It’s lucky that the Tory party is so comprehensively crap at the moment because its house journal, The Daily Telegraph, just gets better and better. As Backword Dave demonstrates almost every week, even people who object heartily to The Telegraph‘s politics and are embarrassed by its other readers take it because it is still a good newspaper.
Today’s Telegraph has the usual excellent news coverage, including a provocative story about the money Whitehall wastes on consultants (at least we don’t have to pay their pensions) and a superb front page picture that says more about the private life of the Foreign Office’s recently sacked representative in Tashkent than perhaps he would want. The magazine draws our attention to a talented figurative artist who died young and profiles an influential teacher of scriptwriting who has never had a movie made of his own work. Even the Telegraph‘s sworn enemies concede the quality of its sports coverage and the paper does a good job on tomorrow’s crunch football match. The opinion page of the main news section carries two essays. One of them is about the US presidential elections and world terror and the other is about Bridget Jones. I disagree with both, but they are well-made and and dotted with insights. Unless I am reading research by someone in the same field or reading the work of someone I can’t stand, I feel unpolluted admiration whenever an article gives me an “Oh, yes, that’s true—I’d never thought of that before” feeling. I can’t remember the last time the corresponding sheet of The Guardian had that effect on me.
The Torygraph could never be good enough to persuade me to see Michael Howard for anything other than the shameless, shallow, populist incompetent that he is, so I don’t think there’s any danger of my being seduced into joining the Dark Side by it, but I am almost tempted to start buying a daily newspaper again in the week. There’s been a discussion about the decline of British newspapers over at Chris’s place.
There’s a gratuitous picture of Nigella in the Sunday magazine. Don’t know if that makes it worth buying …
Haven’t read the article, but the problem with consultants in the civil service has been a known fact for decades. It stems from the fact that consultants are chargeable (£200 per hour) to capital account, whereas civil servants (£20 per hour) are on current account.
So when Treasury demands cuts, which are always year on year – current account, departments simply get rid of their staff and hire consultants – often the same bodies – to do the same work, thereby conforming to the letter of the law. The problem is that, while there are some departments which are still over-resourced, others, ironically better managed, don’t have more people than they need to do the work they have to do.
So along comes the Chancellor every so often with lofty announcements about “across the board cuts”, and the more efficient parts of the civil service are placed in the dilemma of resorting to expensive trickery or failing to deliver. It isn’t very pretty.
I find it much more relaxing disagreeing with the Telegraph on social issues, than disagreeing with The Guardian on the need to protect Western civilisation.
There is a problem. The nation has a selection of parties to vote for, only none of them seem to represent what the nation is looking for in their government. We all sit back and watch the national, international, global situation worsen day by day. The destruction of everything we love and treasure in our lives, steadily, is being picked off one by one.
The fear factor is being used exponentially to drive us in to a situation where trust and truth, pillars of human society, are no longer a part of are way of life, lost. Without these key T’s, were do we stand? Does anyone know?
The solution is simple, we must unite and face are fears, drive this hate, power and control from are world before it is too late or we will all be made to regret our inaction’s and sacrifice the consequences.
Action must be taken to strive for a better future, for all our sakes. Give hope and support to the ones we can believe will reward us with our most important pillars of human community.