How to pay more and more for less and less ask Gordon to collect the money
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
The workload poster is going up in every staffroom in every state school in the country. It is supplied by the Department of Education and Skills, and tells teachers all the things that they don't have to do: collecting money, for instance. They can leave that to Gordon Brown. He is collecting another £20 billion to spend, over the next three years, on education — or, as he chose to put it, education, education, education — and the response of the Department of Education3 is to instruct teachers to do less. Put like that, you can see that increased public spending does not necessarily correlate to improved public services. It might, for example, result in a thriving black market in blankets stolen from hospitals. It might (it does) leave the police service short of detectives but long on counsellors. Public spending under this Chancellor has already gone up by one-third, and no one in government or out could claim that the customers for its services have had a corresponding increase in value. His response to this is to offer more of the same. Public spending is now set to grow twice or three times as fast as the economy and, when the next election is due, will have gone up by another onequarter. One measure of this spending's efficiency, or lack of it, is the public sector's rate of inflation, now puffing along at a steady 6 per cent. In the rest of the economy, competition and choice have held the inflation rate down — if it falls any further, Sir Edward George will have to submit an explanation in writing — but these anarchic forces are not to be let loose where the state is the supplier of services. Think what they might mean for the workload.
Exit, pursued
IT was the pantomime scene where the audience shouts, 'It's behind you!' We could see Gordon Brown banging on, but we could also see, as he couldn't, that the screen with the share prices was turning crimson. By the time he sat down the market had endured one of its worst days for 15 years and the index had dipped below 4,000. What was behind him was a hear. No doubt he thinks he knows better than it does, but it has its own point of view, and we haven't seen one as big and ferocious as this since Edward Heath was in power and complaining of the problem of success. He, too, thought he knew better. What this bear
is growling to us is that more companies, large and small, are going to disappoint their owners' expectations. Some will struggle to survive and others will run out of money, and founder. These are not the conditions in which a Chancellor can plan to spend as if there was no Monday or sit back and watch as the revenue rolls in. For this scene, Shakespeare supplied the direction: Exit, pursued by a bear.
The Queen and I
I THOUGHT so. That business with the Queen's gas bill was just a trial run. Having bullied the private banks and their customers into submission, the regulators at the Financial Services Authority have moved on to the banks in the High Street. Their customers, too, will have to show who they are — that is, if their accounts have been open for seven years; time enough, you might have thought, for them and their bankers to get to know each other. The banks will try to get as much information as can be found without bothering them, but many are sure to be asked for certified copies of their passports and utility bills, with someone responsible, like a bank manager, to vouch for them. I rather hope that my bank is forced to send this sort of letter to me. I look forward to bidding the regulators defiance and embracing martyrdom. Hands off the City and Suburban One — two, of course, if the Queen is still holding out.
Euro-garbage
HERE's a chance not to miss: 'New garbage bag in the Brussels-Capital region.' The local dustmen, trading as Bruxelles-Proprete1Net Brussel, have taken a half-page in the Financial Times to invite expressions of interest. The bags, in white, blue, green and yellow, must bear the official logo (a mannekin?) and, of course, meet new regulatory
specifications. Just send 125 euros for details. Think of the volume of business that will emerge from the Berlaymont building, where the European Commission hangs out — sacks and sacks of draft directives on waste recycling, competitive tendering and the standard Euro-bin-bag.
Jumbo weighs in
ALL is well at British Airways (writes my aviation correspondent, Jumbo Speedbird). The search for a new chairman has culminated in another term for Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, no more money is being wasted on dividends, there will soon be more than 4,000 people in the Waterside head office, and arrangements are being made to provide enough rooms for them all to have meetings. This purpose-built glasshouse only runs to 184 meeting rooms, apart from rooms where people meet for purposes other than meetings, and, of course, a 400-seat theatre, so the Programme Director Workstyle has had to get busy. 'From August, we will begin stripping away all the red tape,' British Airways News (sometimes known as the Friday Firelighter) quotes him as saying. 'For example, the directors' dining room will largely be treated as a corporate room, and several new informal meeting areas are being constructed.' As happens already, some meetings may have to overflow into distant venues reached by first-class air travel. This may serve to draw the participants' notice to British Airways' residual activities. In spite of repeated economy drives, some staff are still retained to fly aircraft and look after passengers, though not, of course, to come to the meetings in Waterside.
Mine's a martini
AS the holiday season approaches and Eurostar puts on its through train to Avignon, I am keeping watch, on my readers' behalf, on the rate of exchange. At 10 francs to the pound, it will be remembered, drinking kirs in France became economic. I am pleased to report that, although the euro has risen to parity with the dollar, a pound will still buy the equivalent of 10.20 French francs. Indeed, if the dollar continues to weaken, we may set our sights on the target so briefly attained almost ten years ago: the two-dollar martini.
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