Political Waste

From Burning Our Money

So nice to see that our politicians have their priorities right, never mind the slum housing for troops, or the fact that they get killed due to not enough body armour, or helping the people affected by floods, or resolving any of the problems that we expect our elected officials to act on.

Instead they have wasted your tax money on these bright ideas, and then the wonder why the number of people going out to vote is declining.

£17,300 to hide MPs expenses from us- "A committee run by the Speaker of the Commons squandered more than £17,000 of taxpayers' money on barristers in an attempt to keep MPs' travel expenses secret. The House of Commons Commission - chaired by Michael Martin - spent two years trying to keep MPs' car, train and plane claims, which ran into millions of pounds, from the public. It forked out nearly £17,300 on lawyers and barristers to challenge a ruling by Information Commissioner Richard Thomas that taxpayers had a right to know much public money was being spent on politicians' travel." (Mail 11.8.07)

Balls junket costs us £5,000- "Cabinet minister Ed Balls spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money attending a private meeting of one of the world's most powerful and secretive organisations. Mr Balls travelled to Canada for the four-day conference of the shadowy Bilderberg Group of businessmen and politicians... The cost of the trip, in air fares, hotel bills and expenses is estimated at up to £5,000. The group's rules insist that "all participants attend in a private and not an official capacity". However, a Treasury spokesman said Mr Balls had attended "in his capacity as a minister" and confirmed that all expenses had been met from public funds." (Sunday Telegraph 12.8.07)

£1.7m wasted on re-importing radioactive waste- "DOUNREAY officials yesterday defended the £1.7 million cost of returning a batch of radioactive waste which was exported from the site to Peru nine years ago... As Peru lacks any specialist treatment or disposal facilities, a dozen-strong team from Dounreay went over to Lima... to move the 43 drums of the waste... Dounreay director Simon Middlemas denied the £1.7 million bill was a waste of money that could otherwise have been devoted to the clean-up of the site. He said: "I suppose you could look at it like that but... I wouldn't say it's been an embarrassment... that was in the past and practices then are completely different to what they are now." (John O'Groat Journal 10.8.07)

Human rights commissariate costs £1m pa- "MSPs last night demanded that Holyrood abandon moves to appoint a £75,000-a-year human rights "tsar". The calls came after advertisements were published for a full-time chairman of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, who will head a panel of four part-time members and have an annual budget of £1 million." (Scotsman 21.7.07)

Teaching vandals how to waste £400K pa- "Daft council chiefs who paid £400,000 to clean up paint-daubed walls are giving kids free lessons - in GRAFFITI. Teenagers will be taught techniques in spray painting as part of a summer scheme. The classes are the brainwave of Islington council, north London, whose workers scrubbed off 25,000 square metres of graffiti last year." (People 12.8.07)

Total for week- £3,122,300
Researchers from the Department of Forensic Paleontology at Scheisskopf University recently uncovered this skeleton of what could be a new humanoid species closely related to homo sapiens. Hat tip to And rightly so

The ancestor of the modern politician, evolution or Intelligent Design? Either way it can clearly be seen that its head is firmly lodged in a place where the sun does not shine.

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