Month: December 2010
The Great Train Wreck of Twenty-Thirteen
Looking back on the Great Train Wreck of 2013, some say it was ironic that a government that was formed to tackle a public finance crisis of one sort should have managed to create a quite different one of it’s own making. But of course it wasn’t just a public financial crisis, as public services plunged into chaos. Continue reading “The Great Train Wreck of Twenty-Thirteen”
Double Dipping Pickles
One interesting little wrinkle in the “we are only cutting ‘spending power’ of local government by an average 4.4%”. Eric Pickles and the Coalition can only claim this because the local government ‘spending power’ figures appear to include £1bn of NHS money transferred to local government for social care. Continue reading “Double Dipping Pickles”
Localisation of the Bill
Today we have seen clearly what “localism” means for the Coalition government: localising the bill for the financial and economic crisis caused not by government – central or local – but by the banks. Continue reading “Localisation of the Bill”
Comment on PESA
The nice people at HM Treasury who produce the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses annual publication have asked for some feedback. They will have access to this site, so if you have any comments, questions or suggestions about PESA simply leave them here and they’ll be checking to see what you have said. Thanks in anticipation…
The policy is more about Universities than Students
The focus of debate around the proposed changes to universities funding and student fees has been much more on the latter than the former. But in reality the Coalition’s policies are much more focussed on universities and the student finance issues is more of a means to and end – the effective privatisation of universities and forcing financially-based competition between them. Continue reading “The policy is more about Universities than Students”
STATECRAFT - improving government 