Dave Promises See-Through Government Contracts
On Wednesday David Cameron gave a speech to a TED audience described by host Matthew Freud as “movers and shakers”. That is Mathew Freud the lobbyist and son-in-law of Rupert Murdoch. Dave made a new pledge to publish not just details of spending over £25,000 but details of all government contracts worth over £25,000 for goods and services in full, including all performance indicators, break clauses and penalty measures. This will enable voters and taxpayers to “Google their government”, searching out wasteful spending and poorly negotiated contracts, opening up government procurement system to small businesses.
That is a non-trivial change in policy and will have far reaching ramifications, not least of which will be increased competition and downward pressure on public spending. Ending “commercial confidentiality” and publishing all government contracts was a proposal floated last September in an article (“A See-Through Government“) in the journal of the Reform think-tank and at their New Government Agenda conference last November. Guido was wearing his wonk hat…
Laudable though these ideas may be, one only has to wonder at the size and cost of all this (remember yesterdays announcements on monitoring MP’s expenses).
This, of course, assumes that Dave really means it and isn’t just trying to spin us a story to boost his lead in the polls.
Who’s Ted?
That would be Father Ted – a popular comedy from the 90′s. Apparently, Dave wants to star in a remake, but based on Westminster rather than Craggy Island.
Feck. ****Banned word****. Girls
My name is Drinkwater.so I am banned.I may sue.
Watch out for me!
I further intend to publish all questions that my MP’s will ask in return for cash.
This all sounds eerily familiar.
Blair made similar noises about transparency then locked up PFI and PPP under commercial confidentiality.
Unless those two mainstays of secrecy and incredible waste are opened up it’s just waffle and soundbites.
The failed astronomical IT projects, no bid MOD bungles, construction projects always given to the usual suspects who just happen to be donors and have knighthoods etc. etc. etc.
Will they all suddenly feel the cold wind of scrutiny ?
Believe it when I see it.
Mr. Either-Party:
wooed by the politicians. again.
you know what happens after the champagne and quaaaludes.
you’ve certainly been on the drugs Anonymong
you do realise you are babbling nonsense ?
Ted Heath?
Dave has got more spin than a Zanussi.
Is that the Great Clunking Fist? I was wondering what had happened to it.
There shouldn’t be much cost in cut-and-pasting some of the clauses in a contract, sticking them into a file and linking them to a website. That’s not to say they cpuldn’t make it into a mega-multi-million pound Department of Transparency of course.
It’s a great idea. It will also make corrpution harder.
I once had to submit a Tender for some goods to the council.
It was a 50 page document with the specs of the last similar product that was purchased (ie out of date). It took ages to fill out, ages for them to procastinate and they ended up buying from a supplier hundreds of miles away. Thanks for supporting local business.
In the real world a company would have a vague idea of what they wanted, call in a couple of suppliers, hear what they could offer and then negotiate a deal and get the products delivered asap.
You forgot to add …. “with a little back-hander to purchasing”.
This is what the next government is trying to avoid, so more strength to their arm, provided that (as many contributors point out) we don’t get the mother of all Quangos to do it.
But is is a nod in the right direction … yes? Just another means to get at the appalling record of this government, and try something different.
Ah, the wonderful world of procurement.
Buy supplies from the cheapest bloke in
the known universe, ship it in and watch local
business disappear.Fucking marvellous.
It is risky though in that, by opening up the books, it gives the shit stiring clowns like Campbell and Mandlebum the ammo they need (and don’t think they will be factual either) to re write history and explain why Liebore contracts were better…
Precisely. I want to hear when, and by how much, DC is prepared to cut the greedy, jobs-for-the-boys quangos. These are the very epitomy of an over-blown and controlling state. If we are to get the state off our backs then this in the number one priority when considering how this country is run.
We are about to dismantle one of the most appalling governments of modern times, but if the quangos are left in place then we will have actually achieved very little, and this dreadful system will simply carry on in the NuLiebour tradition – interfering and wasting.
If Labour lose which they won’t because single mums, people on the dole, immigrants, public workers, The Scottish, stupid people and after Broons crying this weekend on TV every soft women in the UK will vote them back in.
Think I will hang myself on election night.
They’ll lose. Scum don’t vote, unless the polling station is near on offy doing bogof on White Lightening.
Don’t worry Labour party workers will vote for them via the Royal Mail
Happy days man the barricades.
Nothing will scare the shit out of Labour more than if they actually win. Dave and his shower will be wandering around shell-shocked but Brown’s lot will be shitting broken glass if they have to deal with the clusterfuck they have created.
The only one who wants to remain in power is Brown. The rest of ‘em are just taking the view that with the clusterfuck they’ve left Dave it will be better to leave him to sort it out and take the blame for the tough decisions while they rewrite history about how it was all going fucking magic until the Tories screwed up the economy. At this rate they’ll only be out of power for five or ten years. Could quite easily be five with the massively unpopular decisions Cameron will be forced to take.
If I was Dave I’d turn the table on Labour immediately I got elected by announcing an enquiry with a view to having trials of all Labour MPs for colluding in committing economic fraud on an industrial scale, war-mongering etc etc.
Quite right. One thing telling some
goon with a clipboard you’ll vote for shit bum.
Another actually walking round to the polling station.
I’m praying for a hurricane.
jgm2: the Great Repeal Act. Just create an act of parliament that says every law since 1997 is null and void and Dave can start again. Dougie Carswell is preparing such a bill at the moment ready for the next parliament.
What a super, super stratagem.
Rubber Duck Dave solves unemployment at a stroke and cast-iron guarantees the absolute and total FUBAR of public administration.
Enough with the “cast iron” crap.
Does this piece of fiction soud familiar?
“The EU now has 25 members and will continue to expand.The new
Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively,
and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy,
taxation, social security and defence.The Treaty sets out what the EU can do and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments
and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain
and for the new Europe.We will put it to the British people in a referendum
and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote to keep Britain
a leading nation in Europe
So much for Labours promises made to get themselves re-elected.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/eu_referendum/article273758.ece
Don’t think publishing this information would cost very much at all.
