Thursday 7 February 2013

The 'Muggers Club'

We know that Government has always been seen as a fathomless soft touch. Recently though, this has not only been refined into an art form, it has become relentless and unbridled. PFI is slightly different inasmuch that a very probably insane Chancellor agreed the concept with barely-able-to-believe their luck companies, who stood to make fortunes. Brown decided to give them huge amounts of money to build hospitals, as long as he could hide the debt 'off the books'.

In America a company tried a similar trick. You may have heard of them, Enron. Unfortunately the man behind the scheme here hasn't been imprisoned, but then as we will see, people 'at the top' don't pay for their crimes.

People, including me often refer to the recent parliamentary scandal as having involved MP's 'fiddling' their expenses. This is a convenient use of words for the MP's as another, more legally accurate word is fraud. The latter though tends to suggest court cases and imprisonment, whilst the former perhaps a rap on the knuckles. And on the whole, how were our fraudulent MP's dealt with?

Today of course, we are absorbed in the truly shocking actions of the saintly NHS. It is ironic, is it not, that the Left, prime squealers as they were at any criticism of this institution who have presided over its  total annihilation by communism's most ardent adherents.

Tony Blair worked hard to incorporate just such people into any and every system he could, either by installation (giving them posts) or corruption (rewarding compliant behaviour) of current post holders. In his case, it wasn't ideological zeal, Blair never had any time for politics, it was just his own ego and lust for power, plus the need to feed the avarice of his 'socialist' wife.

The upshot though, is that he created a perfect storm. He inculcated a creed of greed, but not only in capitalists but in the communists too. (Communists don't just love power, they also realise that money is power and also makes life very tolerable). So, all those people who took state jobs 'because they are dedicated to serving the people' in their words, but known to everyone as incapable of surviving in the real world, suddenly found that their uselessness was overlooked. And their pay shot up.

No longer were public sector employees on low salaries but with decent pensions, with the ability to retire early. Now they had all of that plus better than private sector pay, plus the bosses were never held to be accountable (else someone might require the same of the Prime Minister!)

And private company bosses knew the floodgates were open. Not only could they demand and get, ridiculous pay packages but they could justify them by chasing government 'work' that would just keep giving. The NHS IT project for instance. Many times it was pointed out that it wasn't working, that it was taking a very long time to achieve nothing. The 'muggers club' was in action.

When the project was completed on time and to budget, the dream would be over, so the consultancies just kept working on getting it right, But strangely never did get there. Eventually, the pressure on politicians became unavoidable and the companies involved in NPfIT were told to deliver, basically, put up or shut up. So one by one they pulled out. Not even ashamed by possible accusations that they had been deliberately milking the public purse. Because those accusations were never made by the government.

Why not? I don't know. But consider this angle on the scandal of NHS care. The Francis report details people not fed, not given water, left in soiled bedsheets for days. Under-staffing is pointed to, but that doesn't quite cut it does it. It might mean that things take much longer than they should, but not the scale of what we have heard. That takes an absence of care.

But here is the point no-one seems to be making. Relatives knew what was going on and sometimes even pitched in to help. But why did their complaints register no response? Because the state machine is very good at hiding from its responsibilities. There is no mechanism that they fear to ensure justice. If you have a dispute with  a company, sure they can make life hard, but usually they either fear the law or bad publicity.

The state however fears nothing. I was pursued for fours years (four years!) by HMRC for a sum of money I didn't owe. Why couldn't we get to the bottom of it? Because at the outset, surprised to owe the money, I asked where the debt had been incurred. For four years they refused to answer, but kept up a steady stream of threats including using their power to act as judge, jury and executioner to enter my house and seize property.

My son, completed a speed aware course (at great cost) to avoid a fine and penalty points. They later said he hadn't completed the online element and issued the penalty points anyway and also the fine, now increased by half again because 'he hadn't paid it on time!' Complaining merely brought the usual round of 'another department deals with that' and eventually, 'no one made a mistake'.

The state and its functionaries have become impossible to fight. And they know it. This whole culture of no accountability (and Cameron can complain about no doctors or nurses struck off, but politicians are so guarded as well) is at the root of the problem. You start to cure the malaise by making them accountable.

What senior public figures have we seen dealt with recently? Director of social services for Haringey, Shoesmith, who was a scapegoat to take the heat off Ed Balls, deserving of the sack even though she was. But even then she was given an enormous pay off. She now complains of being unemployable. Yes, well that would be because in the real world, incompetence is a bit of a barrier to getting a job.

And the senior police officer imprisoned for talking to the press. Her offence was 'misconduct in a public office' and she received 15 months, but would have been 3 years if it hadn't been for her pending adoption of a child(?) How many politicians have been guilty of this offence, not least over their expenses fraud? Certainly Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper.

But the policewoman was that despicable outcast of a character, the one thing the state sector cannot abide and will not tolerate, a whistleblower. There was no substantive proof that she asked for money, but even so what she did wasn't right. But how else do you get public sector people, politicians and all, to do their job properly? Definitely not by using the proper channels of complaint. We all know the ignore gene is present in any state employed boss.

Remember Andrew Wakefield? He was the doctor struck off for suggesting a link between autism and the MMR jab. I have no idea if he was on to something or not, but my suspicion is raised by the level of the reaction by the state and its goons. Struck off! Marietta Higgs didn't get that and she destroyed families and abused children! Blair went berserk, almost insisting his son had had the jab. But in all reality, probably hadn't. So no truth in Wakefield's assertion then.

Compare it with the reaction to the 'dodgy dossier' claim by Andrew Gilligan. Alistair Campbell went off the deep end denouncing the man endlessly and getting several people removed from their jobs. Only for us to find that Gilligan had been right and the famous liar, Campbell was, well, er, lying. And the ramifications for Campbell? Well of course, none.

The Left drives all of this naturally, being the parties of the big state. They want more state control, the removal of your wealth, so the state can decide who deserves what, whilst enriching themselves, introducing ever greater corruption and wasting money like water. They get you to believe the most stupid things, like global warming. There is no evidence Man is having any real affect on climate and they know it, but your acquiescence allows them to take ever greater power and ever more money.

The communists refer to people like this as useful idiots, because they implement outrageous calamities themselves, even though they suffer as a result. And the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful. But still claim to be communists - all in it together.


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