Conference seems a long time ago.  I remember travelling home on the train sitting next to David Willets and Cheryl Gillian, full of optimism.  A great Conference.  Never underestimating the task ahead, key was that everything was pointing in the right direction.  George Osborne had just enjoyed the Conference of his life and delivered a speech which tackled the big issues and underlined the economic competence of the Conservatives.  David Cameron had delivered a barn storming speech which left all with hope, (yes that great word that Obama anchors campaigns around), that we were en route to a better future.  This was off the back of a dreadful Labour Conference that saw a less than half empty hall wearily trudge through a week of depression, until Lord Mandelson rallied their spirits, (and his future career prospects), with throws of inspiring rhetoric for the Labour faithful to finally have a sliver of hope themselves.

Things are bleak for this Government.  Indeed, for the country.

And yet…..opinion polls are throwing up mixed results.  Trending is that Conservatives are not dominating as much as we should be.  Local council by election results, are ‘disappointing’,(in the words of ConservativeHome’s Jonathan Isaby.  Iain Dale also asks the question why by-election results are not going our way).  Yes, there are always localised reasons at play at by-election results, and their impact can never be dismissed.  But we are not dominating.  Opinion polls are patchy and not as inspiring as the recent 17% lead polls.  Tim Montgomerie on ConservativeHome has alluded to a drop in Conservatives support post Lisbon Treaty ‘U-Turn’.  Many seem to agree with that sentiment on that blog site.  But there is more to it than Europe.

What is fundamentally true is that the Conservatives have so much ammunition at their disposal, the question why polls are not moving stronger in our favour is a valid one to ask!

Consider what’s happening around us…..

  -           The economy.  First into recession, last out.  And the deepest recession in Europe.  We hurtle catastrophically towards a £1 trillion debt that our children will still be paying off in years to come. Brown has got away with the biggest lie in Political history.  That lie?  That debt has been built up because Brown states he was saving the UK from recession, (actually he would say saving the world from recession but scrub that).  That’s like Tiger Woods saying he had 10 birdies in a round and his wife believing he was talking about Golf!   Brown was building debt way before this recession even started.  In the good times he was spending like a manic gambler at the roulette table, hoping the ball will end on black.  In the words of the IMF:  ‘Imbalances and balance sheet strains had emerged even before the recent global shocks triggered a sharp decline in economic activity’.  ie we were heading into recession and spending too heavily BEFORE the Global shocks took place. 

 -           Unemployment heads towards 3 million, (that’s by official figures), unofficially claims of 6 million seem more accurate.  That’s people’s lives wrecked, on hold, dignity stripped.  Benefits and dependency culture set in.

 -           Class War.  Entrepreneurs discouraged.  Bankers bashed.  Top talent packing their bags to work abroad as UK thumps those very people who can bring us out of slump, create jobs for others and generate tax revenues, pummelled to the ground, with more ferocity than an uppercut from Mike Tyson in his prime, by punitive tax rates.  50% for top earners.  40% threshold frozen.  More on NI.  VAT back up 2.5%.  Penalties on companies that reward bankers who make money, (the very people we need to save and keep in this country, not incentivise to work and benefit New York’s Stock Exchange). 

 -           The Unions start to flex their muscles.  Just as the nation was free from the strangulation and choking hold of the Unions, like in ‘The Shining’ ‘They’re back’!  Strikes on the increase, Union militancy.  Bob Crow back on the telly chanting his monotone messages like a failed XFactor auditionee.  The Post Office, on the brink of collapse, wont modernise, cancerously pumping money into its bottomless pension pit, faced by striking members, and growing competition.  The RMT, getting the Tube drivers out on strike, more often than we enjoy a boiling hot summers day that we can take off our shirts and bathe!  And that comes before the pending winter of discontent as Unions rally against Darling’s 1% pay rise limit for public sector workers.  Who will be out striking first?  Rush down Ladbroke’s and place your bet tonight. 

 -           Our population continues on its inextricable path towards 70 million.  Immigration remains unchecked.  Asylum seekers lost amongst the population.  Our open borders burden the UK putting huge strain on over stretched public services, with the NHS groaning under the weight, school classes getting bigger, new houses being built on green belt, predicted power shortages for the years ahead as we don’t have the power stations to support our surging nation, public transport wheezing and roads at a standstill. 

 -           We are in the midst of a deeply unpopular war.  Over 200 brave soldiers have been returned home in a coffin.  Debates over strategy have been rife.  More concerning than that, real questions over the equipment troops are issued with and the lack of protection eg helicopters, have undermined this Government.  There could not be a more inept and ‘uncaring’ Defence Minister in Bob Ainsworth.

 -           The Iraq enquiry is rapidly tarnishing the reputation of ‘Labour’s greatest Leader’, Tony Blair.  We hear daily about the lack of credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction and the inability of Saddam Hussein’s regime to produce workable ones.  Coded language comes from the Iraq Enquiry that George W Bush wanted a hard line and pushed Blair into it.  Bliar indeed.

 -           A House of Commons with politicians so morally corrupt that make even Ronnie Biggs look respectable.  Yes, you will retort that Conservative politicians have been just as bad.  BUT the Government have been poor in taking any lead in cleaning up this sh*tstorm of a mess.  Cameron, has pushed Brown all the way.  Even this week we hear of Prime Minister Brown repaying £500 for painting a shed!

 -           Europe.  The continued enslavery of the British people continues to the faceless unelected bureaucrats of Europe.  Now we have the dreaded Lisbon Treaty with the instantly forgettable, but powerful. President of the European Union, (Herman Van Rompuy), and Foreign Minister, Cathy Ashton, (a Brit who was as vocal in British politics as Sooty was to Children’s TV!).  Blair and Brown promised a referendum for the British people but it never ever emerged.  Yes, Cameron took some hammering on his so called U-turn but a referendum on a Treaty in force is daft.  Another referendum on whether we have given too much power away, hell yes.  The blame for our European ills lay firmly at Brown’s door.

-           Education, Education, Education.  Blair’s famous pledge that education was his first, second and third priority.  A memorable catch phrase that was almost Turette’s by nature, proved to be as reliable as Amy Whinehouse sticking to drinking coke in a bar all night !   Education failures rack up.  50,000 A-level students miss out on a place at university.  This year 52,000 more people applied to University but only 13,000 extra places were made available.  The number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) has leapt by more than 100,000 in the past year.  Government statistics show there are now almost 960,000 16- to 24-year-old Neets in England, more than 230,000 of whom are aged between 16 and 18.  Oh and the flagship policy, SAT’s…teachers aim to boycott them next year!

-           A big brother state that worms its way into every aspect of our lives.  Want to help out at your local school?  Drive friends Children to their Cubs or Girl Guides?  Got to be checked on the anti paedophile register first.

Quite literally I could go on all night listing failure after failure after failure.

Fertile ground to be in Opposition.  Too much to choose from.  Should be Christmas all year round.

Opinion polls should be absolutely hammering Labour for their incompetence.  Criminal incompetence.  But they aren’t.

Some recent polls have put the difference between Conservatives to 10% difference.  Labour commanding a mid – late 20’s position.

Who the hell is being polled?  Who is supporting this shower?

As we head towards an election, the most important in many a lifetime, Conservatives need to open up the gap and generate clear blue water.  This is the ‘Schumacher’ moment when we need to be so far ahead of the field, we need to be lapping not only the back markers but coming up to lap the entire field.  Schumacher never slowed up.  He pummelled his fellow drivers into the ground.  As we must do now.

So what is wrong?

Why are we not opening up more of a gap?

Many commentators say that Conservatives Agenda is not yet bought by the British people.  Voters don’t quite trust us as yet.  They don’t understand what we stand for.  They like nice Mr Cameron but don’t have a feel for what he would do.

Much of this can be brought out in the wash in an election campaign say Conservative campaign team leaders.  Maybe…in them we have to trust!  We are not privy to the campaign they intend to use to convince the people.

But one suggestion I would impart onto David, Eric, George & William is that the key word around the campaigns table must be emotion.  Emotion is what politics lacks.  Emotion means getting personal.  It means relating to the ordinary person in the street.  Emotion creates and bonds loyalty and trust.

Politics today is too focused on debating statistics or policies.  As we all fight the election in the middle ground, choices get confused, differences misunderstood by the public, whose political antenna is not as attuned as Westminster politicians think.  I say we all fight in the middle, the key word is that all parties want to be perceived as in the middle, to attract the largest number of voters.  Matters not that policies may be more left or right wing, the centre is where we all will fight, (rightly or wrongly in your opinion).

Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit had their finger on the pulse of the people.  They spoke in terms that people understood.  They personalised and humanised issues that people could relate to.  Politicians are forgetting that, just as any film director tries to do, it is about getting someone to believe in what they see.  Emotion is created by personalising issues.  Remember when Margaret Thatcher turned complex economic issues into the language that people understood.  On spending she equated the state to the family.  We cannot spend what we cannot afford.  When we are at home, if we cannot afford it, we save and then we can afford it, we buy it.  Simple language but the people loved it.  The housewife spoke!  Powerful and it resonated.  More so that today’s debate which quotes pure stats and percentages that Joe public does not understand…or will try to understand as they worry whether Joe, Stacey or Olly will win the XFactor!

Unemployment is not about a statistic of 3 million people it is about Mr Jones, who worked all his life, bought his own council house, can’t find work, wife fallen ill, daughter can’t afford University, a man depressed, lost his dignity but wants better for his family…and is fighting to earn money.  In him we respect and want to see him do well.

The health service is not about dirty corridors, increases in disease, rising cancer death rates, it is about Mrs Hughes, a mother who has a family of 3 beautiful daughters, husband died at war, who is diagnosed with cancer and facing life’s hardest choices.  How do we help her and her daughters.

Afghanistan is so more more than a statistic 200 dead, it is about John, a brave soldier on the front line who died by roadside ambush, a wife pregnant with his unborn daughter, a family torn apart.  How we help that family of a man who gave the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

Public debt is not about a figure of trillion pounds.  It is about Mary, who is struggling to pay her mortgage, close to repossession, working for a company that is struggling to get credit, that is laying off workers, (her friends).

Violent crime is not about a percentage.  It is about 8 year old Sarah, whose father went to pick up a takeaway for the family, but never came home as youths taunted him, attacked him and used a knife in a savage unprovoked attack.

David Cameron is a thoroughly decent man.  Post the tragic death of Ivan the public saw a different side to the Politician.  They related to him.  A family man.  A bereaving dad.  A loving husband.  And they could associate with that.  We see less of the personal side of David of late.  That loving family man, the dad, the husband, has been less visible.   The emotion of the man not emanating out.

Some may shout this down.

But just sit and watch ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘The X Factor’.  Watch how contestant’s are introduced.  How emotion is used to get that tear welling up in your eye.  Get that lump in your throat.  Make you leap our your chair and vote for them because, for that moment in time, ‘they’ matter to you more than anything else.  You support them.  You don’t care paying a phone vote because you feel better in yourself for supporting them.  You feel you are making a difference.  We can all point to stories used on shows like this.  The daughter who was told by her dad to audition for Britain’s Got Talent by a dad, who died suddenly and she is now doing this for him.  Who did not feel emotional.

So, David Cameron, more than anyone, realises the election is not in the bag.  By a long way.  It’s not over until he faces the cameras on election night after Gordon Brown has conceded defeat.

So dangerous waters lie ahead.  Gordon Brown has been getting more confident of late.  The last two PMQ’s have been his strongest for a long time.  Iain Dale even concluded that Brown beat Cameron in one of them.  Unheard of!  The economy will start to turn round in the new year.  Brown must sit by the fire at No.10 with Sarah over a mug of hot chocolate and array of biscuits, (as he can’t decide his favourite), and really laugh.  ‘Sarah, look at how bad a mess everything is and yet look at those polls.  We are only 10% behind!  Even with the state of the UK as it is the Conservatives can’t kill us off.  We could still win this Sarah!’…..as she forlornly and adoringly looks into the eye of her ‘hero’! 

And things can change in politics.  The nightmare scenario still exists.  What if Gordon Brown steps down early next year?  A new Labour Leader emerges, be it Johnson, Miliband, Purnell or Mandelson, and starts to distance themselves from Brown’s policies, as the economy picks up and as they benefit from a honeymoon period in the polls, that any new leader always does.

Could Labour win the next election.  Yes.  The public may do a 1992 and shock and keep an ‘unpopular’ Government in.  Better the devil you know.  ‘Oh well things are getting better let’s stick with Labour’.

Worst case, as Ken Clarke would say, a hung Parliament.  The best of no worlds.

Election loss.  Conservatives would tear themselves apart.  Many keeping their lips sealed now for Party Unity would feel empowered to state their case.  Something none of us ever wants to see ever again.

So let’s see more spark to our Opposition.  Let’s see our front bench hammering the Government ever harder.  Let’s see emotion, personalisation and humanisation used to bring issues closer to the public, so they understand what really is going on.

We cannot afford, as a Great Nation, to see Labour in again.

The truth will always out.  Gordon Brown, the former ‘Iron Chancellor’, the economic maestro, who so stringently denied there would be any need for spending cuts, the man who branded David Cameron as ‘Mr 10%’, who would savagely cut expenditure….and the man that consistently stated in the House of Commons at PMQ’s and over the summer recess that the choice between Labour and the Conservatives boiled down to: ‘Tory cuts and Labour Investment’, is now the fastest ever convert on the road to damascas, as his right hand man, Ed Balls, has gone on the record to announce spending cuts in education!

Fascinating how Brown’s most loyal lietenant, seen by many as the key architect in election strategy, is first out of the traps to announce spending cuts.  Or first to be thrown under the bus…however you wish to view it!

Remember how Tony Blair said his priority was ‘Education, Education, Education’.  How that phrase sounds so hollow today.  How ironic that education is the first of the Government’s spending cuts to be announced.

There is a fascinating interview in the Sunday Times today.  It details how Labour plan to cut £2bn from the education budget.  That’s 5% of the total schools budget.  The Sunday Times quotes:  “Warning of post-election pay curbs, he added, (Ed Balls), : “If we are going to keep teachers and teaching assistants on the front line, that means we are going to have to be disciplined on public sector pay, including in education.” Teachers’ salaries have risen by 19% in real terms since 1997. Balls said that while teachers’ pay was set by an independent body, he was keen to ensure wage rises in the next three-year deal starting in 2011 were kept low”.

This will result in thousands of staff losing their jobs and frozen/low pay rises amongst teachers.  Most likely to be axed are those not directly teaching, including Headmasters, deputy headmasters, Assistant Heads, Heads of Year, Heads of Department.  Added to this are those Whitehall Officials that advise on curriculum development.

This will inevitably cause an outcry amongst teachers and their Unions over the coming weeks.  Expect to see, teachers balloting for strikes very soon.  ‘The winter of Discontent’ beckons.  Who suffers?  Our children and their education….and the future prospects for the economy as our future talent gets disrupted in its learning.  Sad times……..

GCSE exam results day.  First off, to all those getting their results today, I hope you get great results.  Achieving great grades is the result of hard work and dedication and no-one can take away from your awesome achievement.  So congratulations.  BUT….that does not mean that we cannot question a system that sees year on year ever improving pass rates and provides for some…..false hope?

Before we look at GCSE results, let’s remember A’Level successes just a couple of weeks back.  A’Level results announced showed again another improvement in pass rates….the 27th year in a row.  Yes 27 years in a row.  The pass rate of 97.5 per cent was 0.3 per cent higher than last year’s.  Are we saying that education has improved so much that children studying today, as a whole, are more intelligent, year on year, 27 years running?  We have a right to question that as slightly suspicious?  Are exam results politicised…is grade inflation the norm?  Within 9 years, anyone taking an A’Level will pass it….zero failures!  Again, within the next 9 years, the number of ‘A’ grades will rise to more than a third of all entries (it is already over a quarter).  Is that a good thing or papering over the cracks?

Are exams dumbed down?  A controversial question.  So, over the past 20 years, the proportion of A grades has risen from nine per cent to 2009’s 26.7 per cent; a study by Durham University last year concluded that an ‘A’ grade today is the equivalent of a C grade in the 1980s.

Perhaps more interesting is that Universities are now starting to introduce their own entrance tests as they don’t trust the validity of A’Levels, to sort the wheat from the chaff.  Cambridge University have publicly stated a third of A-grade mathematics students failed their entrance exam.  ‘A’ grades in maths have soared faster than any other subject – rising by more than 50 per cent in the last decade.  Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said the standard of A-level maths was too low.  “The fact is that the content was adjusted in light of a dramatic fall in entries and, as a result, we have a much higher proportion of ‘A’ grades being awarded,” he said. “This is why we see people being offered Cambridge places on the basis of projected As who do not turn out to be good enough. An ‘A’ grade is not telling the universities what it would have told them in the past.”

The danger as well of ever increasing A’Level grades is the false hope it provides students.  Naturally, students achieiving great A’Level results want to go on to University.  But reports scream that 50,000 A-level students will miss out on a place at university.  This year 52,000 more people applied to University but only 13,000 extra places were made available.  It would be little short of a tragedy if all the hard work by this year’s students is rewarded by no place in higher education or no job. It seems particularly cruel of the Government to raise expectations and then dash them by failing to provide enough places in higher education for UK students seeking them.

For those who can’t get places at University they could be another statistic added to the NEET.  The number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) has leapt by more than 100,000 in the past year.  Government statistics show there are now almost 960,000 16- to 24-year-old Neets in England, more than 230,000 of whom are aged between 16 and 18.

Turning to today’s GCSE’s.  Two thirds of exam papers were awarded an A* to C grade and the number ranked A or A* increased by 0.9 percentage points to 21.6%. But slightly fewer pupils scored a C or above in English, from 62.9% to 62.%, and the number taking modern languages continues to fall. The proportion of maths results scoring A*-C rose by 0.9% to 57.2%, with boys outperforming girls in this subject for the first time in a decade. Around 750,000 16-year-olds are collecting more than 5.46m GCSE exams results today. Overall, the A*-G pass rate increased slightly to 98.6%, up 0.2% on last year.

Let’s not take away from today’s results but we cannot allow for year – on -year grade inflation to continue.  Some years children, collectively, won’t achieve the best results.  That is a fact of life.  Other year’s, students will knock the results out of the park.  So, let’s just set the benchmark and throw the dice each year and see how the dice land.  When the Conservatives seek to introduce an honest and fair system, the first year that results dip, you can picture Mandolsen and the new Labour Leader Purnell, criticising the fall in education under the Tories!  Honesty is the best policy…throw them dice DC.

Ed Balls…is told exam results have risen again.  Shock horror eh Ed!

Keith Vaz, Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee has announced that tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have entered Britain posing as students at bogus colleges and coupled with this the Government is doing nothing to track them down.

Vaz came out with a cracking phrase that sums up the Governments lack of control in this area.  Vaz wants the Government to stop the use of the word ‘college’ by ‘any premises above a fish and chip shop’ that wants to claim it is a reputable educational establishment.

What is most scary is that the Home Affairs report states it is possible that terrorists use this route to gain access to the UK.  I think we all knew that anyway….but protecting this country from attack is pivotal and all backdoor routes for terrorists to get into the UK must be shut and all applications scrutinised.

The report also states there could be up to 2,200 colleges that were not legitimate but were accredited by the Government under a system that was running until March this year.

Quoting the report:  ‘Firm enforcement action must be taken against any individual whose student visa has expired to ensure that they leave the country, as well as against those who have set up bogus colleges to perpetrate visa fraud’.  ’We have received no evidence that the Home Office has made adequate preparations to deal with this issue  we are extremely disappointed that the Government has ignored repeated warnings from the education sector about the problem of bogus colleges’.

The Government’s response.  More checks in the future!

This looks like another mess that the Conservatives will need to clear up and seek to locate the ‘needles in the haystack’ of students with expired visas and those who came in under bogus applications! 

I have just got my hands on ‘Pleasure’, a new National Health Service leaflet that is advising school pupils that they have a ‘right’ to a fun and enjoyable sex life.  The leaflet tells schoolchildren that ‘an orgasm a day keeps the doctors away’, hence linking regular sex with improved cardiovascular health.  This is part of a new drive to ensure our schoolchildren have a better sex education as teenage pregnancies soar!

The main thrust of this leaflet is that sex education has been too focused in the past on ’safe sex’ and building loving relationships.  The authors of this leaflet, drawn up by NHS Sheffield, state that sex education has been ignoring the main reason we all love great sex….it’s fun and a major source of human enjoyment.  The leaflet contains lots of helpful advice for parents and teachers to pass on to schoolchildren.  I am sure the schoolchildren of Great Britain, their hormones raging will love to receive the following advice from their teachers & parents:  (these are direct quotes):

Masturbation

‘Promote masturbation and its benefits to young women and men, such as it can feel really good and pleasurable and (it helps) to explore and find out about your own body’

Body Parts

‘Ensure that age appropriate attention is paid to the role and functions of the different body parts, for example, mentioning the clitoris as opposed to just focusing on the vagina’.