It is already published for internal use.
Extra work will only take place if they want to doctor it for public consumption.
As for whether he will keep to it, that’s an entirely different matter
Ampers
Do we want transparency, if so, let’s ask why a BBC charity “Comic Relief” is backing the call for a banking tax (which everyone will have to pay). How much of the license fee has gone to build this BBC backed site?
whois robinhoodtax.org.uk
Domain name:
robinhoodtax.org.uk
Registrant:
Comic Relief
Registrant type:
Unknown
Registrant’s address:
5th Floor, 89 Albert Embankment
Vauxhall
London
London
SE1 7TP
United Kingdom
Registrar:
NetNames Limited [Tag = NETNAMES]
URL: http://www.netnames.co.uk
Relevant dates:
Registered on: 08-Dec-2009
Renewal date: 08-Dec-2011
Last updated: 04-Feb-2010
Registration status:
Registered until renewal date.
Name servers:
ns2.quickserve.com
ns7.ns0.com
WHOIS lookup made at 12-Feb-2010
Ironic that the comic relief website says:
From our blog
Feb 10: Comic Relief supports Robin Hood Tax
The Whois search says that Comic Relief ARE the robinhoodtax Why is more not being done about this BBC scam?
Comic Relief is NOT a BBC charity. They just happen to broadcast and promote most of the events. ITV or Sky could too if they wanted to.
The screen behind David reminds me of this…. is David turning into a lefty?
I suspect that image came from TED as representitive of whatever theme they had speakers coming along to lecture on.
TED have had some BRILLIANT speakers and some truly mind expanding themes. They do have the movers and shakers and leaders of every aspect of life and culture to speak. Everyone from the leaders in science, engineering, philosophy, sports, personal development, success coaching, marketting, religion, spiritual studies, fashion, etc etc… You name it, they have a speaker giving a talk on it!
Have a look at their website and see what you can learn today.
My favourite:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
Truly mind altering!
Henceforce I shall be signing 100,000 contracts for £24,999 each.
You learned that trick from the troughing m.p’s when they claimed money for unreceipted expenses.
Easy to discover though. As we look at the total spend against how many contracts being awarded out. It will be easy to work out if we are being stiffed. If the amount of contracts increases massively, but the total spend doesn’t, that would point to major troughage.
I can just imagine a whole plethora of ashen grey faces at Crapita reaching for whiskey and revolvers.
God alone knows what we’ll do with the thousands of bloated carcasses floating down the river once this hits the DFID.
Nice to know YOUR tax money is being used to stamp out domestic violence in er…Serbia
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Case-Studies/2009/Serbia-abuse/
Or hairdressers in Zimbabwe. I kid you not
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Case-Studies/2010/Braids-not-AIDS—a-real-valentines-present/
How about 7,000 bilingual teaching assistants for er…. Vietnam?
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Case-Studies/2010/Bridging-ethnic-divides-to-reach-the-classroom-together/
Red Ken Livingslime gave Crapita extra money for running the KENgestion charge in London because they pleaded poverty. A few weeks later, Crapita posted record profits, strangely similar to the amount Livingslime gave Crapita. No coincidence there then.
“I can just imagine a whole plethora of ashen grey faces at Crapita reaching for whiskey and revolvers.”
Not if Capita get the contract from Dave to provide the software and website to publish this data.
This will be just a repeat of the NHS IT fiasco. Dave, like Blair (and Brown after him) have to find some way to channel our money into the pockets of the service companies. Dave’s plan is not to cut public spending it is simply to cut public services. Loopk at the “ring fenced” NHS, there are no savings there because their spending is ring fenced. All Dave will do is divert NHS cash to the services companies. They are an extention of the state anyway (as are charities who are funded with our money too).
Basically we are fucked. New Labour put our money into public services, dave’s Blue labour put our money into the service conpany. Same money, different people.
BROWN BLUBBERING ON TV!
I am sick to the stomach of seeing that bong-eyed koont talk about his “loss”. What about feeling for the loss of our brave soldiers you fucking hypocrite.
He looks the fucking half-wit buffon we all know him to be.
Hang the Bastard!
Hopefully the public will see through the charade.
And David Cameron’s Conservatives will be crying when they lose the next General Election
It will be a sad day for the country if this bunch of morans are re-elected.
Don’t worry, I’m not standing. Vote Esther.
It will not just be Cameron’s conservatives crying, but the entire fucking country when the IMF and the EU carve up our economy between them and sack about 4 million useless pen pushers. The EU will NOT be bailing us out, they will be asset stripping!
It won’t be the tories getting the blame for it! That “honour” will rest squarely on the shoulders of the twat in charge. Namely Gordon Brown.
Of course we’ll win. The public love us because we have transformed the country. We’ave achieved a level of equality never though possible – that is, everyone’s fucked.
Losing a baby at or soon after birth is very unfortunate, and happens every day around the UK, but it cannot compare with the death of a child, who you know, loved and cared for. This baby never left the hospital, lived just ten days, there was no opportunity for a relationship to form. In terms of grief it can hardly compare.And to pour all this emotional incontinence out just before an election will cause people to question the motive. Exploiting a dead baby is tasteless.
“Tasteless” is putting it mildly. Exploiting the death of a child is tasteless and extremely offensive.
Exploiting the death of your OWN* child is an abomination, a sick, twisted manifestation of a callous, unfeeling, sociopathic mind. A mind of a person who is so massively unfit to govern that they should be locked up!
(*assuming it was Gordon’s genetically inferior seed, of which there has to be significant doubt)
Of course Dave would never think of getting any political gain from the death of Ivan, would he?
Having seen a clip this morning, there can be no better illustration that Sarah is a beard than his botched explanation of the proposal – something along the lines of ‘We need to get married quickly, please’– sounds like true love to me…
State Broadcaster going big with it this morning. Makes me sick
Free Party political broadcast
Free advert for a rival network
If I find myself in I will watch that other Smoke and Mirror merchant/Illusionist, Derren Brown
The difference is Derren Brown is gay.
And that is one question that was not asked!
