Recently in Waste of Public Money Category

The Sunday Times has two contrasting stories, about armoured vehicles:

The Sunday Times October 23, 2005

The gym, James! Cherie gets chauffeured armoured car
Jon Ungoed-Thomas

CHERIE BLAIR has become the first prime minister’s spouse to be given an official government car and driver for her personal use, including shopping trips and visits to the gym.
Use of the car, a bullet-proof Vauxhall Omega, is estimated to be costing taxpayers more than £50,000 a year. She also has the use of a Ford Galaxy people carrier as backup.

The government disclosed the information last week after a freedom of information request by The Sunday Times. She was given the car in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks but the perk was never disclosed.

A Cabinet Office spokesman confirmed last week: “The prime minister’s wife has been allocated a government car. Prime minister’s spouses have not previously had [official] cars, but it’s a recent change we have made in the light of a security review.”

However, it seems, that the penny pinching Treasury and Ministry of Defence do not appear to have provided enough armoured landrovers etc. for all of our military personnel in Iraq.

Why are NuLabour Cabinet Ministers who had to resign in disgrace, like David Blunkett and Beverly Hughes allowed tax free "redundancy" payments ?

The Independent has a report

The utterly pointless names changes experienced by the Department for Trade and Industry / Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry, following Tony Blair's Cabinet re-shuffle, wasted at least £30,000 of public money, and probably more, as the civil service staff and external consultancy costs are almost certainly not included in the figures given to Parliament in these Written Answers:

House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 20 Jun 2005 (pt 17)

"Departmental Name

Mr. Prisk: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much the proposal to change the name of his Department cost in terms of (a) signage, (b) stationery and (c) literature. [1085]

Alan Johnson: Preliminary work was undertaken to meet the name change of the Department at an overall cost of £14,500. This was broken down into:

(a) Signage £7,500
(b) Design changes to stationery templates £4,000
(c) Literature including web site changes £3,000

Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the total cost was of (a) changing the title of the Department of Trade and Industry to the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry and (b) reverting to the original title. [2689]

Alan Johnson [holding answer 9 June 2005]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 6 June 2005, Official Report, column 304W."

House of Lords Hansard for 20 Jun 2005 (pt 2)

"Department of Trade and Industry: Change of Name Lord Hanningfield asked Her Majesty's Government:

What costs were incurred following the name change to the Department for Trade and Industry; and how these costs are broken down. [HL113]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): In order to put into effect the renaming of the department, the following actions were undertaken: replacement nameplates for the department's London buildings were commissioned; a small number of publications and event literature were amended; websites were changed and departmental guidelines and stationery templates were adjusted and distributed. The total cost of these actions was £14,500.

The total cost involved in the name reverting to the Department of Trade and Industry was £15,400."

The Guardian Reports about the appointment of Yet Another Management Consultant from McKinsey & Company, David Bennett, who started work on 1st June as head of the controversial Downing Street Policy Unit.

"Downing Street yesterday declined to provide any details of Mr Bennett's appointment by not disclosing his six-figure salary, duties, hours or his age. A spokeswoman said: "No press release is being issued, and MPs will have to table questions if they want to ask about his salary or job."

Following on from all the hype about "hoodies" and to a lesser extent, baseball caps last week, The Guardian reports that

"Uniforms for young offenders 'not policy'

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Monday May 16, 2005
The Guardian

New proposals to make young offenders wear US-style uniforms while carrying out community punishments appeared to be heading the same way as Tony Blair's shelved plan to make yobs pay on-the-spot fines by marching them to cashpoints.

The Home Office minister Hazel Blears who is responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour, floated the idea yesterday in a newspaper interview as a way of ensuring that justice was seen to be done in the battle against the "culture of disrespect"."

The Sunday Telegraph reports that James Purnell, the new Minister for Media and Tourism, wrote a sensible, if critical article, about the 2012 Olympic Games bid back in 2003 for The Times, See the Mayor of London Blog for more comments.

"It is a shame that there is not an Olympic event for "political backpedalling", as the Minister for Tourism seems to be a potential Gold medallist."

It is also very revealing, that the article critical of the London bid, was written for The Times in 2003. The Sunday Telegraph has put their report about this article at the top of their front page, but the Rupert Murdoch owned Times newspaper either did not notice the implications of their own article when the Ministerial appointments were announced, or there is some sort of Murdoch or NuLabour media manipulation going on.

Will the original article get censored from The Times online archive (paid subscription only) ?

The Financial Times reports the confusion and ineptitude over the name of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which was renamed to the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry (DPEI) only last week, but now seems to already re-re-branding itself back to the DTI.

This issue should provide a quick litmus test of whether or not the Opposition will be as ineffective as they were in the last Parliament.

Will any Opposition MPs even bother to ask, let alomne get answers to questions like: