News that Gordon Brown is axeing the Learning & Skills Councils (known until 2001 as TECs, training and enterprise councils).

This would chime with his claim, back when Labour was in opposition, that the party would reverse the growth of quangos in the UK.

“Non-elected government organisations, QUANGOs, now spend £50 billion of our money, one fifth of all public expenditure,” he said in a speech on January 12, 1995.

“They spend more of our money than the whole of elected local government. Quango is often government in secret, government free from full public scrutiny and sometimes audit. Government too often free from the most basic declarations of personal interests.”

As usual, the action didn’t quite match up to the rhetoric.

A recent report by the New Local Government Network showed that such groups have flourished under New Labour. New ones have also sprung up, not least the Regional Development Agencies.

The NLGN report suggested that quangos now supervise spending worth £123bn a year, about 21 per cent of the total. That compares with just 15 per cent for local authorities.

Furthermore, the organisations are dominated by people from London and the South-east.

Incidentally, I was listening to Blur’s “The Great Escape” at the weekend and stumbled upon “Mr Robinson and his Quango“, a song I hadn’t heard for ages.

Any thoughts on other politically-titled songs? These are the only ones I can think of.

Electioneering (Radiohead)

World Leader Pretend (REM)

Politician (Cream) 

Revolution (Beatles, Jamiroquia, Butthole Surfers, Spacemen 3, etc etc)

March 17th, 2008 in Current Affairs, Gordon Brown, Labour, UK economy, Uncategorised | Permalink