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I just loved this Telegraph story: “Twice as many Tescos open 24/7 as Police Stations”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7957168/Twice-as-many-Tescos-open-247-as-police-stations.html

After some 13 years in power, just what did these two Muppets achieve – sad detritus that both of them are ! But and never-the-less, after increasing the public sector payroll by some 800,000, it sort of indicates what the likely result is for Health Care and Education – increased costs plus reduced outcomes. Policing is the least of it with efficiency further depleted by endless form filling to produce statistics to justify that Labour was “doing the right thing”.

Open Police Stations

Apparently: “Nine out of 10 stations are not manned round-the-clock, while almost half of constabularies — 21 out of 43 – do not have a single station open 24 hours a day. In total, only 167 of the 1,556 police stations in England and Wales offer a 24/7 service. By comparison, 394 Tesco stores are open round the clock.” This being a quote from the Daily Telegraph from the above link.

A further one kind of reinforces the whole thing: “Exactly 1,000 stations have limited opening hours, while a further 389 – one in four – keep doors closed at all times and officers are available by appointment only, or via an intercom.

The picture is particularly stark outside London and Birmingham, with only 90 stations – one in 15 – offering a 24-hour front-desk service.

Police chiefs said that limited opening hours did not pose a risk to the public because dialling 999 was the best way to obtain a rapid response.”

But There Are Still ‘Believers’

I was replying to an article in the Independent on the grisly topic of John Prescott, I got a really odd response from some Muppet who was trying to say…what I do not know but he seemed to suggest that Labour profligacy with the public Purse was sort of, okay which to me, it is not. My reply followed as below:

Reply

Increasing Public Spending is normally considered appropriate as a counter cyclical measure when the steam has gone out of the commercial sector. Typically, a Government might order manufactured goods in order to keep the skill base intact and people in work, Defence spending is typical, order some, ships, planes, helicopters… An alternative is to fund infrastructure work that is carried out by the Private sector although funded by the Government – Roads, Railway, Bridges, Sea Defences etc.

The point is that whilst these things are generally ‘unproductive’ in terms of generating exported goods revenues, they do deliver a medium long term benefit in terms of equipment and infrastructure. What you don’t do is expand the public payroll by some 800,000. The claims that there are more Police, Doctors, Nurses and so as a result, covers a very small number of jobs in this quite dramatic expansion in the non productive side of the UK economy, it was a total nonsense at the time, in late 2002 Brown was even told that quite explicitly by the IMF.

This is just plain bad management and nothing to do with the City except that perhaps rather stupidly, the Government expected it to make up in tax revenues for their extravagances with the Public Purse.