Who's Spending Britain's Billions?
October 23, 2016 9:25 AM   Subscribe

BBC Four Documentary: Jacques Peretti explores how public bodies utilise their resources and asks whether taxpayers are getting value for money. [slyt]
posted by marienbad (13 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Warning: No matter which side of the political or Brexit divide you fall on, this documentary will infuriate you.
posted by marienbad at 9:26 AM on October 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Luckily the problem of having money will shortly be solved.
posted by Artw at 9:44 AM on October 23, 2016 [17 favorites]


this documentary will infuriate you.

It wouldn't infuriate anyone who regularly reads Private Eye magazine... it's been investigating and documenting Ministry of Defence overspends as well as the penetration into the public service of "consultants" such as PwC and McKinsey and "outsourcing companies" including Capita G4S, Serco, for years.

Ah, yes... the gift that keeps on giving: "commercial confidentiality".

Glad to see some light being shone on this by the Beeb.

Thanks for posting.
posted by Mister Bijou at 10:56 AM on October 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


Conservatism isn't about cutting government spending, it's about spending that money on the 'right people'. Not those dirty, undeserving poor people, but people like you went to school with, that live in your neighborhood and think like you.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:37 AM on October 23, 2016 [11 favorites]


Bee'sWing, Conservatism's far more complex than that. It is following Parkinson's Law of Triviality (informally: bikeshedding) literally. In terms of this government, and Hinkley Point, disturbingly literally.
posted by ambrosen at 12:26 PM on October 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Countries are not supposed to "live within their means" - it is a strawman argument.
posted by turbid dahlia at 12:29 PM on October 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


The theorys are more complex. The practice never seems to work out.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:01 PM on October 23, 2016


Bureaucrats don't efficiently allocate capital, huh? That should surprise exactly no one.
posted by jpe at 2:16 PM on October 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


This was almost guaranteed to turn into a Brexit post. The Tories and those right of them aren't at all subtle about the fact that private > public. In all circumstances. Brexit is basically an excuse for a May cabinet to run fucking riot privatising.

Much as Theresa and Co would like to pretend that Brexit= Brexit, a significant amount of government time for the next 5-10 years is going to be rewriting laws we already have to remove references to the EU.. And this is government time, parliamentary time, that could be doing actual stuff.
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:27 PM on October 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


nd this is government time, parliamentary time, that could be doing actual stuff.

At least the Tories we seem doomed to suffer will be a little preoccupied then. It's not much of a silver lining, is it?
posted by Dysk at 2:45 PM on October 23, 2016


Meanwhile, in the US, Nevada's Tories are upping THEIR welfare-for-billionaires game.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:42 PM on October 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Bureaucrats don't efficiently allocate capital, huh? That should surprise exactly no one.

Yeah! Get the wealth management consultants in... the world needs more luxury blocks of flats for the rich to park their money.
posted by Mister Bijou at 11:53 PM on October 23, 2016


It took the whole program and it could be summed up in four letters.

MYOB

or as they put it "that is commercially confidential"
posted by Burn_IT at 1:25 PM on October 24, 2016


« Older The enigma of pre-Columbian whistling water jars   |   The 19th Century Yoruba repatriation Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments