GrumbleSmiles

For the past six months and probably for at least six more our heads have been full of Coronapop.   All forms of media have had their attention grabbed by the virus worldwide.    The world has been on hold,     We have been digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper financial hole.
Many people think we will go back to “normal” when it’s all over.    Somehow we will pay all the debts off.    Recovery will just happen automatically.    Growth will return and we will carry on as before, as if nothing had happened.

I don’t think it will be that simple.   Power has shifted from West to East.   America is in turmoil in the run up to the Presidential election and regardless of who wins,  they are up to their neck in debt with their equity market massively over valued.   A crash will be coming sooner or later.     They have fires raging, are still gas guzzling and yet Trump is still in climate change denial.
China is already flexing its muscles in Hong Kong.   It will soon start pulling financial levers in other areas .   It has begun to squeeze Australia.    In a weakened world, who is next?

Coronapop is a temporary distraction which has  made the future economic outlook worse for all but the very rich.    Both individuals and countries.

The UK is in reality, a small player on the world scene even though we went into this Coronapop crisis as the worlds fifth largest economy.    We have been living on past glories for far too long and now we will be much weakened by our indebted economy.

There are lessons in the Coronapop experience,  which if we are prepared to face up to them and challenge some of our out-dated habits, could point to a  bright new future.    The key question is :- “ Are we prepared to face up to the new way and do we have the leaders to guide us forward .”

The Last Laugh Looney Party highlighted some of the issues in it’s tong in cheek review of current Government expenditure and of the bloated structure of Government, including the Civil Service.      Nothing short of a fresh start on both fronts will enable us to rise from the Coronapop ashes.

So my next series of posts will chart a potential route to a better future 🤡🌈

This is a follow up to the last post

Bodj has got himself fixated on SIX, but being a classical scholar the Last Laugh Looney Party recommends he remembers his Roman Empire history and changes the focus to TEN.
Then taking advantage of the fact that temporarily he has no quarrelsome MP’s nor pesky Lords, he should use the opportunity to do what has long been talked about and reduce the numbers in the House of Commons and the House of Lords 🤡

Bodj needs to learn from the mistakes of the last seven months of the Coronapop era.      His Government has been slow to respond at every step.   There have been too many advisors and too many dissenting voices.     The whole process has been too centralised, but at the same time the Regional Governments have just confused the messages by adding their own spin to make themselves look more self-important.

BODJ SHOULD SET THE STRATEGY, THEN  DEVOLVE THE TACTICS AND ACTION  TO COUNTIES AND METROPOLITAN UNIARY AUTHORITIES, WITH MORE DELEGATED POWERS TO GET ON WITH IT.

So here are the Last Laugh Looney Party recommendations :-

BODJ’S FIRST STEPS :-

• Reduce Local Government structure to a total 100 county and metropolitan unitary authorities.     This means scrapping district councils and amalgamating smaller counties so they have on average around 600,000 populations each.  England currently has 48 counties and 533 MP’s representing them.   Scotland has 33 counties, 59 MP’s for a population of 5.45 million people.    Wales has 13 counties, 40 MP’s and 3.1 population.   Northern Ireland has 6 counties, 18 MP’s for 1.8 million people.
  This would strip out a mass of Local Government management staff, although the front line workers would still be required.
• Each of the new Unitary Authorities would be represented in Parliament by 1 MP in a slimmed down House of Commons and 1 Senator in an elected House of Lords.     Existing MP’s and Lords would be banned from standing in the new election, in fact any election ever again, because of their bad track record and the not-forgotten expenses scandal.    ( Bodj has decided he will be the one exception and he will stay on until there is a very very big statue of himself erected in front of Parliament to mark his great reforming leadership.)
• Before they could stand for election all candidates must have had a real job for at least three years.    Being a lawyer disqualifies you from ever standing.    MP ‘s and Senators can serve a maximum of two terms in office and any blot on their character during their term of office, means deportation to the Isle of Mull with no appeal.      Colonel Tom and Marcus Rashford would be given a free transfer into the Senate for outstanding service during Coronapop.
• The national Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be given no powers and no money so they would soon wither on the vine.  Which will conveniently resolve the Independence argument🤡

Reduce the Cabinet to TEN Ministers.   The clue was on the front door all along !

• prime minister & chair
• money.
• people.
• health
• education
• housing & environment
• foreign affairs
• defence
• climate
• technology

NOW WE CAN HAVE A GENERAL ELECTION.    Once Coronapop is over, which the scientists and modlers say should be by 2026 🤡🌈

Brexit looms and Coronapop is still at large, so the Last Laugh Looney Party has advised Prime Minister Bodj to call a General Election.    It is time tor a fresh start.       This is particularly urgent because in my last post he sacked all the MP’s and the Lords  🤡

However, organising a General Election won’t be easy at the moment, when R is soaring upwards.       Unfortunately, because of the new Coronapop rules Bodj has just introduced, there won’t be any political meetings larger than SIX.   Nor any shouting or loud cheering.     Nor any hand shaking or holding babies.
Another problem would be the length of the socially distanced voting queues, given the 2 metre rule.      Oh! and the time you would need for hand washing and disinfecting the pencils.    Not to forget the testing, tracking and tracing all the voters.    Of course if after a few days, when the test results came back, anyone standing in the ten mile long queues turns out to be positive, they wold have to go and self-isolate for fourteen days.     Unless it was a false positive or even a false negative.     In which case the Marshals would take them away for questioning about how many people they had met in the last three days.

We mustn’t forget all the elderly Bodj  voters who he has told to “ Stay at home ! ”.    Many of them have been isolating since forever.       Maybe Ocado, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and all the other delivery drivers could collect their postal votes the next time they drop off their Bodj emergency food parcels.

Then finally, there are the regional variations, which are necessary to make the Nations that make up the UK feel different and their politicians feel very very important.    In Wales they want to vote with a red pencil and put a tick rather than a cross on the voting paper.      In Scotland they want to vote two, three or four times until they all agree they want to be independent.    In Northern Ireland they want to fight first about what they are voting about.

Having thought about it, Bodj decided to change his mind and that maybe this is not a good time for a General Election after all.

So he has asked the Last Laugh Looney Party for another idea next time, when his Coronapop head is less muddled up.

                               THAT IS THE NEXT POST.

The Last Laugh Looney Party has now completed its long investigation into Government expenditure.   What a marathon !   And what lessons have been learned ?

• Firstly, the Governments and the Civil Service don’t really want you to know how little they are achieving, nor how much they are spending doing it.
  Their Annual Reports are late, full of waffle, trite and devoid of any measurable way of holding them to account.
• £ Billions  can be saved, but only with an LLLP radical approach.
• We need to rethink the role and structure of an overgrown state.  I sound like Dominic Cummings 🤡
• Power is too centralised, but at the same time it is emaciated by an largely ineffective bureaucratic Civil Service.
• Democracy is too remote. Individual  politicians need to be accountable to their constituents and their actions more directly linked to local needs.
• The State should be a safety net for everyone, but not burden us with red tape, or wrap us in cotton wool, or to stop us ever making mistakes.      It’s attention should be on ….. SAFETY …… HEALTH …… EDUCATION.
• And not much else

So how would the Last Laugh Looney Party set about doing it ????

We would start by learning the lessons from the Coronapop period :-

• £ billions could be saved by taking a scythe to Government Departments.   The tong in cheek review of their Annual Accounts showed how little they achieve.  So whilst there would be howls of anguish, would we really miss all the civil servants and their posturing Ministers ?
•  It would have to be done swiftly, so over-night Bodj would elevate all the Ministers to the peerage and made them Lords Without Portfolio.
• The following day Bodj would abolish the House Of Lords 🤡
• Then with the help of the LLLP in the next 24 hours Bodj would restructure his   Government and appoint new Cabinet .

THE NEXT EPISODE WILL FOLLOW SHORTLY IN  BODJ’S  NEXT BROADCAST TO THE NATION.

In the meantime there are few things for Bodj to think about in his muddled up Coronapop head:-

WHY TAX PEOPLE ONLY TO GIVE THEM BACK THRIR MONEY LATER?

