http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8325052.stm


It might work for airlines, but I do not like the idea for essential services. they will get even more avaricious when it comes to fines and penalty payments.

It's a stupid idea that will hopefully get the current Barnet council booted out at the next election. Especially cutting the wardens from sheltered housing but thankfully that has been postponed due to a review. The cow who cut the wardens has just done this: http://www.notthebarnettimes.co.uk/2009 ... n-lap.html

Barnet can save over £1m a year by cutting allowances to councillors and cutting the BS. Frontline services won't be touched.
http://www.notthebarnettimes.co.uk/2009 ... 00_21.html

The wonderfully ironic thing about the times we live in is that all our politicians promote the rhetoric of Management Speak, but that they then propose to implement their cures based on the most blatant ideological demagoguery.

In my yoof (this next bit is tranlated from ancient British!) Politicians used the rhetoric of ideology, and then settled for the pragmatism of "Management". So when it seemed unlikely that we'd succeed at the nationalisation of the "means of production", post-war Labour settled for trying to improve Schools, and implementing the NHS etc without it. Similarly the Tories quite pragmatically accepted the nationalistaion of Mines and British Railways, despite teir ideological antipathy to these ideas.

So when we look at the next round of cuts we don't see any real common-ground, as we did in the past. Despite all the "support" Cameron mouths for the NHS, his solutions will all involve the Private Sector, not for any observable or pragmatic reason; simply his belief that the Private Sector is "better". The Tories' Education Policy is based on the same ideological base: somehow a "Federation" of schools managed like a Plc is "better" than having democratically elected LEAs involved... and so on.

It worked out so well for the utilities "cartel's" didn't it. Customers are robbed blind yet there's a handful of people at the top who are rich beyond their wildest dreams and are under no real pressure to drop prices.

Indeed the classic example. These barstewards milked the system for years racking-up huge profits and dividends with virtually zero investment. It now seems that unlike the more regulated economies of Germany and France who have months of Gas and Oil stored we have a week or so.... The privatised companies want (Ta Daaa!) to raise prices and\or get State aid to build the infrastructure to support us having the same buffer. Priceless!

Yes I can imagine the NHS run like Ryan Air. Want a bed that will be £5 booking fee. Each meal will cost £7, and will still taste awful. 20p for the toilet. All the life saving equipment will have electricity meters and you will be expected to put in 20p's to keep it running. Want an operation? that will involve booking fees, surcharges if you are fat (more flesh to cut through), fees for use of anaesthesia, a bed booking fee for recuperation, extra fees for each nurse or doctor involved.

If they push councils to making more money from fees then what will happen is that they will nominally drop the rates and introduce a fee for collecting rubbish. Many will simply avoid this by fly tipping, then they will just increase rates to cover for the fly tipping. All this will do is raise income without encouraging efficiency of the council.