……We Compelled Those Who Want to Govern to Earn the Necessary Money.

            In other words – what if we made government largely self financing ? Impossible – I don’t think so. I grant that the day to day running of the country costs money and that ultimately, where the tax payer gets value for money, then the tax payer should foot the bill. We have discussed elsewhere the proposition that some of these necessary undertakings – such as the Prison Service – could be made self financing instead of being a burden to the tax payer but many aspects of government are necessarily not, of themselves, revenue producers. However, I am also increasingly of a mind that the plethora of reforms which are inflicted upon us by successive governments, frequently only due to the application of the latest dogma or at the whim of a current Minister trying to make a name for him/herself, should initially be paid for by the instigators of the reforms. Let them earn the money, rather than just steal it from the tax payer, to pay for any hare brained scheme that they might dream up next. Fair enough, if it all works (to be decided by referendum at their expense) then they can claim a modest fee from the tax payer for the successful product, including a small margin of profit to finance further government initiatives – otherwise, no deal. After all they’ve had all the fun – and that should be recompense enough !

            We’ve had nationalisation, denationalisation and re-nationalisation all at colossal expense and the end result, as we see it now, is chaos. The Education System has been revamped so often it has gone dizzy and the quality of the end product continues to fall. Our Security Services have become a laughing stock. The Railways are a national disgrace. The population, to an ever increasing extent and led from the top, has disintegrated into an ill mannered, ill tempered, ill disciplined and largely illiterate rabble. Useless, unworkable and frequently ignored legislation; useless and unworkable Quangos; useless and totally unworkable government departments like, for example, the C.S.A.; and, whilst we are on the subject of the C.S.A., useless and unworkable Computer and Software Systems  - which, would you believe it, actually get paid for!!

            Now, just answer me a very simple question - who is paying for all of this ? The answer – we are !! Do we get any choice in the matter ? Do we hell!! Two more questions - just whose country is this and what are we doing with it by allowing this sort of farce to continue ?? I see in today’s paper that Gordon Brown’s staff has increased by yet another 64,000 – who’s paying them ? Certainly not him. The steady increase in the size of the Civil Service (which, as I have said before produces nothing neither does it spin and is not even, mostly, beautiful, to compensate !), along with the level of taxation necessary to fund it, is as remorseless as a steadily dripping tap.

            It’s the old, and unfailing, political philosophy at work, of course. A bit here, a bit there, a small change here and a small change there – no one will notice, we can get away with that. Well, we might notice but we don’t bother over much - it doesn’t seem worth it for that little bit. But all these little bits add up and we now pay away more than half of what we earn in tax of one sort or another. We now have the farcical situation that 20% of my pension goes in Council Tax and the idiots that oversee this and have, indeed, conspired to bring it about, are too dumb to see just how unreasonable that is and far, far too stupid to do anything constructive about it. They have got their own snouts in the pension's trough to a degree that is an insult to decency and bordering on the obscene so why should they care. After all – we are paying!! It is self evident to the point of being simple arithmetic that this process cannot continue indefinitely so what do we do about it ?

            It is safe to say that, with rare exceptions, left to the politicians the country would go bankrupt around them before they did anything very much about it. Over the last 55 years or so during which I have been taking an interest in such things they have, let’s face it, come precariously close to this on a number of occasions. The really tragic-comical thing is that when the persons responsible for these episodes retire to ‘The Other Place’, as many of them do, they are feted as Elder Statesman rather than treated as the incompetent fools that they were. Have our politicians learned anything from these experiences – have they hell !! Besides which, of course, our finances are largely controlled, except when specifically over ruled by a Prime Minister or Chancellor, by a Department of State known as the Treasury. It isn’t commonly realised, of course, that as Departments of State go H.M. Treasury is, by the length of a (very long) street the most unutterably useless.

            Money is a very useful tool for replacing barter and transferring ‘value’. Human beings, of course, being the greedy garbage that they are have long since lost sight of the fact that it is only a tool. One can obtain money, basically in three ways. One can earn it, steal it or borrow it. This really quite simple rule applies to governments as much as it applies to individuals. H.M. Treasury is very good at borrowing. It borrows far too much and we pay the interest – how very convenient ! H.M. Treasury is absolutely brilliant at stealing. The bulk of modern taxation is legalised robbery. There really is no room for argument here – short of lying, and our politicians are very good at that. Finally, H.M. Treasury is totally useless at earning. They don’t earn anything. If they want more money, then with the blessing of the Chancellor, they steal (sorry - take) it – from us; how very, very convenient.

            There are also three basic ways of using money. One can spend it, in exchange for goods and / or services. One can give it away. One can save/invest it to earn some more money by its being used in a productive enterprise. You will be unsurprised to learn that H.M. Treasury is totally useless at saving/investment to earn more money – it is far too busy borrowing and paying out interest. It is very good at giving it away. Far too good, in fact, with money that doesn’t actually belong to it – it is, after all, ours !!!!! In those far off days when H.M. Treasury was H.M. Treasury then it might have been the case that it was no longer our money – but we are supposed to live in a democracy ha, ha, ha, ha, he, he, he, he,e,e,e !!!!!!!!  If there is any charity going then it should start at home not be used to inflate the egos and promote the careers of politicians. H.M. Treasury is very good at spending – but only on the goods and services currently in favour with its political masters which usually equates with a large proportion of such expenditure being flushed down the drain to waste. Ask any ‘in power’ politician a question these days and the answer invariably begins – “Ah, well, in this financial year we have, in real terms spent £x more than…………. I don’t  give a sod how much they’ve spent. What I want to know is what they have actually achieved and the usual answer to that is nothing - which is why they don’t tell you.

            Our biggest single problem today is that vast tracts of Business, the greater part of Industry (what little there is left), virtually all of the Public Services, H.M. Treasury and not a little of government are run, not by people who know what they are doing but by Accountants!. Now, the next time you meet an intelligent accountant please let me know. They’re rarer than Rocking Horse droppings (I’ll be polite for a change !) and I’ll have the offending specimen embalmed and put in the British Museum for future generations to admire. Most accountants know only about money, figures, ledgers and balance sheets. The problem is that they don’t really understand even these. Wealth creation is way outside their comprehension. During the 19th. Century, when Great Britain Ltd. was at its peak, the accountants, who were then known as Book Keepers were kept locked in the back room out of the way where they could do no harm. In my view we should return to this system and leave the running of enterprises to people who do actually know what they are doing. The same arguments, of course and to an even greater degree, apply to Chancellors. Their primary function, as with any politician, is to advance their own careers. A little, or even a lot, of judicious greasing of the national wheels with our money can achieve a great deal here – wisely spent or not.

            A circular tour of the politico-financial scene has, unsurprisingly, brought us full circle. Wealth creation is what we need and at the heart of government is where we need it. We are very unlikely, without a bit of coercion, to see this happen because most of the rubbish that we elect has the ‘gift of the gab’, very little to back it up and is just not capable. However, if we were to institute a system, as suggested at the top of the column whereby these Working Men’s Clubs that have hijacked democracy in this country were required, when in office, to finance their reforms themselves until such time as they were proven to be working properly then I suggest that things might change. They want the fun – let them pay for it !!!! The tax payer would, of course, adopt and pay for the running and use of any new facility that proved successful but not all of the wastage associated with development. All of the hare brained ideas that proved not to work would not become a cost to the tax payer at all. My word – utopia at last !! I completely and utterly fail to see why these people should continue to enjoy themselves, achieving very little, and all at our expense. It really is time that the ‘gravy train’ hit the buffers.