WHY DISINCENTIVE PEOPLE FROM WORKING TO PAY THEIR OWN WAY.

PRISONERS SHOULD WORK TO REPAY SOCIETY FOR THEIR CRIMES

PICK FRUIT AND VEG,   RECYCLING WASTE.   LITTER PICKING.

BRING BACK CONSCRIPTION    EITHER IN THE FORCES ON IN VOLUNTARY WORK.  EVERY ONE FOR TWO YEARS.    THOSE WHO MISSED IT BEFORE SHOULD DO IT NOW    POLITICIANS SHOULD DO THREE YEARS

TAX LOWERED TO 10 %

PAY TO SEE GP.    FREE ON LINE CONSULTATIONS     AND PAY TO VISIT A&E

UNEMPLOYED REQUIRED TO WORK

• This is the final department of Central Government expenditure being examined by the Last Laugh Looney Party.      🤡Phew !      The Department of Work and Pensions has the biggest spending budget of £ 171 billion in 2018/19.  That is until Coronapop came along, after which spending went BALLISTIC 🤡

The LLLP has proposed dramatic cuts in every other department, but suggests caution in this area.     Firstly, because it is only giving back to most people money that they have earned and then has been taken in tax.    Secondly, it is giving money to the most vulnerable people in society, or at least it should be.   The problem comes when the system is not simple and transparent.    The very nature of Government bureaucracy is that it feeds itself on making things more and more complex.   Hence the 1001 volumes of rules about benefits, pensions and income tax.     And the 76,698 civil servants employed to dish them out at an administrative cost of £ 6.4 Billion annually !

There are four groups of beneficiaries of the DWP’s largesse :-

• Pensioners – 12 million rising to 16 million by 2044.
• People with a disability – 20% are on a low income.
• Unemployed people – 24% of the working age population ???
• Children / Families – 10% on low incomes.

Living on only benefits or a state pension is not easy, nor should it be, provided people have the opportunity to better themselves.   There are a feckless few ( about 2% ) who exploit the system and give everybody else a bad name.    At its best the benefits system should a safety net for the most vulnerable in society.    For this reason the LLLP will be very cautious in revising it.

PENSIONERS.
The current state pension is minimal and not enough for a comfortable retirement,  hence we end up with add on entitlements, such as winter fuel payments, Christmas bonus’s, free TV licences, free prescriptions.    All of which are universal and often go to people who don’t need them.     The LLLP would lift the basic state pension level, but then  do away with the enhancements and several thousand civil servants who administer them.    If you want a better lifestyle you need to save a lot more while you are working ( 20 to 25% of you earnings)  or if you own your own home as 70% of older people do, then either downsize, or take in lodgers, or sell the equity in your home to the Government. ( Only when they adopt an LLLP house buy back scheme ).  See my one of  my next posts for news of this.

PEOPLE WITH A. DISABILITY.
The LLLP will leave this alone for now because it supports many people who genuinely need more support.  Sadly it has been abused by Governments in the past to shift people off the unemployment register and this has undermined public compassion in the system.

UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE.

  People without a job should only be paid benefits if they are prepared to retrain an gain more skills.     This could be in full-time education or working in the voluntary sector for a year.

CHILDREN & FAMILIES.

Nobody would wish to see children disadvantaged financially, but the gap left in single parent families resources by absentee fathers who pay no maintenance is their responsibility and much more effort should be made to recover it.

This area of Government expenditure certainly needs re-evaluation, but it is too serious for flippant judgments.     So no savings are forecast at this stage.

This is the Last Laugh Looney Party penultimate investigation.   This time it’s the turn of the Department of Health and Social Care. Normally they are the second largest spending department, clocking up a massive figure of £ 171 billion in 2018/19.    Thanks to Coronapop in the current year it’s spending has gone into the medical stratosphere, totalling goodness knows what.    But we will find out eventually 🤡

Let’s start with some prejudices about the NHS, which I say having worked alongside them and in partnership with them for many years, long before Coronapop was even heard of :-

• First of all they are a LEVIATHAN, a massive organisation.
• A massive administrative management nightmare.
• Potentially great  at the front line, if you can get to it.
• Dictated to by endless executive orders from “on high”.
• Dominated from below by Trade Union limitations.
• Tied in administrative red tape.
• Fearful of ambulance chasing no- win no-fee lawyers.
• Regularly reorganised by successive Governments.

