It seems Gordon Brown’s favourite useful idiot, Derek Wanless, has been at it again. The much-criticised former banker, who disastrously turned the giant NatWest bank into a tiddler taken over by the Royal Bank of Scotland, has taken a second lump of taxpayer cash from HM Treasury, to produce a second report telling them, once again, what they wanted to hear in the first place.
This follows his previous report, also commissioned by HM Treasury, which told them National Insurance payroll taxes should be raised to increase government spending on the NHS. Which duly happened, straight after the last General Election.
Dilbert Derek’s latest report tells us essentially that the government should do more to look after the health of its citizens. In much the same way, of course, that pig farmers should look after the health of their pigs. Welcome to the farm, citizens.
What this will undoubtedly turn into is a righteous claim, as predicted by our very own Mr David Carr, that HM Treasury should, unwillingly, and after due consideration, raise our taxes again. For our own good. Bless them.
Who cares what the actual tax will be? A fat tax, a hat tax, a stick it up your jumper tax, don’t worry, they’ll think of something. So my hot gambling tip of the day, if you’ve got any money left after this year’s January self-assessment tax deadline, is to put your loot down on ‘More Taxes Soon’, in the five o’clock at HM Treasury. This may be your last chance to ever have any spare money, so enjoy it while it lasts. Get a McDonalds with your winnings. Don’t worry. They won’t mind. They just want your money.
If the spin the Treasury has on the report (broadly, spend more cash on heath promotion and less on healthcare) were accurate, at least the report would lead to less cash being thrown down the black hole of NHS-ness.
Ten billion quid says the second part won’t happen…
The nomenklatura complains about the limited choice of caviar in the special stores. Meanwhile, the bread queues grow longer.
Extrapolating from current trends, there will be 30 million public service workers and two taxpayers in 2035. Both will resign and go on social security as protest. The UK will go down (figuratively and literally) as the only nation to have attempted to defy fiscal gravity.
During his tenure at NatWest he was known as Wanless Chinder.
My fear continues to be that as nations spiral down the fiscal toilet, and their situation gets steadily worse despite “everything government is doing for them,” that they get nasty and uncivilized.
I don’t want to exagerate the problem. England is still one of the few countries I would be willing to live in, but you have to realize that all nations exist on a scale of fiscal sense and personal freedoms. As you slide down the scale the nations gets worse and worse, and there are costs imposed on neighboring nations.
At the bottom of this scale today we have the “failed states”, mostly in Africa and Central Asia. I won’t wouldn’t care to name names as to who’s on top, but sometimes I think it’s more obvious which direction the nation is going than where they are. I feel like the EU is much higher than nations like Pakistan or Uraguay, but that they are moving in towards each other, and one day might pass each other going in opposite directions if things don’t change.
Of course I’m really hoping that the folks in the EU will change before it comes to that, but how long will it take? How far will they have to fall? What terrors will they incubate and export before the get themselves turned around?
How long until they start listening to Samizdata? 😉
“government should do more to look after the health of its citizens. In much the same way, of course, that pig farmers should look after the health of their pigs. Welcome to the farm, citizens.”
Nice writing !
Cydonia