In which spending cuts may be a good thing
Published at 6:32 pm on May 25th, 2010
Filed under: Geekery, Political.
Following on from yesterday’s post about government spending cuts: there is, of course, one thing that would save quite a bit more money than freeing up some unused phone numbers. Regular readers of this blog will – especially if they were regular readers about a year ago – be very bored of me droning on about the West Of England Partnership‘s* ongoing guided busway scheme, which consists essentially of turning former and current railway alignments such as the Bristol-Bath Railway Path or the Bristol Harbour Railway into private roads for the exclusive use of First Group, at public cost. Rather high public cost, at that, as for any road scheme; and the first phase of the project would have no purpose other than to replace the current Ashton park-and-ride services with new, less useful, park-and-ride services from the same car park. Follow this link to read more.
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Keyword noise: Bedminster, Bristol, Bristol Post, Bristol Harbour Railway, buses, Gary Hopkins, government, guided bus, light rail, North Somerset, Parry People Movers, spending cuts, West of England Partnership.
In which we reveal that there really are hundreds of government helplines that nobody ever phones - but cutting them won't actually have any effect
Published at 8:05 pm on May 24th, 2010
Filed under: Political.
Today’s big news story: the government has started on its grand crusade to save money and thereby rescue the nation. Whether it will work remains to be seen, of course. I was intrigued, though, by one assertion which I heard on the news this morning: the government will save money by cutting back on call centres and helplines, because there are, apparently, many many government helplines which have barely even received a single call.*
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Keyword noise: advertising, call centre, Conservatives, George Osborne, government, helplines, marketing, spending cuts.
In which, unlike Mario Reading, we own up to a wrong prediction
Published at 12:58 pm on September 7th, 2006
Filed under: Meta, Political.
In which we look at ID Card plans
Published at 7:19 am on July 13th, 2006
Filed under: Political.
Some good political news on the way for once: whilst The Guardian is reporting that the goverment ID card scheme is behind schedule with no firm dates set, according to The Register, the scheme is definitely out the window. This is based on a cunning analysis of the various proposals so far, which demonstrates that they can’t possibly be completed by the next election, never mind 2008 as the government has promised.
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Keyword noise: authoritarianism, civil liberties, elections, government, ID cards, identity, Passport Agency.
In which power goes to people’s heads
Published at 5:57 pm on June 24th, 2006
Filed under: Political.
I said yesterday that politics hasn’t been interesting me lately. It’s not so much that I’m feeling a lack of interest, but I’m trying to block out just how authoritarian this government is becoming. As was shown by yesterday’s prime-ministerial speech on Justice: “Justice should mean summary justice” was one of its messages. The other was: “I want to lock up anyone I don’t like, but those nasty judges won’t let me.”
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Keyword noise: authoritarianism, civil liberties, government, holiday, justice, liberty, media, power, travel.
There’s been an awful lot in the news recently about John Prescott and Dorneywood, the grace-and-favour country house he’s just given up. Which set me wondering: why do we have to have state-owned mansions for ministers anyway?
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Keyword noise: Bute House, Chequers, Chevening, country house, Dorneywood, government, history, invented tradition, John Prescott, minister, Petersberg, tradition.
In which we look at political motives
Published at 7:09 pm on December 18th, 2005
Filed under: Political.
The new Tory leader has jumped right in to the job, and is trying to persuade Liberal Democrats to cross the floor and join his party. Presumably he thinks that the Tory party itself has no hope of attracting new blood – or that politics itself is always a zero-sum game – so is trying to mind-meld. Maybe it’s working. Although there’s sometimes national-level talk of Labour and the Lib Dems working on a similar wavelength, out in the country they are usually fighting like rabid wolves, and Lib Dem-Tory alliances are far more common. In fact, my own local council – the worst local council in the country – is one.
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Keyword noise: alliance, coalition, David Cameron, government, Liberal Democrats, liberalism, local government, Tories.
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