It is a miracle they achieve everything they do and that most peoples personal experience of the NHS is very good.   That’s down to the front line staff.

But now Coronapop comes along and they are caught with their pants down !     Not enough beds,  not enough ventilators,  not enough PPE,  not enough testing, not enough money.      No contingency plan for a pandemic.

Oh!  And so far I haven’t even mentioned Social Care,   The poor relation of the NHS.   The Cinderella service, last in the queue for attention or resources, but home to so many people who draw on NHS services.    A rabbit in the headlights of the NHS steam train.

So what do we do with a vehicle designed after the Second World War and still running 70 years later, with essentially the same organisational and funding model.        We could go forward with an HS2NHS.    An all singing all dancing technologically charged Alexa hospital service.   No need for doctors, just a video screen to talk to and robots to operate on serious cases.     That gets around the Trade Unions, the paperwork, health service managers and lawyers.

Bodj’s latest broadcast to the Nation :-

“I have decided to abolish the NHS because ever since Coronapop came along it’s costing the country a fortune  and from my personal experience on the ventilator it’s doing my head in.     This new health policy will save the  country from bankruptcy, although sadly there maybe a few more deaths in the short term.   My MinIster of Health, Matt Handcockup, will continue to provide a comprehensive health service with Alexa and his laptop computer.
P.S.  I forgot about Social Care, which is what I always do, but I will order another public enquiry, which should make it all go away until I am better.”

FORECAST SAVING.       £ 171 Billion plus who knows what?

7 The Last Laugh Looney Party is nearing the end of its examination of Government spending and is almost drowning under the waffle of paperwork produced to justify so much expenditure.   £Billions could be saved already, but the three biggest spenders are still to come.
The first is the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, with a wacking great budget of £ 107 billion.    It provides education for 4.7 million primary school children and 3.3 million secondary pupils.    This is achieved with 452,000 teachers.   That works out at 1 teacher for every 16 pupils, which seems considerably different to my school days.
There are also 1.6 million students in further education and 214,000 more in apprenticeships.

The Annual Report is full of acronyms :- NDPB, ESFA, STA, TRA, OCC, CITB, ECITB, FITB, FATE, OFS, SWE, SCC, STRB, SMC and probably several more letters after their name.      So you had best get a GCSE in acronyms before reading the report.    Goodness knows how the politicians are supposed to get a grip on this mammoth department, which probably explains why they change Secretaries of State so frequently.   Gavin Hinds, Michael Gove and Gavin Williamson just in the last three years.

The Annual Report is as boring as all the others, so no “A stars“ for the teacher.

Carefully buried amongst all this guff is a note about the Student Loans Authority which sold off some of its loan portfolio and lost a billion pounds in the process.   I suppose they just didn’t want to make a fuss about it.    What’s a £billion between friends ?

At the end of all this I looked at the U.K. PISA tables.     Nothing to do with leaning towers.    PISA is the OECD programme of international student assessment, which compares educational attainment in different countries.    In reading the UK ranks 13th below China, Singapore, Poland and a host of others,;  similarly we are 18th in maths and 14th in science.   Not exactly top of the class.

The LLLP  script for Bodj’s latest broadcast  on the future of education :-     The  DfESE should try harder, pay more attention in school and stop messing about with all the acronyms !

“As a result of Coronapop I have had to close all the schools  and pay the teachers for doing nothing.   The good news is that we have given all the pupils record results this year in spite of them not going to school.      So in the years ahead if we carry on this way we will rise up the PISA league tables faster than Liverpool Football Club.

In the meantime the DfESE  should write a hundred lines “ We won’t lose a billion pounds ever again and we are very,  very sorry”.

FORECAST SAVING         £ 50 BILLION