the lines of the script Nick suggests in the hope of receiving favourable media coverage.

#9 WhiteEnglishProud "this is nothing like investagative journalism ... more news worth thoughts if you'd told us about what happened on your holiday"

Spot on. Plus ça change!

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Nick, it's a shame you were not on holiday in Tenerife or you could have got a scoop interview with Dolly Draper! Great journalistic scoop by your old mate Guido though, wasn't it!

You say:

"It will mark a return to the people's priorities rather than Westminster's sordid dealings."

I think you will find that the level of comment in the papers and the latest poll result showing Labour down at 26% disprove your point. These Labour sordid dealings have finally blown the lid on the NewLabour project and the dirty goings-on behind the scenes that wer knew was happening, but never gor proven.

The Budget will also be the same old nonsense, the Chancellor will be hopelessly optimistic in his forecasts as he was last November, and we will get more headline grabbing useles nitiatives such as Mr Mandelson's GBP5,000 grant to people to buy electric cars. A grant that wont be available for a least 2 years, to buy cars that don't currently exist!

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Welcome back Nick. I'll bet you are glad you missed the maelstrom those emails have set off.
Anyway, AD must start to unravel the nations finances and do what is best for the country, not Labour. Even when the tories were on the way out in 1997, the budget that year wasn't that popular and did what was best for the country. So a Labour Chancellor must do the same.
But what I suspect we'll get is not new "deliverables" for the economy but new "announcables".
New Lies, New Spin, Same old Labour.
Why is it that Labour governments always leave the country bankrupt? They did it in '79 and now they're doing it again only this time they have added moral bankruptcy to the failure.
Shame.

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Tax the rich? What about those who work hard (as the Government has asked us to) and not taken any benefits, who do not get big bonuses, who have not got tax credits as theyare single and have no children, and who have pay that falls only just into the top rate tax band?

Work hard - the government taxes you. Do nothing - the government gives you benefits.

No wonder the country is going downhill.

The holidays are over. Hooray! Phew.

given that you are rested nick, and politics go a bit dirtier and a bit heavier since you last saw the news, maybe you could stop talking to us as if you are the teacher and we are the primary school children. Thud Phew Bang Crash et cetera. Its not newsround geddit.

Time to say "Bye Bye Gordon"

Welcome back Nick.

A couple of queries about your 'new style' blog:

1) Before you departure on holiday your a couple of threads on your blog were 'closed down' and no further comments were accepted. Why?

2) Your final post saying you were going on holiday was also closed to comments. (We couldn't even wish you Bon Voyage!. Again, why?

Finally, I bet you wish you had chosen a less fun and eventful week to be away.

Nick

"We already know the script - "'real help now' versus 'do nothing Tories'"; "investment versus cuts"; and "helping the many not the few" ...et cetera"

Considering that the Government has already leaked £15b worth of 'efficency savings', anyone that thinks it will only be the Tories that slash the budget of the public sector are kidding themselves. Unfortunatly I have the horrible feeling that Brown and Darling are going to attempt a scorched earth policy so they can spend the next few years in opposition screaming foul about harsh (Labour forced) Tory Government cuts.

I feel sorry for Mr. Darling. He is a decent man who has through no fault of his own fallen amongst rogues. This is a government so despicable that its own supporters are walking away from it in disgust.

He will do what he can with the budget. There will be spin as there can be little substance. Other than moving the deckchairs around on the deck of the sinking ship there is little he can do. The poor man will have to say something but there is no money and tons of debt. This will rather limit his performance.

I would like to see severe cuts in government spending that hit quango-land and the consultants. I doubt if that will happen. What I do expect to happen is that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer as that seems to be the iron law of the twenty-first century.

Poor Darling: he is stuck with another thirteen and a half months of this parody.

For the sake of the Chancellor; we need a general election now!

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"The Budget ... will mark a return to the people's priorities rather than Westminster's sordid dealings"

You are on certainly on 'narrative' but way off target Nick with remarks like that.

Sure the Budget is crucially important for ordinary folk and you are right to place it in the political context of not only how Tories and LibDems will play it but also how it reveals New Labour's election strategy.

