Wednesday 10 February 2010

Cameron talking dirty to the TPA

This is the kind of stuff that members of the Tax Payer's Alliance might find themselves spending £1.50 a minute to hear, because it's about as close to porn as political party policy gets for them. I am, of course, talking about David Cameron's outstanding suggestions on how to bring transparency back into government spending. To quote from the introduction,

Government has been far too profligate for too long. Billions are wasted each year on pointless bureaucracy and failed projects that do nothing to improve the lives of the taxpayers who foot the bill. The explosion of unaccountable quangos, public sector ‘non-jobs’ and costly bureaucracy is an indictment of Labour’s reckless approach to spending other people’s money.

So far so good, but far too often that sort of statement doesn't have an effective follow-up to actually solve the problem. People complain that political parties are big on rhetoric, but short on workable solutions to the problems which nobody can fail to notice. No longer, because with the 5 words
sunlight is the best disinfectant
we have the solution that is just a little too radical and risky for Labour to ever contemplate. 13 years of backroom deals and hiding behind "commercial sensitivity" has got to stop, no ifs, no buts, and the only way to stop that is for a million pairs of eyes to watch every move that our elected representatives make. Whatever else the Conservatives do if they win the next election, opening up government spending and contracts to this kind of scrutiny will keep the next government and the one after FAR more honest than the current one.

And while we're at it, I can't wait for the current shady deals and suspiciously lax contracts to be shown the light of day. I can only imagine the skeletons lurking in the current government's cupboards...

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