In the run up to the General Election the Central Office of Information spent over £300m on government propaganda. They managed to leave global advertising giants Procter & Gamble for dust with their near un-restrained, publicly funded, spending blitz. The COI was being used by the outgoing government for political means, the closer the election got the more money it spent. So todays news that the COI has halved its monthly budget since May is certainly welcome, but don’t forget this is still a ridiculous amount of money for the state to be spending on promoting itself.

When Guido first read that 287 jobs were being cut at the COI he presumed the whole department was being scrapped, but that is a mere dent. The bloated machine operation will be slimmed down to just, er, 450 spin merchants.The “Big Society” public are being asked to run the country, can they not be trusted to make their own minds up about government projects and operations?