It is possible that your view of the officers of Oxfordshire Highways differs from mine. You may think of them as intelligent, cultured people, selflessly dedicated to bringing you public services of the highest quality, and acutely conscious of the need to contain public expenditure by focusing only on those things which matter to ensure the safety and convenience of Oxfordshire’s businesses and individuals. If I think otherwise, it is probably because I have lived here for a long time and seen generations of very stupid people pouring public money down the drain in schemes apparently designed to screw up the traffic flow, to make the city of Oxford as ugly and as unattractive as possible, and to ensure that there is always work for them to do.
Let me see if I can convert you to my point of view in a way which jumps over the legitimate debate as to how much of the road mending is either necessary or competently executed.
It is 2011. Nearly a year has passed since Gordon Brown was ejected, his 13 years of trashing the economy coinciding with a worldwide recession. His commitment to improving public services amounted to little more than throwing money at them, as if the mere spending were enough. An expansion of the role of government included a mass of new roles and regulation, most of them quite unnecessary, requiring the recruitment of additional staff. The number of publicly-employed people rose from 5.2 million to 6.1 million in 13 years, increasing the wage bill by 29% to £157.7 billion. In the decade after Labour’s election, town hall spending rose by 53% in real terms to £164 billion per year. Few discernible benefits resulted, beyond Labour’s re-election at the hands of those grateful for the largesse and willing to suspend belief in the normal forces of economics in return for the barrow-loads of money which kept on coming their way. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Chris Dale