But to describe Smeargate as "Westminster's sordid dealings" belies a government spinning out of control and doing what it always does in troublesome times - tear itself apart.

The "people" are voters, angry and fed-up, caught in the middle of the old sport of a battle between Blairites and Brownites, true Labour and New Labour, as I rounded up and rounded on here

https://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/smeargate-ii-abandon-hope-all-who-enter.html

Interesting to see how so many posts seem to have broken 'House Rules'.

"What we don't yet know is how far the chancellor will go to highlight those choices."

Are you saying that you really believe that those are our choices? If so, you've just called the Tories the "do nothing Tories". That seems a bit unfair. George Osbourne was out of bed on a Sunday morning yesterday just to speak to Andrew Marr. That's more than I managed.

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BTW - Great report about Balls and McBride on this morning's edition of Today.

Any chance of you elaborating on it in greater depth in this blog?

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#39 stanilic

"Poor Darling: he is stuck with another thirteen and a half months of this parody."

===

Sorry, but he could resign today if he had any honour and do a Geoffrey Howe. The fact that he remains in office, but not in power, shows what he is really like.

Er G20 triumph - care to expain that one Nick?

BTW, I'm interested in what sordid things these people get up to as I pay their wages and yes, I'm a people so please don't presume you know what my priorities are.
Interesting that you demote what has been a very rare insight in to the inner workings of this Government to one sentance without really mentioning it.

Might I suggest that you look again please Sir?

Simple question deserves a straight answer....

Do labour MPs have the courage to jettison the man who has brought them to this low point? That man is Gordon Brown.

This question asked today by Lord Desai...I think we should be told; nothing else matters now.

Nick

It isn't good enough to parrot phrases like "help now" - this pre-supposes that what is being done does actually "help", the evidence does not seem to support this presumption.

Similarly being prepared to "do everything required" is all very well, but only means anything if those "things" that are required are actually spelt out.

I hope you return re-invigorated to hold a position for independent and balanced reporting.

Just to counterbalance the 'glad you are back' love-in, I take a different view. I have found that Laura and Rita have given the BBC's political journalism a refreshing directness and honesty. I have thoroughly enjoyed their coverage. It made me realise just how much NR has been drawn into the political morass... all those special invitations to be 'on the inside' take their toll on impartiality. The filters kick in and sophistry takes over... never more evident when the BBC totally misread the 'G20 success.' It was just a photo op and the people weren't fooled.

A wise NR would learn from this.

I couldn't help but notice the titles of your previous 2 blogs showed on the BBC homepage as:

Au Revoir
Chancellor of the World

If only this were a single headline

Hi Nick, care to explain why it took an outsider to reveal the tactics of McBride, Draper et al. Why didn't you report on it from the beginning (it's become obvious all the lobby journalists knew what type of person McBride was)?

@ 42

I think a few more people would have heard George Osborne on the Andrew Marr show than would have otherwise been the case due to that fact it was on straight after the Grand Prix. Some like myself will have left the tele on after the GP finished and accidentally tuned into what the tories have got to say.
I thought he gave a great interview, he talked a lot of sense about where the country needs to go.

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The mods are very touchy today !

Hopefully the link provided below will satisfy them that there are questions raised over postal votes - I thought that the word 'alleged' in my previous comment would have sufficed?

I was merely quoting from the article below - lets see if this is OK

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1171963/Blair-vs-Brown--How-spin-doctors-girl-Georgia-Gould-splitting-Labour-old-divide.html

Hope you had a good holiday Nick - good to have you back.

Although Labour continually set out those dividing lines outlined in your piece, it would be wrong to say that this marks out the choice facing the British people as those lines are pure and utter spin.After the next el;ection any party that wins will have to increase taxes and cut public spending - the choice is simply the balance between those two, how fast the PBSR will be reduced and whp is prepared to get more for les by a major ovehaul and reform of the public sector.

Smeargate is moe than a Westminster Village story Nick - you may not be up to speed on this. Its about serious matters, including the relationship (some might say cowering relationship) between the Lobby and Downing Street.