If it were you can bet we’d get a straight answer.
Strange, isn’t it, how Brown’s Broadcasting Corporation has gone overboard on this pitiful, gut-wrenching stunt, bearing in mind that it is an ITV programme. Never slow to do items on their own programmes, it is extremely rare to hear them plugging a prog from the oppostion. In fact, I can’t recall the last time this happened on Toady.
Just goes to show that they are all rooting for him, only more so now that he looks like losing the election.
These people will do anything for votes, as my dear, dear silver-haired old great-grandmama whispered to me with her dying breath, surrounded by all those smiling orphaned children.
Just for you, here is a photo of them filming “those” tears………
I thought he didn’t want to involve his family in the political arena. Then he got his boring gooseberry to introduce his speech at the conference. Now he’s dragging his kids and their problems onto the front pages. Can’t the beeb see through this flagrant bid for sympathy. IT’S DESPICABLE. I hope Piers Morgan gets slated for this.
That isn’t how you spell ‘knighted’.
Vote for me, boo hoo, I deserve it more than David, boo hoo. I’m not playing on the sympathy vote before an election, boo hoo, how dare you suggest it, boo hoo.
As a human I feel for anyone who loses a child, it would be churlish not to.
As a man I think it is mawkish and simpering to go on national TV and publicly exploit her sad death in a desperate tearful search for votes.
As a politician I hate him.
Some commentators have slated my interview with my good friend Gordon Brown on my excellent Television series ‘Life Stories’which can be seen on ITV1 at primetime on Sunday night.
During my stellar career which has involved editing a national newspaper at a very young age, being a judge on Britain’s most watched television programme I have met ALL the most important and influential people in the world. I count most of them to be really good friends.
However I have never met anyone with such humility, humour, calmness, level headedness, charm, personality, determination and empathy as the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever had; Gordon James Brown
Piers, soon to be Lord
Ah yes that would be the same Piers Morgan who had some editorial issues with forged photos of torturing British squaddies in his newspaper?
Excellent choice for a McDoom interview.They would undertsnad each other well
And whatever you do, don’t mention Viglen to the troughing little bugger!
It is a shame that Cameron is not offering enough important policies worth voting for, as this vile and sick display of fake grief by Brown makes me almost want to vote for Cameron. After all, Cameron lost a child too, one he cared for for many years, and he is not (as yet) exploiting it by blubbing in public just before an election.
Thats the difference between private grief and no grief
I’m sure Dave can trump that when he gets talking about Ivan. Jeez, using dead babies to pimp for votes – doesn’t get much lower than that.
Dave C, don’t do it, remember Ivan with the dignity he deserves, do not fall into the trap, look forward but don’t forget.
I saw the above live on BBC
Dreadful!
I shall not click on the YouTube button because the counter will eventually say “more people have visited this crap than Hannan’s views on Brown”
Forget it online!
PS
When two ‘news’presenters share a couch – do they also share the salary – or when one performs on their own – do they get double time?
Early morning BBC TV ‘news’is really an offshoot of ‘Strictly come …..’ – don’t you think?
Breakfast telly is news lite (as if it could get any ‘liter’) and isufferably awful. I refuse to waste what is left of my miserable life watching such utter crap.
WTF.
Apparently Morgan asks him if he and his beard have joined the ‘Mile high club’ I really do feel extremely ill.
(shudder)
If he normally flies at a height of just 1,760 yards above the ground then someone ought to check his aircraft a bit more carefully. At that height it can’t be long before he comes to grief. I always thought it was the ‘Ten-Mile High Club’but knowing this puffed up incompetent he reduced the standard to make it easier….
On reflection perhaps that should be The Five Mile High Club…
“Sarah and I, we’re, we’re a modern love story.”
Wheres the bucket… BAAAARF.
Whatever Brown says does not surprise me in the least. He is so desperate to cling on to his job he would do and say anything even telling the world about the death of his daughter to get a bit of the sympathy vote. What I find even more disturbing is how his wife can sit in the audience and go along with the charade. The pair of fuckers disgust me.
I lost the last shred of sympathy I had for Sara the moment she first stood on the Labour platform to introduce her husband. That moment she put her head on the political spike and became a legitimate political target.
With this “stunt” she has proven herself to be every bit as evil as her husband.
They are the Fred and Rosemary West of politics!
Brady and Hindley of politics,do worse.
As news comes through of another soldier blown to bits yesterday.
That’s the fourth this week Gordo – Three are returning today in boxes.
Afghanisation my arse.
Having a beard is not modern at all – been going on for years you daft twunt.
While you’re at it Dave, publish all the contracts that New Labour signed us up to during their 13 years of fucked-up government.
Yes, committed the great British tax payer to for years to come!
Great news – fingers crossed it happens
The changes that DC is proposing are genuinely revolutionary. Let’s all hope he has the political will to get things like this through, it really will make a massive difference to procurement and waste within the government.
He should also ensure that local government are subject to the same process with a lower limit, given his commitment to localism. I believe Boris is also making strides in this area already.
‘genuinely revolutionary’….
Admit it, you mean they’re spin, don’t you ?
This is magnificent. It is offensive that publicly-funded Primary Care Trusts sign non-disclosure agreements with drug companies about drug prices, such that other publicly-funded Primary Care Trusts can’t tell how much taxpayers’money they’re wasting!
It will also stop outrages like New Labour’s disgusting ID Cards contracts penalty clauses, a pathetic attempt to usurp democracy by artificially requiring more spending if the people vote out the pro ID Cards majority. In local government, the perpetrators private assets would be surcharged for a stunt like that.
Fawkes, please keep highlighting the staggering cost of the proposed expenses monitoring arrangements !
A commercial business with a turnover of + £50 million, would monitor the expenses of that number of employees by carrying out regular audits with a team of three people.
The proposals are so far off the scale that they truly are a paralell universe job.
key it into a ‘SPREADSHIT’such as EXCEL
10 minutes to write a program that flags up exceptions
Job Done !
Nurse !!
What are the other 80 staff going to do for the rest of their employment?
