Let's scrap more stuff

[AJS-]

Right following on from yesterday's brilliant victory for me, where I saved the country £7bn by scrapping DCMS, these departments all seem pretty unessential to me. That's over £62 billion worth of savings right there. Half of our budget deficit. So what do you reckon? Put a tick next to each one you would be happy to scrap.

[AJS-]

Feel free to suggest other ones too. Or even defend the becobwebbed teetering monstrosities of bloated waste I've listed here, if that is your view.

[AJS-]

miniman said:

I voted for the last four, but the reality is that ALL of them need significant cutting back - perhaps a target of 50% would be a good start.

My thinking is that as long as they exist they will keep lobbying for more money and more powers, and even a temporary cut of 50% will soon be reversed. Remember that these civil servants and special interest groups are experts first and foremost at lobbying the government for money. Whatever good they do comes a distant second.


By the way, the figures in brackets are their budget in billions, the last two in millions.

[AJS-]

miniman said:

I voted for the last four, but the reality is that ALL of them need significant cutting back - perhaps a target of 50% would be a good start.

There's also my own moral and ideological argument in there, which is that I believe the state should do significantly less. That's why I picked DCMS yesterday - it's not that I don't think it's full of sincere and competent people who believe in what they're doing and do as good a job as they can. Rather I believe that the state is not the best guardian of these aspects of our national life, and that it is not right for the state to position itself as their champion.

At the moment my ideology is well aligned with the practicality of cutting back massive amounts of government spending, and going by whole departments rather than budget reduction seems to be the best way to achieve it.

[AJS-]

Fittster said:

Trident. Scraping replacement saves £30ish billion.

Per year or over it's lifetime? No objetion from me. Too late to add to the poll though. It would skew my results and be an unscientific way of gauging the opinions of a group of grouchy right wing guys from the internet. Sorry.

[AJS-]

Twincam16 said:

Everything else can be reduced, but it'd be idiotic to cut them completely.

Why?

[AJS-]

CDP said:

What does the Scotland Office do that the Scots can't do for themselves?

Survive on £1.5bn a year was my only guess, but with their own national government I don't see why we need it.

[AJS-]

Digga said:

Einion Yrth said:

Gaspode said:

How many people either directly (civil servants, contractors, service providers) or indirectly (food, home services, etc) earn their living from these departments? How would they earn a living if the departments didn't exist? What would be the benefits cost of throwing these people out of work?

There's a (very) senior civil servant lives fairly close to me. To my certain knowledge he employs a nanny, a gardener/general factotum/odd job man, and a housekeeper, all pretty much full time (they alway seem to be around, anyway). He uses a local taxi service to take him to and pick him up from the station every day. How would you explain to these people that chucking him out of work is a good idea?

Bastiat q.v. and his parable of the broken window.

Cracking demolition of a fundamentally flawed arguemnt.,

Plus, I bet the civil servant's lackies don't all pay PAYE and NI but are cash in hand.

Daniel hannan is one of the few people who could possibly make me vote Tory

[AJS-]

Anyway nevermind what everyone is bhing and moaning about, look at the numbers. No one really cares if we scrap your pet department, because the reality is we can't afford them. The state has taken on too much, and like it always does has fail to deliver, and failed expensively. The reality of the last 10 years has been closing pubs, rising fuel prices and st easily rising stealth taxes. The reality of the next 10 years is necessarily a massive reduction in the size and scope of what the government does. Maybe you'll have to pay for museums, maybe you won't be streaming HD videos in your cottage on Orkney. Either way the government spending party is over.

[AJS-]

CDP said:

AJS- said:

maybe you won't be streaming HD videos in your cottage on Orkney.

Actually I reckon infrastructure is about the only area the government can get away with spending on providing it gives a proper return on investment. A new modern museum won't improve the economy but decent trains, roads and targeted education can.

There are certain things only the government can do, the rest should be left to industry and the people.

Maybe but blind open ended investment is not th ie answer, and broadband for the most stupidly remote place you can find on a map is exactly that.

[AJS-]

CDP said:

True.

The Orkney example is a pretty good one too. Though I wouldn't be surprised if there's a cost effective way of doing it but it probably won't involve running fibre.

Probably true, but running fibre is exactly what the government will do because it's just their kind of gesture. We spent £5bn on l inking the most remote places in the UK to the world, aren't we a great government?

Actually no.

[AJS-]

muffinmenace said:

You can't know where the world we be in twenty years. The cost seems so insignificant over its lifetime that I'm happy for it to be there to ensure we have a bigger punch on the world stage.