Chaps,

So the budget is already being spun on new media outlets like Youtube, seriously trendy, but what about the primacy of Parliament?

Also does anyone believe that £15B of 'efficiency savings' can be found by a Government that sacks people and then takes them back on? What planet do they live on? For 'efficiency savings' transpose the words 'public spending cuts'.

Our poor PM cannot bring himself to say the word 'cut'. It is not in his vocabulary.

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Labour are completely sunk with the self appointed Brown as their leader and Prime Minister. So, the question has to be whether Labour Ministers and MPs will have the guts to get rid of Brown in the coming 6 months - if they leave it past the summer, it will be too late to rescue them. What is surprising to me is that no senior Cabinet Minister has had the bottle to resign on principle and start the process of challenging Ghastly Gordon. Where on earth are Labour's men (and women) of principle? This current joke of an administration, including as it does Smith and McNulty, is taking the country on the road to Hell!

Just found this story in the Times via a comment in Guido Fawkes' Blog, care to comment Nick?
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6122756.ece

Chaps,

Clearly running our schools and ensuring SATs appear on time is not a big enough challenge for our hard working and excellent Schools Secretary [I cannot believe I am writing this]so he gets to chair meetings looking at how best to get out Labour's message [narrative] to the public, as I am sure they feel misunderstood!!

I would much rather he went back to the promise of education, education and education that rallied support for Labour last time. He should focus on what he is paid to do, not campaign covertly to become Chancellor [perhaps he can have his wife working for him and they can sort the economy out in the cosy evenings in their London flat] and eventually Prime Minister.

You see there are some of us that believe that Education is vital. All the rest is interesting. Having an educated work force that can adapt and create new products and things the country can sell is THE issue. I fear walking around the town centre and looking at our young people we are seriously letting them down.

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Hello Nick

Welcome back! I enjoyed your Balls/McBride report on the Today program this morning - great stuff.

Yes, although I agree to an extent that the holidays are over and there's the slight distraction of the budget, the issue of gutter government hasn't gone away.

Gutter/corrupt/paranoid government, unfortunately, is one of the big issues facing the UK at least until the election so Labour MPs need to pinch themselves, take a reality check and face the fact that this stuff here to stay - even without further revelations (I'd be surprised if that's all).

Wasn't there a rumour some time ago that Cherie Blair hated Gordon Brown? If so, funny how everything fits into place.

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#47 yellow belly

Exactly. And the same can be said for ALL Labour MP's, not one of whom has the guts to bring an end to this charade. I think their snouts are too well entrenched in their expense forms to notice what the hell is going on around them.

Or they have no honour.

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Nick, you chose a good fortnight to be away. Were you tipped off, by any chance?

You imply that an early election is no longer likely, however you assume that Brown is still in control of the timing. Is it not now clear that 'Smeargate', a Budget that pleases nobody, and potentially apocalyptic Euro/local election results could fatally undermine Brown's position? Time is now Labour's enemy, not their friend. Every passing month will further erode their support. For many MPs, the best chance of retaining their seat (and their trough) is an early election, not a last minute one.

With a deficit of almost twenty points in the polls, what is to prevent Labour dumping Brown, installing Jack Straw as an interim leader and going to the country in September? They might be able to restrict the Tories' lead to a level that makes them beatable in five years time. If they wait, they will surely be in opposition for at least two, possibly three parliaments, and what chance of the Labour Party surviving that?

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Alistair Darling should go on Britains Got Talent and sing a song, that way he's guaranteed to get more hits on youtube than a boring old broadcast about the state of the economy...but then he hasn't got any talent....Susan Boyle for Chancellor!

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Why do people seem to be surprised at the allegations made about Ed Balls?

He's always been shifty..and frankly,a bit gormless.

So..good news for the Tories,if his ambitions are to lead the Opposition next year.

#73 Eco,

May I suggest the use of the word 'allegedly'

It may (or may not) allegedly that is, help in not having posts removed

However, I can neither confirm nor deny the fact that this may - or may not, help you. In which case I most definately did not allegedly advise that the use of the word 'allegedly' may (or may not) work

And to stay on topic: I don't see how far this budget can go, tax rises are inevitable for whichever party gets into power next. I don't see Labour announcing anything in the way of wide reaching rises now (not with low popularity ratings) they will want to appear upbeat and announce that we are starting to recover (albeit slowly)

We shall see on Wednesday !