Not even. Have the MPs themselves key it into a fucking spreadsheet along with a copy of the invoice and then publish the fucking thing online where everybody can see it.
Additional cost to tax-payer: Nil.
But if they did it that way it would show where the item is being delivered to and how much it cost and if any extras were thrown it and …….
Aaaaahh ……….. I get it !
Good innit ?
NAME THAT TUNE
I’ll do that job with 80 staff
I’ll do that job with 60 staff
I’ll do that job with 40 staff
I’ll do that job with 30 staff
I’ll do that job with 10 staff
DO THAT JOB !!!
But labour will not be able to pretend that the economy is strong and employment is high if they had admit how many extra people they are paying out of our taxes just to keep the employment figure higher and to keep more and more people entirely dependent on the state’s tit!
Guido,please may I borrow your wank hat ??
I only hope it is cast iron
Use my twonk hat. It’s a size XXXXL
why dont you just fuck off you pathetic little gobshite labour sock puppet.
“The EU now has 25 members and will continue to expand.The new
Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively,
and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy,
taxation, social security and defence.The Treaty sets out what the EU can do and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments
and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain
and for the new Europe.We will put it to the British people in a referendum
and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote to keep Britain
a leading nation in Europe”
Labour Party 2005 General Election Manifesto
LiepromiseFacing the biscuit challenge at Mumsnet with Justine ready for morningpaper, champagnesupernova et al
http://twitter.com/SarahBrown10/status/8983592250
We like the biscuit challenge!
spunky or dunky?
Soggy
Is it a soggy buscuit?
what planet is she on, very supportive of the poor with her champane moments and star struck life style, get a life!
Labour positively HATE the poor!
that is why they enslave them, double their taxes and pay the wrong amount of tax credits.
They have done NOTHING to improve life for poor people. NOTHING! The gaps between rich and poor has grown over the last 13 years and social mobility and opportunity to move from poor to riches has diminished.
Labour hates the poor, but it relies on them for votes.
The only thing labour has done for the poor, is increase their numbers and the level of their dependency on the state.
Waste of space, get some proper work done Beard Brown FFS!
she’s fucking insane too
It will be interesting to see how much the Government spends on external consultants and contractors……..
I was talking to a feller last night, .net developer, took £163K off the public tit last year. Trying to persuad eme to join him on the “dark side”, working for govt, beavering away on project after project that’s cancelled before it hits the real world…
Nice work if you have no soul or social conscience whatsoever. I prefer my IT work to be paid for by private companies, and have a positive application in the real world. My stuff has to work, be delivered on time and to budget.
If you are a shit developer who likes to scrounge more money off the tax-payer than a serial dole scrounging parasite, and you do not want your work tested in the real world, then go ahead, work for a government funded IT job.
Hopefully all such jobs will cease after the election when RESULTS will be expected in return for tax-payer’s money!
I’m off and running
A Welsh rugby fan is drinking in an English bar, when he gets a call
on his mobile phone.
He hangs up, grinning from ear to ear, and orders a round of drinks
for everybody in the bar,
announcing his wife has just given birth to a typical welsh baby boy
weighing 25 pounds.
Nobody can believe that any new baby can weigh in at 25 pounds, but
the rugby fan just shrugs and replies,
‘That’s about average in Wales … Like I said, my boy’s a typical
welsh baby boy. Gonna be a rugby player.’Congratulations showered him from all around, amid many exclamations
of ‘WOW!’One woman actually fainted due to sympathy pains.
Two weeks later, he returns to the bar. The bartender says, ‘Say,
aren’t you the father of that typical welsh baby
that weighed 25 pounds at birth? Everybody’s been making bets about
how big he’d be in two weeks.
So, how much does he weigh now?’The proud father answers, ‘Twenty pounds.’
The bartender is puzzled, concerned and a little suspicious. ‘What
happened?
He already weighed 25 pounds the day he was born!’
The Welshman takes a slow swig of his Felinfoel dark, wipes his li on his shirt sleeve,
leans into the bartender and proudly says,
‘Had him circumcised.’
and the circumcised foreskin grew up to become Gordon Brown.
Yeah, yeah, I used to tell that one at Cabinet meetings whenever Gordon failed to turn up.
but the bad news was it had only one eyelid so they used the foreskin to make one.everyone was of the opinion it would make it crosseyed but it actually improved it’s foresight.so theres hope for the future.
For Sale……
Alexander Mcqueen shirts, bit tight around the neck but hang well
Easy to lift.
We can see through the awarding of contracts now pal, what’s new?
“Commercial confidentiality” and massive getout clauses for politically unpopular contracts (cf. IT system for ID cards is believed to cost £1bn to get out of)
Any hoo, what about the trial of Geert Wilders, how’s that going? Since the msm have blacked out reporting on it the Western world yet again misses out on a seminal trial that will prefigure the doom of Christendom – oh I forgot, that’s the general fucking bastared idea.
O/T
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7215895/History-of-England-starts-at-1700-says-university.html
particularly like the phrase ‘entrenching the ignorance of the present’.
Avoids having to rewrite history, just ignore it
On the Brown Broadcasting Company’s R4 ‘flagshit’program, Andrew Langley put a good performance talking about the Elderly Care and Andy Burnham’s proposed 20k Death Levy. Justin Webb then harranged him about whether David Cameron knew about the inter-party talks and tried to make a big deal about it. Naughtie finished off with a quip.. ‘very interesting interview’.
WTF! Feck off you Labour shills!!
This must be addressed, the beeb has turned into the propoganda machine of the government.
Just found this. Some chap is trying to raise this as an issue.. Not only reflects on the extremist left wing bias of the BBC but also the fact that it does not reflect English views. Good stuff.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/EBC-not-BBC/#detail
Done it with pleasure.
Done.
I never fill in these No10 petitions as they are typically ignored by the government.
But in this case I have made an exception.
Done!
done
Is that the black power fist behind Dave?
More like number 2. Citizen smith.
I often wonder whether david Cameron can remember anything about the late70s/early 80s.
Balham Front Popular, wasn’t it?
Tooting Popular Front.
Perhaps thats what cameron wanted to be the leader of.
