Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 May 2007 16:27:57
I'm glad that I brought some happiness to people with yesterday's post. I can't agree with everything that was said regarding his achevements - same sex partnerships are not an achievement that I'm particularly proud of. Then again I've never been very liberal on a lot of things.
I can't see there being a great change under the new guy. Gorgon Braun has never struck me as being particularly charismatic and motivational. He has distanced himself from major Bliar mistakes, like Iraq, but he must share a lot of the blame for things.
He is the person who holds the purse strings. Without him departments would not be able to waste so much money on failed IT projects and various initiatives that are stopped before actually completing anything. He has made a big thing about his "Golden Rule" of government borrowing not exceeding 40% of GDP. Then he has moved government spending on Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) "off balance sheet" so that the spending doesn't appear on his budget and spending plans.
This is exactly what Enron and Parmalat did before they went into financial meltdown. In their cases it was ruled as illegal and various people have been imprisoned for what they did. Gorgon on the other hand gets away with it. In the end the taxpayers of the future will be left paying for hospitals, infrastructure and schools that would have been cheaper if the government had built them themselves.
Don't expect any big changes in the way Britain is represented around the world. Major policies are not likely to change that much. He's been lucky that he has had Bliar to take the flack and will be able to blame him for a few months longer.