ZoomClouds: John Redwood MP for Wokingham

... ic of his changes to the Bank of England in 1997, I was expecting financial problems. As a critic of his high spend policy, recklessly expanding the public sector without getting value for money for the spending, I anticipated economic problems ahead. The media told me when he had to handle the flo...

... changes of speed limit on good roads, by confusion over what the parking rules are on any given piece of kerb, and by the officious efficiency of the public sector when it comes to taking money off us. If only they were equally efficient and determined to provide good service in all the other depart...

... een what some MPs claim - quite legally under the present system - I would like to see the similar figures and details for other senior people in the public sector. How do all those so called Chief Executives in local government fare? What about all those Chairmen and Chief Executives of quangos? Ca...

... the lost data, the falling or slow moving productivity, the error rates, the accounts that have to be qualified and the general delay throughout the public sector in answering letters and queries, management under this government is very lax. I have asked how many people have lost their jobs for ...

I went to a lunch meeting with the Engineering profession on the Lords terrace this week. They wanted to tell us about how to tackle climate change by cutting carbon output. It seemed a pity that on a very sunny day when the sunlight was streaming through the entire long wall of glass along the sid...

Halve interest rates. Cut out waste and undesirable public spending. Sell some public sector assets to raise cash. The government should do all three if it is serious about preventing recession or recovering from the downturn. Money is too tight and interest rates too...

... government - relax the rules on borrowing (i.e. borrow more) or put up taxes. What is with these so called independent journalists? Why is cutting public sector waste and undesirable spending never an option for them? How much more waste and needless spending do we have to have before it might j...

The Parliamentary recess is a symbol and a symptom of the overmanned and under achieving public sector. Some of my Labour colleagues will tell you that MPs have to work very hard in the recess “ they have to catch up with all the constituency business which the pressure of a Westminster ...

... usiness services in the City of London. If we had stuck with the monopoly and all those tedious debates about capital and investment rationing in the public sector London would not have sustained so much successful business. Today we can still take some pleasure from the huge expansion...

... squeeze on people™s incomes to intensify this autumn and winter. The government has decided that it is not going to make any of the adjustment in the public sector by reducing its spending “ on the contrary it is boosting it in the most irresponsible way, to pay for its state pensioners like Norther...

The Lib Dems have read the polls and tested public opinion. They have been told many of us are fed up with high taxes and huge public sector waste, so they are seeking to position themselves as the waste and tax cutters. There is no evidence from local government that this is what they do in offi...

... ments assume too many new risks by taking on the assets of the banks or buying them up, it merely shifts the problems from the private sector to the public sector. It does not solve it. The problem will then become how do governments pay all the bills? How can they finance themselves in a non infl...

... ssure through lower sterling. Item 5 includes a big build up in administrative central government and quango staff entailing large increases in the public sector pension and pay bills. The increase in this should be stopped as the rate of growth in the economy has slumped. The most w...

... rough enough renewables, and left open how they are to replace the old nuclear stations that soon have to be shut. They have failed to discipline the public sector, where the extra offices and staff burn ever more fuel to keep the bureaucracy turning. Ministers jet round the world, lecturing the res...

... to see the BBC take some belated disciplinary action. However, Mr Ross keeps his ridiculously generous contract. I do not think anyone working in the public sector and financed by taxpayers, as he is, should receive a seven figure salary, let alone £6 million a year. The BBC should be much more care...

... ast build up of credit through the accelerators of easy regulation of capital and low interest rates before. So now they decide to borrow more in the public sector, to offset the lack of borrowing in the private sector. If an economy borrows too little, too many people are out of work and too many b...

... ce was how similar the main participants were on the big issues. Mr Bush and Mr Obama both believe in spending and borrowing too much in the public sector. They both believe in nationalising the main mortgage companies, and part nationalising the main banks. They both be...

... an it collects in taxes, not all of this spending creates extra jobs or activity. Some of it passes to public employees who save it. Some is put into public sector pension funds who may keep it in cash or invest it abroad. Conversely, a tax cut œfunded or paid for by reducing government spending ...

... billion borrowing this year - leaving out the money to buy bank shares and pay for the bank losses. The proposed pathway back to sensible public sector borrowing still leaves us too much in debt. The Monetary Policy Committee should have another go behind the scenes to get the government...

... se all their earned income, or do all lose some of their earned income? Why can™t the PM grasp that? Perhaps it is because he lives in the cosseted public sector, where he thinks he can carry on increasing the numbers of box tickers and administrators with salary rises and pension increases well a...