May 2010 Archives

The Daily Telgraph reported;

Labour overruled civil servants' objections to final spending plans

Civil servants lodged a series of objections to spending plans by ministers, including Lord Mandelson, in the final months of the Labour government, it has been disclosed.

By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor
Published: 10:26PM BST 18 May 2010

Official figures showed that mandarins were objecting to decisions made by ministers at a rate of nearly one a month as Labour headed for defeat in the election.

[...]

Figures disclosed by the Treasury last night showed that ministers overruled civil servants on spending plans on at least four occasions since the start of 2010.

Advice from officials was ignored on a further nine occasions in 2009. This compared with just five occasions in the previous three years. Three quarters of these objections were on the grounds of value for money.

Lord Mandelson's spending decisions were challenged on five occasions in 2009, including a loan to a quango in the West Midlands and £10 million for a sports complex in Leeds.

Other objections over value for money included the £300 million car scrappage scheme and support for dairy farmers.

[...]

This smells of political corruption. Some of the spending may well have been for "political pork barrel" attempts to bribe the lectorate in marginal consituences etc.

However, given what we know of MPs' expenses , cash for questions, loans for peerages, non-domiciled tax staus of political party funders, lucrative company directorships, perks for rich foreign businessmen , the massive financial incompetence regarding large Government contracts, and other such scandals, we strongly suspect that there will have been various levels of personal corruption involved in at least some of these Labour ministerial spending decisions.

We will be watching closely, to see which Labour politicans, policial appartchiks, special advisors, spin doctors and any senior Whitehall civil servants, who magically get recruited by lobby firms or by companies who directly denefited from those hurried and waseful multi-billion pound spending decisions.

If you know of any such instances of unethical or corrupt activities, you should "name and shame" the individuals and companies involved, in the wider public interest or simply just for revenege.

Unril the Conservatives / Liberal Democrat coalition government actually fulfills its vague promise to amend the notorious UK libel laws to protect free speech, then potential "whistleblowers" with proof of such corrupt activities, should read:

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers etc.
http://ht4w.co.uk

Technical Hints and Tips for protecting the anonymity of sources for Whistleblowers, Investigative Journalists, Campaign Activists and Political Bloggers etc.

Gordon Brown is at Buckingham Palace resigning as Prime Minister - good riddance !

It is unlikely that the the Conservative coalition with the Liberal Democrats will be free from errors and cockups, but they are unlikely to be as Orwellian as the Labour government turned out to be.

This blog will continue to keep a watch on the post-election defeated Labour politicians to see what mischief they get up to, especially since some of them could return to power or influence in the future.

How many former Ministers and Special Advisor apparatchiki will be selling their "contacts" and influence within the Civil Service to commercial lobbyists and foreign governments ?

Why is the Gordon Brown still clinging on to power in Downing Street ?

Remember he has never won an election for this position of power and has no democratic mandate whatsoever.

Will the Liberal Democrats betray the electorate by doing some dodgy political deal Labour ?

When will the next election be ? Within a year ?

Readers of this blog are unlikely to be "floating voters" who have not yet made up their minds which way to vote in today's General Election.

Please vote, tactically if necessary, for any candidate who is likely to unseat a Labour MP or to deny a Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate victory in a marginal constituency.

Most of the decent Labour MPs (such as Andrew MacKinlay, Bob Marshall-Andrews, David Winnick etc. ), who have actually rebelled against their party leaders' authoritarian, pettifogging, nanny / police / surveillance state policies and the incompetent jobsworth bureaucracy ruled by a risk adverse / blame someone else, form filling tickbox culture they have created, are not standing for re-election today.

Hopefully some of the more odious former Labour Ministers such as Ed Balls, or those tainted by expenses scandals like Tony McNulty or Hazel Blears, or those in marginal constituencies like Jackie Smith (who ticks several boxes), will suffer electorally today.

If the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats do gain power tonight, this blog will oppose them also, if they renege on their promises to undo the wretched Labour policies which have eroded our freedoms and liberties and livelihoods.