That image would be a theme from TED, not David Cameron I imagine… The video is not available on the TED website yet, so that would be my guess.
So you’re not a fan Jeff?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/7216274/What-has-Gordon-Brown-done-for-Britain-since-his-first-Budget.html
this is what he said he had done anyway.
1) Tony Blair: 1997 Conference Speech
“I want this to be the New Labour Government that ended Tory boom and bust forever.”
2) Gordon Brown: July 1997
“Today, the Bank of England has agreed with me that, if we are to prevent the cycle of boom and bust, inflationary pressures in the economy, which the previous Government negligently failed to tackle, must be brought under control ”
3) Gordon Brown: November 1997
“I am satisfied that the new monetary policy arrangements will deliver long-term price stability, and prevent a return to the cycle of boom and bust.”
4) Gordon Brown: April 1998
“We will not return to the stop-go, boom-bust years which we saw under the Conservatives. ”
5) Gordon Brown: May 1998
“The Government have put in place policies to deliver that objective and are determined to avoid a return to boom and bust.”
6) Gordon Brown: June 1998
“rigorous financial discipline that, together with monetary stability, ends once and for all the boom and bust that for 30 years has undermined stability ”
7) Tony Blair: February 1999
“Moreover, for decades we have been prone to far greater swings in the economic cycle than our continental counterparts. It has been boom and bust….Under this Government, there is an entirely new framework for economic management in place ”
Ruth Kelly: November 1999
“The Government have rejected the boom and bust of the Conservative party ”
9) Tony Blair: November 1999
“We have the best chance of ending boom and bust in years.”
10) Gordon Brown: November 1999
“Indeed, Britain was set to repeat the old, familiar cycle of boom and bust. Since then, we have created and rigorously adhered to a new framework of modern economic management ”
10) Alistair Darling: January 2000
“On top of that, we have a healthy and stable economy and an end to the boom and bust that characterised the Tory years.”
11) Alan Johnson: February 2000
“The Government’s first priority on coming to office was to secure long-term economic stability and put an end to the damaging cycle of boom and bust.”
12) Gordon Brown: March 2000
“Britain does not want a return to boom and bust. ”
13) Tony Blair: 2000 Conference Speech
“The first big choice: a government with the strength to deliver stability, or a government that takes the country back to boom and bust.”
14) Gordon Brown: November 2000
“Our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the ’80s–rising debt, higher long-term interest rates, higher debt repayment costs, lower growth, higher unemployment, then enforced cuts in public spending. That was the old boom and bust.”
15) Gordon Brown: March 2001
“We will not return to boom and bust.”
16) Ruth Kelly: May 2002
“We must avoid a return to the days of boom and bust that manufacturers had to endure for a long time under the Conservatives.”
17) Yvette Cooper: May 2004
“We know that they want to turn the clock back, but it would be foolish to turn it back to a policy of boom and bust.”
18) John Prescott : January 2005
“Labour economic stability has replaced Tory boom and bust ”
19) Tony Blair: 2005 Conference Speech
“In the first two terms we corrected the weaknesses of the Tory years: boom-and-bust economics ”
20) Alistair Darling: March 2005
“As I said, there are two approaches—first, a strong economy, stability and helping families or, secondly, the Tory cuts, the undermining of stability, and a return to the boom and bust of the 1990s.”
21) Gordon Brown: March 2006
“I have said before: no return to boom and bust.”
22) Gordon Brown: December 2006
“Boom and bust is a term that applied to the Conservative years and two of the worst recessions in history”
23) Gordon Brown: March 2007
“We will not return to the old boom and bust.”
24) Alistair Darling: June 2007
“…acknowledges the outstanding performance of the economy under this Government with the longest unbroken economic expansion on record, in contrast to the boom and bust of the previous Government “
At which point it all went a little bit pear shaped shall we say
Oh and who could forget this little gem
Gordon Brown’s 1997 Budget Statement –
“I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery.”
*sighs*
Another key promise must be the removal of all BBC and Government job adverts from the Guardian and their advertising through a free government website.
Absolutely. If the Grauniad cannot survive with it’s paltry sales it needs to employ less Toynbees
fewer
its
Guardian
The
fewer
But meanwhile, Brown airs grief in public, Miliband squirms, Hoon straps on a parachute and Brown refuses to deny duty for the poor
You could not make it up! Oh, wait! That’s exactly what Brown does!
Oh do grow my dear.
This is keeping David Cameron’s Conservatives out of the media spotlight
But the spotlight on Brown is not doing him any favours!
One feels compassion for any parent who loses a child of any age, and that includes those parents who are losing sons in Afghanistan.
gordon needs to learn lessons from those parents about courage and fortitude.
He came across as weak and maudlin. No doubt he hoped his performance would win him votes in the forthcoming election. It won’t. It will have the opposite effect.
harder to do when one is tired and depressed.
And on lots & lots of tablets for the problem
and carrying 6 nokias
I found his performance insincere and cringe inducing. That sociopath has NO empathy for others and is deliberately exploiting the death of his own* child to try to gain electoral advantage through sympathy votes.
Sick sick man indeed.
Yeah but this is a chap who quite obviously only got married because somebody whispered in his ear that voters feel more empathy with a married man with kids than they do a single man.
People have suspicions about a man who is single into his forties.
God damn him anyway that I would have no trouble at all believing that this man is capable of a cynical stunt like crocodile tears over a dead child just to elicit sympathy votes.
He really does bring out the worst in everything and everybody.
What a truly loathsome man.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
We’ve been after that for years
I’m not looking forward to it.
OT: Warning for Guido: The racism angle is the thin end of the wedge – this is how it starts:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/12/racist_content/
Does that mean the the Data Protection Act will now apply to all those servers in call centres in Asia? That would be an improvement.
I note that a few quite harmless individuals have been caught in the anti terror net for bomb making, when in fact they were probably just arseing around with fireworks.
Thank god these laws weren’t around when I was young.
hmmm…. I didn’t read the article. My attention went straight to the article about the banning of small breasts from australian pornography.
