Co-conspirators will recall when Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden announced a bold “crackdown on wasteful spend” by freezing all Government Procurement Cards in March. As Guido noted, that hasn’t been going too well. Taxpayer credit card spending at the Cabinet Office actually increased after the so-called ‘freeze’…
UK DOGE’s The Waste Files has now discovered that the Gambling Commission has awarded a whopping £216,000 four-year contract to Barclays Bank for “the provision of procurement cards”. That’s nearly a quarter of a million taxpayer pounds splashed even before staff at the quango start tapping cards on readers…
For that you could:
The taxpayer may have a view on which should be prioritised. UK DOGE recommends costs are cut here…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”