Experimentation

‘Ensure discussions take place with your people that cover experimentation in sexual relationships to try and dispel the myth that there is only one way to have ‘proper sex’ (ie penetration)’.

Condoms

‘Promote discussion about how condoms/femidoms can be used to enhance sexual pleasure; talk about, show and demonstrate the variety of condoms available and link them to increased sensation & pleasure’.

An Orgasm a day keeps the doctor away’

‘Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week.  What about sex or masturbation twice a week?’

So…does this liberate and promote sex or does it educate children to be more sensible and prepare themselves for sex in a loving relationship.  Given children’s emotional maturity, the answer depends on the individual, but one thing is for sure, we will have a nation of schoolchildren more prepared to experiment; more willing to enjoy the pleasures of condoms; more men & women who can map out where the clitoris is and ensure due care & attention, (women the world over cheer!); and of course schoolchildren all across the UK who are busily masturbating away in their bedrooms to understand their bodies……

What’s your view?  Money well spend by the NHS in commissioning this leaflet?  Or a Kama Sutra for kids?

The private sector isn’t working….the public sector is….!

As the private sector faces thousands of job losses each week, the public sector continues merrily recruiting away….especially roles with high salaries.  This is fast becoming a national scandal….that needs the oxygen of publicity….to show how we are wasting tax payers money recruiting so many BUREAUCRATIC red tape, pen pushing roles in areas like education and the NHS….if this doesn’t make your blood boil….!!!

Take a look at the Sunday Times Appointment section today and also delve online to www.timesonline.co.uk/jobs, here’s a selection of the roles being recruited….yes, only a selection—that’s the scary thing, the public sector and all those Government Quangos are busily burning OUR money:

East of England Ambulance service NHS Trust 

All these roles are stated to have:  Attractive Salaries + Pension + Relocation

Chief Operating Officer

Director of Strategy & Business Development

Director of Finance & Deputy Chief Executive

Director of Business Transformation

Director of Clinical Quality (part Time)

Clinical Director (Part time)

NHS Devon

Chief Executive c £140,000 plus more for an exceptional candidate

Kent County Council

Service Director Learning / Service Director Vulnerable Children – £104,000 plus excellent bens

Association of Police Authorities

Chief Executive Association of Police Authorities £115k – £130k

Department for Transport

Non-Executive Director Civil Aviation authority c £44,000 for 2 days a week)

NHS Borders

Executive Director of Finance - up to £87,366, plus on-call payment, benefits and relocation

Executive Director of Nursing & midwifery – up to £87,366, plus on-call payment, benefits & relocation

South London Healthcare NHS Trust

Director of Financial Operations (band 9 £80-£100,000)

Associate Director of Financial services * 4  (YES * 4)  (band 8d £68-£83,000)

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

CIO – £90,000 plus benefits

Department for Children, Schools & Families

Head, National Safeguarding Delivery Unit – c £100,000

DfT Shared Services – Head of Business Change £57,300 – £75,000

Department for Children, Schools and Families  &  Department of Health

Communications Champion   Attractive Salary  (Will no doubt be £90k & above)

Hillingdon (London’s second largest Borough)

Deputy Director: Children and Family services £92,000 – £125,000

Deputy Director: Learning Effectiveness & major Transformation – £92,000 – £125,000

Environment Agency

Head of Planning & Performance – £75,000 plus bonus + bens

Isle of Wight Council

Project Director for Schools Capital Programme – up to £100,000

Yes, the gravy train is merrily continuing on.  MP’s Expenses have been exposed….now it’s time to turn the spotlight on our Public services and how they are ripping us off.  This is a recession, we have a cancerous spiralling national debt and yet, we can carry on recruiting in the Public sector, for what seen as non essential roles…or in some cases roles that can be merged into each other to save costs.

If this was the private sector………well it would never happen and at least if it did it is not with OUR money.

I hope you agree this is a national scandal?

Andy Burnham & Ed Balls oversee two of the biggest spending Departments in Whitehall…with lot’s of exciting new jobs being advertsed….no wonder they have the time to have fun playing on a swing!!!