I have to get a minor rant out of my system.
Robert says "I can't stand politics" - but you don't mean that, do you? Politics isn't the problem, cos here we all are, wanting to talk about it and discuss it and find out more. I just think that saying that you don't like politics is a bit defeatist. Dunstan sticks it on his blog because it's bloody important stuff, one way or another. I guess you agree, right?
And how can you say there's Conservatives, and *then* "...you have UKIP and the BNP..." and **then** ..."there's the liberal democrats, who aren't very liberal." ? In *that* order? Don't you think that UKIP and the BNP are ever so slightly less liberal?! Or am I just reading too much into this?
Dunstan, I just wanted to say that point 12 stuck out a bit:
"A criminal’s arrest takes, on average, three and a half hours to process."
Criminals don't get arrested, *potential* criminals do. Guilty 'til proven innocent and all that. If you were arrested for something, you probably wouldn't want to be processed in 2 minutes, would you? You'd want to make sure that everything was properly done, so that they'd find out the truth of the matter. I take the point that lots of extra forms and stuff might be over the top, and that should be reduced if necessary, but "more time = bad job" doesn't really ring true for me. No?
Point 9 also sticks a bit:
"The extra size of the NHS bureaucracy since 1997 would pay for over 4,000,000 hip replacements."
Oooh that's a lot of hip replacements. What are you (Oliver Letwin, whoever) really saying here? Do we know how many hip replacements (or other 'currency' to measure health benefits) were made *possible* by the extra planning and thinking done by this invisible baddie 'NHS bureaucracy'? Do you really think that all NHS behind-the-scenes is just meaningless stuff, that could immediately be exchanged for 4,000,000 hip replacements? Or perhaps it would have been a more hard-hitting point if Oliver Letwin had said 300,000 premature baby incubators? Or what? OK, sure, there needs to be a good balance. But this kind of advertising-slogan 'fact' is just plain old playing with numbers. And it's all a bit more important than that, isn't it?
OK, you've got me going now. And before we go any further, I don't vote Labour. Ever. Or BNP or UKIP, incidentally.
"The Civil Service is now the size of Sheffield." - So? How big is Sheffield? How big is The UK? How many civil servants do we *want* and *need*? Any number, as long as it's not as big as an actual *place*? We'll be looking at piles of office paper as high as Everest next... or maybe carpet on the floor of offices the size of Wales or Belgium. Meaningless, without context.
"The number of tax collectors has increased almost twice as fast as new doctors and nurses." - Again, meaningless, unless we know the absolute figures, rather than just relative rates of growth. I agree _of course_ that we want lots of doctors and nurses. Most of my family are in the NHS somehow (not me, btw) and I think it's all bloody important that there's investment. But how many tax collectors do we have, and how many does a country like the UK *need*? If there were 5 tax collectors, and it went up to 10, that's an increase of 100% If there were 100,000 nurses, and it went up to 150,000, that's only 50%. That's 45,995 more nurses, and 5 more tax collectors. Need I say more?
"There are now more tax collectors and customs officers that people serving in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force." - OK. We all hate these tax collectors, right? Easy target for a good bit of populist PR, eh? (Spin? I thought that was a _bad_ thing, guys!?) So there's more tax and customs people than Navy and Air Force people? Would everything be hunky dory if it was the other way round, just like that? Do we just want to have a quick check, just to see that there's more nurses than call centre workers? Or teachers than police? What is the _point_ here? That Oliver Letwin thinks we're stupid?
"Just one department — Work and Pensions — employs more people than there are soldiers in the British Army." - Are we getting some kind of point yet? The British Army. Better have lots of those. Or maybe we need more nurses? Or people trying to get people jobs and sort out their pensions? Are we saying that we need more soldiers, or less government? If so, are they not *entirely* independent of each other? How confused and confusing is this? Very *very*?
"An extra 511 civil servants were employed every week last year." Woo hoo! Doing what? Counting the number of Royal Engineers per classroom assistant? How many were there before that? A million? Four?
