By Isle of Wight Observer
“One-man against the world,” it says up there; but I’d like to know how the rest of you stay so calm. To be fair, everything I dislike about the new government began with the last lot. They’re all hopelessly addicted to borrowing money. Now the interest payments alone will cost us all £100 billion annually.
You tolerate the ongoing mess from the IW Council too, until they closed the road through to Cowes. Even then only a few of you lost it; that is until they shut the Middle Road too. One woman claimed a journey from East Cowes to Cowes via St Mary’s roundabout took three hours. No, I don’t know why she didn’t use the chain ferry either, maybe it wasn’t running – again! “The diversion only takes an extra 15 minutes,” say Island Roads – who presumably did it at midnight.
Do you remember that old tourist tea towel, ‘Lake you can’t drink, Cowes you can’t milk’ etc? I’ve redesigned it to say: “‘Freshwater you can’t get to,’ – Cowes, Ventnor and Ryde too obviously. Why does our council always seem in fear of Island Roads? Who’s in charge?
The Prime Minister frets about the press, the Office of Budget Responsibility, Nigel’s Reform Party, opinion polls and the Whitehall blob. Can you imagine any new minister entering his/her department for the first time and sitting down to tell the civil servants what their plan is? Should they be so bold, their early days will be spent hearing the officials explain that, whatever the manifesto said, it can’t possibly be delivered. That explains our higher taxes, the pensioners’ U-turn, and our continued subservience to human rights laws made in Strasbourg.
We had 384,000 civil servants in 2016; by December last year, there were 514,395. What were they employed to do? Are they WFH? Imagine the pension liability.
You probably thought the Tories spent 14 years slashing the Whitehall workforce; it turns out they were in rapid growth mode. In advance of our two fingered ‘Leave’ vote, the civil service ‘policy profession’ grew by 105 per cent – 17,345 more staff. State ‘digital, data, analytics and technology’ jobs also grew by 136 per cent. The number of people involved in ‘operational delivery’ grew by 57,000. I could’ve sworn the Tories cut police and prison staff, so I ask again, what were these new people hired for?
I just had a boring meeting about website analytics. I’d already had an email, asking if I’d like to sponsor a roundabout. For only £3,000 a year, it said “your ad will be seen by eight million people monthly across Hart District Council.” How did they work that out? The town’s population is 38,000. Every one of them would have to drive around the roundabout 210 times to make the numbers work.
I remember a similar sales pitch, stating that, in Farnborough, around 2,000 people a month search for a funeral director. Google’s figures for the various towns we operate in say much the same thing. As only 20 to 30 residents a month die in those specific towns – statistically, 1,970 people who don’t need one, look online for an undertaker. Honestly, why would anyone do such a stupid thing – unless they’re made-up numbers!
Like politicians, statisticians constantly try to pull the wool over our eyes. Proposed new supermarkets usually claim they’ll create at least 300 new jobs. McDonalds also say it will create a large number – if we let them build new drive-throughs in Cowes and Lake. Those shameless politicians who’ll likely give the necessary planning consents for more fast food, are the same ones spending vast sums of our money telling us all we’re fat.
Honestly, is it any wonder I get so cross?