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Budget......?

I suspect there are any number of Labour members who are hoping its more of a budge it.....

The budge being the push and the it being the bully boy..... but will Darling be the man to deliver it?

If I was reporting politics, I would look into postal votes, how these are regulated, what the experience has been so far and what the potential dangers of it are.

There have been 2 candiate selection fights in recent days where postal votes have been pivotal, the south-east London selection and the one where Ms Booth's stepmother got selected. Last year there was Glenrothes, where the voters register went missing. Then there was the piece in The Times in 2007 where an undercover journalist attended a briefing of people somewhere in England to get as many people as possible signed up for postal votes in local elections. And then there was the Birmingham debacle where a judge really denounced the safeguards.

This will be the big story for 2010: postal votes at the next general election. It will split political parties, editors, reporters and academia. But it will be huge, and hugely detrimental to the credibility of politics (Blair would obviously say "tremendously" rather than "hugely").

How can they talk about efficiency savings when "Budget" for this administration isn't a noun its a curruption of "budge it" apparently to any number that seems spinnable today. How many "budge it"s has the Olympics had? How many different numbers have we had for bank bail outs, the PSBR, immigration and almost anything this government has had contol over. Or should I say should have control over but has demonstrably lost control over.

I've been looking through the last decades worth of reports from The Public Accouts Committee (sad but actually more frightening than any Stephen King horror) and struggle to find a single project carried out by this administration that is within Budget, on time and to the required quality standards.

In fact most of the conclusion about management of most spending but military, transport and IT spending in particular are so scathing that any board of directors of a publicly quoted company would have had to resign at just one such report. There are literally dozens like these examples from the last few months:

NHS IT Jan 2009 "The completion date of 2014-15, four years later than originally planned,... must now be in doubt" (ie an eight year program is already 4 years late and no-one believes that delivery date either and the cost is "officially" more than twice the original budget and no-one believes that either)

Defence Jan 2009 "the DII Programme is running 18 months late against the latest completion date" ( ie we have shited the date twice before and its still even later) "more than half of the Programme left to deliver but has already spent £334 million of the £528 million risk funding" ( this looks to cost at least twice the "budge it") "To date, users of DII have expressed low levels of satisfaction with the new system" ( its crap and will be £1 billion of crap!)

Transport Dec 2008 "The Department's planning and management of this important project have been extremely poor. This case is one of the worst this Committee has seen and responsibility for these serious weaknesses rests firmly with some of its top officials. Regrettably, other cases before the Committee in the recent past have shown similar poor performance by departmental senior management" ( ie we have seen an awful lot of appalling management under this administration but this is quite stupendous) "The Department originally estimated that the total cost of setting up the Programme would be £55 million, with gross savings (before costs) of £112 million up to March 2015, giving a net benefit to the Department of £57 million.[12] The Department now estimates that the Programme will cost £121 million and produce benefits of £40 million, resulting in a net cost to the taxpayer of £81 million.

If this is a typical example of this governments cost saving heaven help us ( and I'm an atheist!)

The evidence shows that the only thing for sure when the chancellor stands up this week is that the numbers will be totally unreliable and that this administration has neither the will nor the expertise to drive co-ordinated or credible action to impliment them.

The only credible efficiency saving is to get rid of this government right now!

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#81 That is exactly what Labour should do but their MP's are more concerning with another year to go through the John Lewis list and build up their pensions before the inevitable crushin at the polls.

Labour can either go this year with Straw and go down to a respectable defeat or hang on to May 6th 2010 with Gordon and experience electoral carnage on a scale that will make 1997 look like a drive by shooting! They won't drop him though, historically Labour are hopeless at regicide. The Tories had no qualms about knifing Thatcher, a 3 election winning PM, in the back to save their own skins and the Lib Dems specialize in ousting ineffective leaders. Had Brown been in any other party he would have been dumped in an unmarked grave last summer!

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