This from the Times is not only an example of how interventionism/socialism is doomed to fail, but of the culture of deceit in which RobespiBlaire's Committee of Public Safety is steeped:
The Sunday Times - Britain April 25, 2004
Leak reveals Labour has wasted £20bn
Robert Winnett and David Leppard TONY BLAIR’S pledge to improve Britain’s public services has been dealt a blow by a leaked cabinet document that shows their efficiency has collapsed since he took power. The government has pumped extra tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the NHS, schools and police forces but the confidential memo reveals that productivity in the public sector has slumped by 10% since 1997.
The document discloses that in health and education, which will be the battleground in the forthcoming general election, the situation is even worse with productivity down by between 15% and 20%. This means every pound the government spends is producing up to a fifth less in public services than in 1997.
In the past the government has publicly admitted only a 3% fall in productivity since Blair won office. Experts say the new figures suggest £20 billion a year of taxpayers’ money — equivalent to almost 6p on basic rate income tax — has been wasted on soaring wage claims and burgeoning bureaucracy, at the expense of frontline services.
The statistics, prepared for a cabinet committee meeting attended by Blair’s most senior ministers, directly contradict the prime minister’s claims to be delivering on public services. As a result, the minutes of the meeting reveal that Blair is now seeking to alter the way official figures are calculated to show Labour’s record in a better light. He has ordered the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to change the way the figures are compiled so Labour can present a more “credible story” in the run-up to the next election, the minutes record.
The change is significant because the ONS said last December the British method of measuring public sector productivity was best practice globally.