Thanks for the heads-up on that. Meanwhile, the BBFC ‘has no evidence’that female ejaculation exists. Might I suggest a Google search?
I’ve never had one!!
This is half way down the wedge.
We have so many offences limiting what can be said or written or worn on a damn T shirt – the only new thing here is that off-shoring has been struck down in court as a get-out, but it was never going to work anyway. Guido is seriously deluded if he thinks off-shoring will protect him from libel charges for instance – the main advantage that i can see (and this is why my own blog is hosted in the US) is that there, decent ISPs will not take down material without a court order. In the UK the pussies will fold up without a fight simply if the cops ask for content to be removed.
What could anybody possibly say about a Labour politician that could be considered ‘libellous’? In order for a libel charge to stick the complainant has to prove that their reputation has suffered.
When a High Court judge has ruled that your entire parties manifesto is not to be taken seriously because it is a given that politicians are liars I cannot imagine what reputation or credibility they think they have left to defend.
Can you imagine (say) Brown taking somebody to court for calling him a liar? Blair? Campbell? Balls?
They’d be taken apart. There would be a queue of witnesses around the block to come forward and swear on oath that ‘Yes, this man is a bare-faced liar..’
The fucking lying, economy-wrecking, incompetent, self-serving arseholes.
Did I forget to say ‘mendacious’? Did I forget ‘war-mongering’?
You forgot troughing out of the expenses purse, stealing money for pornography, moats, manure and phantom mortgages, CG tax evasion on second homes all essential for carrying out parliamentary duties.
Any chance the website will include details of winning companies’and their Directors’contributions/payments to political parties and lobbyists? I don’t think its likely.
I Phoned Alexander McQueen Yesterday Morning…The bastard just hung up on me
I would like a see through accouont of exactly what rusty Dave said in his strictly off the record meetings with the Guardian, the BBC & the Independent.
I can guess what they said to him,
“Get your tongue out my arse Dave”
Is this Communist Fist significant ??
Also that ‘RIP Off’poster, which already looked dated, now looks positively pre-historic now that Andrew Lansley has let the cat out of the bag about the multi-party talks which he, er, forgot to tell David Cameron about…
Job done already. History
All government/public sector projects should record and track progress using the Earned-Value method and publish the graphs on a weekly basis on a public, dedicated project website throughout the project life-time.
Unless we have full sight of everything then we’ll continue to get robbed by the contractors. if they don’t agree they can PO somewhere else – India springs to mind.
Earned Value is just more Project Management bollox open to fiddling like all the other worthless reporting metrics that large management teams massage to give the message they want not the truth! Like most management reporting the ‘half-life’of validity is non-existent.
I use this TED:
http://ted.europa.eu/Exec?Template=TED/editorial_page.htm&DataFlow=ShowPage.dfl&StatLang=EN ,
which seems a more likely area given it covers government procurement, rather than this TED:
http://www.ted.com/
but maybe I’m miles off target
keep up the good work Guido and thanks to all contributors for making me mostly laugh but sometimes cry for elucidating this bunch of scottish mafia hoons
This is a good idea. All for it. If the data is on line in xml format then we can cross index it to major shareholders, directors, party doners list to get an automatically computed daily UK public sector sleaze index.
Very good idea. This is OUR money that government is spending, so we do have a right to know what it is spent on.
What I wonder is how this will apply to procurement spending on restricted, confidential, secret, and top secret projects and equipment? And what is to stop spending on these items ballooning to hide dodgy cronyism?
Watching Brown this morning talk about his daughter as she died, one would think that it would spark an emotion of compassion, all I could feel was that Brown was a piece of human filth for using this event for political gain.
Losing a child in such circumstances should be a private matter only for those directly involved
How dare you?
I shall be instructing Carter Ruck straightaway
That’s ‘Carter Fuck’to you.
Awwww. Poor Brown. He fucked up the entire UK economy. He voted for war in Iraq just to keep close to power but then wilfully underfunded it to deny Blair a short, sharp, popularity enhancing victory.
But he lost a child.
Lets give him another chance.
No actually. Fuck off Brown.
Spend some time with your family instead. The rest of your life ideally. And let the grown-ups have their go at sorting out your economic and social clusterfuck.
But it’s ok if I do it – right?
It is one thing dealing with the death of your child and everything that that entails, AT THE TIME, whilst in the public eye. That is NOT electioneering. That is a personal tragedy.
It is quite another to drag all it all out and squeeze out some fake tears in public, in a hail of state funded publicity, eight whole years later, a few weeks before a general election.
That is naked electioneering and exploitation of the death of your own child to attract a political sympathy vote is the deepest depths of sickness.
He and his wife should be behind bars!
The idiot Grant Shapps should keep his stupid mouth shut.
If people can’t or won’t pay their mortgages, after being given months of respite, then they should be repossessed and the house sold to someone who can afford it at whatever is the new market price.
Why should the rest of us subsidise people to live in homes that they could never afford in the first place and who pushed up the house price bubble to the detriment of millions of young people?
Exactly!! Shapps is a clown who doesn’t understand moral hazard.
And most of the comments on the Telegraph agree.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/7214055/Repossession-may-be-best-Government-minister-tells-home-owners.html
We know that, most people know that. I think the point is that a Government Minister shouldn’t say say it even if he thinks it.
Imagine the mayhem if interest rates weren’t so low. 6.5% in 1995
This is the game of politics though. Get your attack in, score your points, sod it if its a load of bollocks when you think about it for more than 3 seconds.
I wonder what he thinks the answer is/was.
At last Dave comes out with something I can agree with – trust it covers all oversea aid contracts, local government, quangos and consultancy contracts.
What about EU contracts in UK or with UK firms.
BBC???
COMING SOON: New series of Hang Time starring Alexander McQueen
He was good as Cpt Virgil Hilts in The Great Escape, even if he’d obviously never pitched a baseball.
My doctor has suggested that I try a patch to help me stop smoking.
Walking around looking like a pirate? No thanks I’d rather smoke.
On fire would be better
Another day has passed and no mention of Shagger Millar down Cardiff Bay.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock
Bourne is going to have egg on his face, does Dave know about the minor politicians goings on down the bay?