"The number of new bureaucrats and support staff in education increased twice as fast as the number of new teachers." - This _may_ be an important point. Not sure. As Sophie points out above, this seems a bit more relevant, given that more teachers looks like a good thing compared to more bureaucrats. But without absolute figures, rather than just relative ones, this 'fact' just shows that whichever Tory researcher wrote it needed to pay more attention in maths classes. Must try harder, Oliver.
"88,000 new people were employed to work in education last year; just 14,000 of these were teachers of teaching assistants." - 14,000 is quite a lot, but it's not as bit as 88,000. This much we know. Teachers cost a certain amount to train and employ. There are other jobs in education that need doing. If the absolute numbers mean that the allocation of resources is wrong, then say so. Get the information out there. Or does the more rational way of presenting the information not sound as cool?
"The number of NHS managers is increasing three times as fast as that of new doctors." - I'm beginning to lose the will to live, here.
"The extra size of the NHS bureaucracy since 1997 would pay for over 4,000,000 hip replacements." - Yeah, we know. Terrible, ain't it? Oh, I can't stand politics.
"For every extra police officer, almost one more bureaucrat has been employed in the Home Office." - OK. Again, may have a point to raise here. But tell us what bureaucrats are for, and whether or not that help the police to do a better job, for example. And also, importantly, *when* is this statement true? During the month that they had more than average Home Office intake and less than average police intake? Needs a graph, Oliver. You know, those things with the wiggly lines that let us see really clearly what's going on.
"15 new business regulations have been created every day since 1997." - Oh. My. God. And there was me thinking 11, maybe 12 at the *most*. What on Earth does this mean? That governments are very busy? That regulations are numerous little buggers? What? How many regulations do other people create? And business regulations to do *what*? Make business fairer? Do those regulations include things to make freelance web designers' lives easier? Can we have some more, please?
"A criminal’s arrest takes, on average, three and a half hours to process." - See above. Do we want to have them tried, sentenced and strung up within the hour? Or maybe cut out the trial part? (sorry, that's Jack Straw and David Blunkett's trick.)
"For every job in the private sector lost last year, the public sector took on almost two jobs." - And? Absolute figure? What does the longer-term graph look like? Really?
"There are more Defra bureaucrats than there are dairy farmers in England." - Quick, get them out there in the fields! Or are some of the Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) 'bureaucrats' busy trying to make sure that the rest of the dairy farmers don't go out of business? Or busy with the Environment or Food or Rural Affairs? Notice how that's a fairly _big_ remit, there? I like milk in my tea, but how many dairy farmers is the right number?
"The increase in the Government’s advertising budget since 1997 could have paid for an extra 17,000 heart bypass operations." - If we're talking superfluous adverts, then I think that's very bad. But does this advertising include advertising any important things? If not, then I repeat, kill the advertising. But can somebody wake me up when the Shadow chancellor has got this heart-bypass/hip-replacement fixation out of his system?
"Two years ago, Mr Brown announced that he was going to axe 18,000 jobs in Work and Pensions. Since that reductions programme began, the number of staff has increased by 3,500." - Fair point. But what's the explanation? Or do we not need anything complicated and difficult like that?
"Mr Brown has assured us that he will strictly control every penny of public spending. But he now admits that £20 billion has been mis-spent, that his administrative costs have gone up by 60 per cent, that he has underestimated his administrative expenditure by £4 billion, and that the taxi bill for the Cabinet Office has risen by 1,000 per cent." - OK. So how does this compare with everyone else? Is this extraordinary? Are we supposed to assume it is? What was the administrative budget before and after this 60% rise? £1 and £1.60, because of replacing those 3 broken pencil sharpeners? And my taxi bill (over the last year) would go up by a *much bigger* percentage if I used one to go across town right now, because I don't use taxis very much. Maths. Amazing stuff.
So, remind me again: who needs a big ol’ slap? (Me, for writing such a big comment? - hope I haven't pissed anyone off. But does anyone agree with me? Please?)