When the party's over

On fairly reasonable assumptions, one forecaster recently calculated that even when we have recovered from the recession, and have the same level of income again, (which could be some years hence), there will then be the problem of paying interest on the huge public debt and also reducing that debt. It would not be unreasonable to expect to pay £100 billion annually on this.

To put this into context, it would mean the standard rate of income tax rising to about 60p in the pound, or a collection of taxes rising to produce this.

Is there another way of paying for the debt piled up by G. Brown?

I can suggest three:

Freeing up the civil service from political duties to function more efficiently. We cannot afford the situation recently revealed - of trying to collect vast millions from people who are dead but have received benefits by maladministration. Have a policy of not replacing civil servants from outside when they retire. There is a vast army of people on the expensive payroll, and their skills ought to be put to more productive use.

Cancel all the expensive and badly mounted IT projects which are vastly over budget, running very late and likely to be not very useful. This would include especially the ID card system, but there are many others.

Abolish, and take off the payroll, sundry quangos and other bodies. The others would include the regional assemblies who have never been elected, and the recent regional select committees. The quangos would include especially the regional planning bodies and the regional housing bodies.


These could realise sums fairly quickly, although perhaps not enough. Other medium term changes could be used, such as devolving real power and money raising to local authorities. They would then be free of endless targets and requirements set by central government, and they would be accountable to their electors for their spending.

In addition, the scrutiny body to watch over government expenditure, - fiscal responsibility, could be made to publish fully , to hold future governments accountable for every penny they spend. Expenses of MPs would also have to be fully revealed. It would be intolerable that when everyone else is tightening their belts they should be giving themselves even more perks.