Darren Millar AM, shagger of the Bay.
Mick Bates is nothing compared to what we know down here.
Left wing press holding the story . Kill 2 well 3 birds with one shag .
Wait till election is announced , that’s when the brown stuff will fly.
so what’s going on with Darren Millar? keep reading vague references but google isn’t showing anything untoward.
go for a pint in the Cardiff liebor club then
Today I shall be meeting with friends and colleagues and tooting all over the telly.
‘…..In short, sterling is in the toilet, our pensions have been slaughtered, cash savings yield almost nothing, the country is up to its neck in unprecedented debt, the banking system is awash with funny money, our gold reserves were sold off at rock-bottom prices, and Britain’s dole queue is considerably longer than before Crash Gordon began cooking the books.’
Good Epitath for New Labour
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/7216274/What-has-Gordon-Brown-done-for-Britain-since-his-first-Budget.html
CAMERON ! Kirkbride+Mackay = NO VOTES
The new vote losing motto of my Conservatives
AUSTERITY AUSTERITY AUSTERITY
And always remember a vote for David Cameron’s Conservatives is a wasted vote
10/10 hilarious. best one yet.
So, what are you up to these days jonty? Have you got internet access in that petrol station kiosk?
Nah, that’ll be via Blackberry.
and the free Wifi at McD!
thanks for that.i have pointed my doctored sat dish at maccys across the street,thats one bill gone
How come aljabeeba shows clip from rival network before its aired ???
Ill take a gamble, in 9 days time the ruin will announce when the general election will be ! .
Re post I think for councils its great , but dont know about big government projects
Seems like a good move to make – let’s hope Dave gets in to implement it.
Another move Dave should consider is to reduce the impact of lobbyists by making it a condition of employment for civil servants, council senior officers and quango salarymen to register ALL contacts they have with lobbyists and influence seekers as well as any favours received with the penalty for non-disclosure being dismissal and the forfeiting of pension rights. Might provide a clear link between contracts let and influence peddlars and throw some light on their dirty practices!
Friday lunchtime coming up. Time for a large gin and tonic and two fingers to the office.
o/t Guardian getting rid of 40 journos, including some specialist writers
http://www.uk.cision.com/Resources-page/media-bulletin/Media-Updates—UK—12th-February-2010/?id=1228#Newspapers1
Don’t know why they need any writers anyway. Just insert the Labour Party press briefings in their entirety and cut out the middle-man altogether.
I detect glimmerings of thought in the Grauniad. They are moving away from their corporatist, dirigiste view of government and the idea that laws can make people virtuous. They are even (tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Ashkelon) going a bit soft on envirofascism. If this goes on, they might start to look at things from the point of view of the common person rather than the Man in the Daylesford Wholefood Shop.
‘I detect glimmerings of thought in the Grauniad.’
You, Sir, are going soft in the head!
I detect bankruptcy
Wot, no tears?
This week: crocodile tears from Bad Al and Brown. What will Comical Mandy advise for next week?
That was just the warm-up act, plenty more like that to follow.
Next week? Group hugs darling, you know, stand by your man and all that.
David Cameron said…
“If I am Prime Minister and for as long as I would be Prime Minister, I would never take Britain into the euro, full stop, end of story.”
Is that a cast iron guarantee Dave?
We need to know.
It is indeed a victory for Labour propaganda and insanity that the only party that actually voted for a referendum in the HoP is the one being blamed for reneging on a referendum.
Whereas the other two parties that promised a referendum and then voted against it appear to be immune to such criticism.
Truly Alice in Fucking Wonderland.
JGM2, my dear chap, you are missing the point.
DC gave a cast iron promise.
All the wriggling & hand wrining about “well, its law now” was & is bollocks.
If the British PM, or the future British PM is beholden to blackmail by a foreign power then he is not worth the fucking wages.
We all KNOW exactly what DC could have done regarding the EU Referendum but also choke on the fact that he did not take that course of action.
Which really tells me all I needed to know about him – he is a duplicitous lying cheating Christian social democrat who will carry on the EU sell out of Britain.
As for Labour & the Liberals – they are Labour & Liberals what the fuck did you expect from them, honesty? Integrity?
DC is getting it in the neck from ex Tories like me for the simple reason he holds no Conservative values that I recognise.
Not without a referendum
Brown’s only redeeming feature is resisting Blair’s attempts at entering the euro. Comical Mandy still dreams of entering but that’s his bent.
But that will be the right result for the wrong reasons. He didn’t not enter the Euro to preserve our economic independence for future generations. He didn’t enter just so that he, personally, could continue to fuck about with our economic independence.
Fuck future generations. Look at me mum. Look at me pulling all these levers. What happens if I pull this one? Ooooh look, I fuck up everybodies pension just like they told me I would. Ooooh, what happens if I pull this one. Ooooh, house prices go through the roof – just like they did in the late 1980′s. Ooooh, what happens if I pull this one. oooh, look I borrow 300bn quid and I create an artificial ‘growth’of 0.1%.
Look at all these fucking levers…. way-hey-hey..
Let’s he honest – Brown held off because HE wanted to be the The One who delivered the UK economy into the Euro. As usual however he fucked that up too, and we are now so indebted that the last thing the Euro wants/needs is a penniless broken UK.
The fat fuck has NEVER done anything for anyone, other than himself. Every single policy, word or deed is all geared around making King Mong look GOOD.
And all paid for with other people’s money. Bastard.
The exercise was to try to find a redeeming feature in our unelected Prime Minister. I failed again.
Contrarian view: it comes down to the terms on which we join. Parity, once the essential preparatory work of wrecking, sapping and mining is done?
If we were to join the euro, we would lose the ability for the Bank of England to set the bank rate and thus to goad inflation to the stable 2%. Eurozone rate is 1% as opposed to the UK’s 0.5%. With the Bank’s long term forecast showing inflation below the 2% target, any increase in the bank rate could result in deflation, depressing demand in the UK’s consumer-dependent economy resulting in more recession. Who wins?