Why? When has being a nuclear power served us well over the last 60 years? Let alone the last 20

[AJS-]

Colonial said:

How about taxing any person who leaves the UK in order to work overseas?

That would bring in a huge amount of money.

You mean on the US model?

As you might be able to tell, I'm against raising more taxes so that the government can keep wasting money.

Colonial said:

Where would the money come from the provide public services that by definition do not turn a profit?

Roads being built? Well, yes, but with substantial tolls.

Healthcare on a user pays basis which would end up costing significantly more money.

No investment in art, culture, creativity, so a stifling of innovation.

We getting rid of the military as well, because unless they turn mercenary they are just a waste of cash.

Hell. Royal family can go to. What do they contribute? Just outsource crowd waving and sending telegrams to India. Huge benefit to the public purse.

We can all look forward to the Stonhenge interactive experience. Within a shopping centre.

I feel that sort of debasing of culture and breakdown of basic services is more likely if the government carries on trying to do everything than if it trims back on the less essential stuff.

We don't have a tax on working outside of the UK but you do pay 70p a minute plus the cost of the call to speak to the passport office if you're overseas. That's sex line expensive. And apparently it's outsourced to some company full of temps who don't know anything about issuing passports anyway. That's a really basic service that I believe a government ought to provide for it's citizens - someone who can be contacted to answer simple queries. And yet it's provided at outrageously expense, while the government pisses away untold billions on Departments of this that and the other, that do nothing for the ordinary citizen.

[AJS-]

Colonial said:

So, cut services you don't personally use, but provide better quality services that you use is your basic argument then.

It was one example I have some knowledge of.

The point is that by having an ever bigger remit for what the state does, it appears to perform it's core functions less well. I'm sure there are other examples. Police not attending burglaries springs to mind, while they all have to attend diversity training.

[AJS-]

Colonial said:

Got any concrete examples of that? Actual figures rather than just some blog posts that you happen to agree with?

Police response times in the UK seem pretty consistent with similar nations. Some are better. A lot are worse.

More funding would be good. More funding for a lot of things would be good.

But having a rather basic "police good I see police culture bad me no understand culture why have it?" approach is very limiting and does much to diminish the standing of a nation, and the future growth and innovation of a nation.

No concrete examples, as I don't have any personal experience of it, as I said. That's not the point anyway. The point is there is only a limited amount of money available and some things are of a higher priority than others where government spending is concerned.

I didn't actually suggest scrapping culture altogether did I? I suggested scrapping the department of government that spends £7bn a year (apparently) promoting and funding certain elements of culture, as a sacrifice worth making given the fact we are on course for debt default if we stick to our current spending plans.


It seems like some people on this thread think there was no culture before the government set up a department for it.

[AJS-]

Colonial, or anyone else for that matter

Can you provide any examples of countries that have thrived economically, culturally or on any other measure for any sustained period as a result of huge and ever rising government spending?

[AJS-]

XJSJohn said:

AJS- said:

Colonial, or anyone else for that matter

Can you provide any examples of countries that have thrived economically, culturally or on any other measure for any sustained period as a result of huge and ever rising government spending?

Norway? Singapore?

Singapore spends 17% of GDP, about 1/3rd of the UK proportion.

I'll grant you Norway, but even they spend less than the UK currently at about 40%, however they are running a surplus. They also have massive oil wealth, but I wouldn't put all their prosperity down to that.

[AJS-]

Well the reality of these polls seems to be saying we don't need it.

I don't see how a small reduction is going to cover the deficit. Currently around 25% of government spending is borrowed money. Even if the economy starts growing again I don't see taxes being able to fund that level of spending long term.

[AJS-]

Colonial said:

AJS- said:

Well the reality of these polls seems to be saying we don't need it.

I don't see how a small reduction is going to cover the deficit. Currently around 25% of government spending is borrowed money. Even if the economy starts growing again I don't see taxes being able to fund that level of spending long term.

I don't see how you can claim overwhelming support from the community based on the feedback of a narrow, quite conservative, section of the community.

It's official. 95% of the population are against gay marriage. As worked out from a survey done at Vatican City.

The same way you can form an opinion by guessing that everyone else out there will be against the idea, perhaps?


That would probably be the case for Vatican City. I don't think I raelly claimed with any seriousness that this is a majority view of the country as a whole, and anyway I have no ability to make it reality.

[AJS-]

Think how much phone time my scheme would have saved you then