“Brown’s only redeeming feature is resisting Blair’s attempts at entering the euro.”
That had NOTHING to do with Brown’s understanding of economics and everything to do with his cowardice and hatred of democracy. He would not dare risk a referendum on the Euro.
Brown is a very dangerous man- he actually thinks he is doing a good job!
That’s because all the voices in his fucked-up head are telling him what a great job he is doing.
And the BBC. They’re telling everybody what a great job he’s doing.
So it must be true.
I don’t know what the c*nt wants with a SKY subscription when he has the BBC on terrestrial telling him what a fantastic PM and leader he is 24/7. I’d have thought SKY would blow his self-image to pieces if he saw himself as others who don’t rely on 3bn quid of state money saw him.
They don’t have SpongeBob Squarepants on BBC.
Hargreaves once filmed an episode of the Mr Men where Mr Underpants became a Sheffield steel worker. The BBC turned it down.
Is Murdoch fucking stupid
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Sarah-Brown-On-Life-At-Number-10-Gordon-Is-Surprisingly-Romantic/Article/201002215547235?lpos=Politics_Second_Home_Page_Article_Teaser_Region_6&lid=ARTICLE_15547235_Sarah_Brown_On_Life_At_Number_10%3A_Gordon_Is_Surprisingly_Romantic
I would never use my family to further my political career.
I never had sexual intercourse with (looks at Doyenne of Washington lobby correspondents) THAT woman.
(Daydreams) …Monica Lewinsky…
Gordon IS romantic. He bowled me over as he threw me out of my chair when he lost it recently.
He’s always sending me unexpected gifts like the Nokias he throws at us.
I suppose if you’re ‘married’to Gorgon, being left in peace and quiet probably counts as ‘romantic’.
Well, Dave, is this another “Cast iron” promise? – like Gordo’s to hold a referendum on the EU. Now we are going to have to bail out that waste of space that is Greece.
Do you see Greece? 13% deficits? Unions itching for a fight? Economy in the shitter? Voters reduced to infants by tax-credit hand-outs, promises of endless free everything and don’t you worry your pretty little head about where the money is coming from?
That’s us that is.
Another few months and that is us.
And the EU bailing the c*nts out – what do you think the Irish who have got stuck into an austerity package to try and live like adults while the Greeks continue to behave like spoiled fucking kids… what do you think the Irish are going to say to that?
Don’t worry the English wil pay for it all eventually.
The swarthy taxdodgers will never ever be able to bail themselves out. Or at least, why should they when there’s others prepared to do it for them with our money?
What will France and Germany demand in return I wonder?
What has Greece got that anybody would want? Seriously? A few fucking olives and some ruins.
The wine is only fit for thinning paint.
tobacco.
Its one of the few places in the EU that makes smokable tobacco.
See the irony that the EU subsidises tobacco production elsewhere that no-one wants to smoke.
What can they demand from Greece? Cheaper holidays? Free Ouzo? They already have the political situation stitched up, so there’s no use in demanding Greece’s vote.
Um, some backing for a solution to the status of the TRNC within Cyprus?
We might make a car,like the north
The Irish must be livid, what with having voted the ‘right way’on the Lisboa business.
I saved the world, Greece is a mere bagatelle!
Does anyone thin that the EU will lift a finger to bail US out?
They will be in like a shot to asset strip us and break us up into dictated to regions.
Admittedly Osborne is quite dishy, but for the rest of the front bench I don’t fancy a see-through government and would prefer they stick to respectable suitings.
Well done Cameron – at last something worthwhile.
It will scare the hell out of local authorities (whatever their colour).
The amount of back handers abound.
Another rubbish policy just for the publicity – contracts over £100k are already required to be published under EU regulations. Just means that people will be arguing over pennies while the big money disappears over the horizon.
most back handers i imagine are multiple small ones so involve smaller contracts not so interesting to the public.
trust me, the amount of deals being struck on the sly are unbelievable
These people are so hollow they must rattle when they walk. Where is the transparency over expenses: the “new rules” are even more esoteric than the last lot and will allow LESS transparency. Cameron was party to this. What about his former advisor, wighead, who will still have his thieving fingers near the pie as a lobbyist?
If you believe any of these lying fools then you need your head examining.
When are the debates going to be. Once the starting gun is fired I suppose. It should guaranteen a good turn out for the GE and raise awareness among the plebs who are usually to lazy or thick to bother voting.
So wil it come down to policies? NO of course not. The countrty will treat it like a reality tv show. Perhaps we should forget the ballot boxes and go straight for the phone vote
I would have thought it rather obvious that there most certainly will not be “a good turnout.” The electorate must feel completely disenfranchised. In short, there is no one to vote for.
“During a webchat on Mumsnet, Mrs Brown said: “I am leaving DH to make the plans for Valentine’s Day – he is surprisingly romantic (for a Scot and a Man).”
The thought of Gordon Brown with a packet of Jaffa Cakes and an erection has put me off my mid morning flapjack
Thanks a bundle. I won’t be able to look at a Jaffa Cake without wretching for months now.
Polo mints, surely?
Just watched the preview of Brown’s latest TV interview. It is truly appalling. It describes how he held his beautiful baby in his arms as she died. Just how low will the Downing Street Spinners stoop in an attempt to show this man as a decent human being. He was present at the death of his days old child and had not watched her life develop and grow unlike the parents of the young men in Afghanistan and Iraq whose children were taken from them in politically motivated conflicts motivated and endorsed bi B.Liar and starved of funds by Brown.
How low can they go?
This is Gordon ‘Limbo’Brown we’re talking about here.
The whole process of government is in limbo. Ask any overpaid, pension-guaranteed civil servant.
D rinkwater says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 12, 2010 at 11:20 am
My name is D rinkwater.so I am banned.I may sue.
edited for publication
[...] See the article here: Dave Promises See-Through Government Contracts – Guy Fawkes' blog [...]
“Power to People” not “Power to THE People” – Did everybody spot that crucial identifier of the Tory ethos?
Ok. Back to sleep.
Comment
What’s with the fisting imagery behind him?