In her much-anticipated Spring Statement, Britain’s greatest ever female Chancellor has announced a £3.25 billion transformation fund to bring down the costs of running government. We’ve seen from the US in the activities of Elon Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) how to cut government spending. Already the US has scrapped USAID saving billions, it looks like all DIE (Diversity, Inclusion and Equality) employees in the US Government are being fired and a few days ago Donald Trump signed an executive order to close down the Department for Education. But what about the British approach to getting value for money for British taxpayers by making our public services more efficient?
I’ll just give one example of why we are unlikely to see any real savings in the British public sector. Apparently we have an Office for Value for Money (OVfM) in Britain. The OVfM was set up in Rachel Reeves’s ‘bankrupting Britain’ October 2024 budget and “provides advice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chief Secretary to the Treasury to ensure that value for money is at the heart of Government’s spending decisions“.
The brilliant Rolls-Royce-brained civil servants at the OVfM have noticed that the Government is spending a fortune of our money on procuring short-term accommodation for homeless Brits and for all the doctors, engineers and scientists pouring across the Channel in small boats each day in spite of Mr Starmer promising to “smash the evil people-smuggling gangs”. So the OVfM has set up a “VfM (Value for Money) Study on procuring short-term residential accommodations”.
Here’s the problem explained in the terms of reference for the groundbreaking Value for Money study:
The unit cost of short-term residential accommodation increased significantly in recent years. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) reported in 2024 that per asylum seeker costs had increased by 141% from £17,000 in 2019-20 to £41,000 in 2023-24. Private sector suppliers of short-term residential accommodation have made record profits in recent years, leading to accusations of profiteering. There is also evidence that some forms of short-term residential accommodation have a detrimental impact on children and families.
If I were involved in this work, I would start by informing all providers of short-term accommodation that, due to the country’s financial difficulties, the Government expects all providers of short-term accommodation to cut their prices by say 25% and that any who fail to do so would be removed as providers. Of course, there would be howling and screaming and many providers would claim this would bankrupt them and would insist that what the Government was demanding was quite impossible. But as we head into recession, hotel owners are unlikely to find many customers quite as generous and reliable as the UK Government. In addition, pour encourager les autres, I would launch police investigations into a couple of those suppliers suspected of profiteering. Suddenly, on seeing the police investigations, what the providers previously claimed was impossible would become possible and the 25% price reductions would magically materialise.
I was involved in a slightly similar situation many years ago. A major car manufacturer demanded all parts suppliers cut their prices by a few percent and threatened that the car manufacturer would send in a team from our consultancy to ‘help’ any supplier who refused. At first, of course, we got the howls and screams of pain from the parts suppliers that the car manufacturer’s demands were impossible and would bankrupt them, leave them homeless with their children starving and so on and so forth. I actually led the analysis team which was sent into the first parts supplier to claim that it was impossible for him to cut prices. The last thing any parts supplier wanted was us consultants poking around in their businesses and financials. Seeing our team descend on one parts supplier, a miracle seemed to happen as suddenly the other suppliers managed to deliver the price cuts the car manufacturer wanted thus avoiding a visit from us consultants.
But this is not how our OVfM will operate. Instead the OVfM explains:
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury will oversee the study at a ministerial level, supported by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. …
A senior official group, with representatives from relevant departments, will oversee policy development and the recommendations to ministers. This study will be resourced by officials from the Office for Value for Money, the Home Office, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and HM Treasury, with input from the Cabinet Office and the Government Commercial Function. …
The study will be informed by engagement with local authorities, the Local Government Association, the Centre for Homelessness Impact and other relevant experts.
As for how long the Value for Money study will take, we’re told:
The study will inform decisions at the upcoming Spending Review, and progress to the following timetable:
- June: publication of the study’s outputs in the Spending Review
- February-March: policy development
- April: update to the ministerial oversight group
- May: Spending Review negotiations
- The OVfM will consider the outputs of this study as it develops options for system reform.
I would humbly suggest that this British Value for Money study doesn’t quite show the same urgency and proclivity to action that we see from Elon Musk’s DOGE.
Moreover, I rather suspect that this supposed Value for Money study led by the OVfM will be such a multi-departmental bureaucratic mess that it will achieve the square root of zero. In fact, I further suspect that our 500,000 civil servants are mostly so lazy and useless that they will have to call in eye-wateringly expensive management consultants to show them how to do the study and to hold their hands during the study. Furthermore, I imagine the study will include several ‘offsites’ at expensive hotels with excellent restaurants to encourage the participants to do blue-sky, out-of-the-box thinking, facilitated, of course, by specialised ‘blue-sky-thinking’ management consultants.
Then we must remember, that this first phase till June 2025 is just to develop some ideas on how to cut the cost of short-term accommodation. If these ideas are approved by the relevant Government Ministers, the OVfM will then have to start planning how to implement their genius cost-cutting ideas. That should take at least another few months, again probably assisted by £100,000-plus a week management consultants. And finally the whole thing will drift into 2026, other priorities will take over and little to nothing will ever be achieved. So, in the end, the OVfM study to get value for money procuring short-term accommodation will probably cost us much more than it ever saves if it ever saves anything at all.
But you may well disagree. You may believe that the dynamic and motivated civil servants at the Office for Value for Money are about to achieve the kind of economic miracles this country has seldom seen, make massive savings and make the British Government so streamlined and efficient that it will be the envy of the world, just like our ‘envy of the world’ NHS with its seven million-plus waiting lists and its tendency to overuse Midazolam on the troublesome and expensive-to-treat elderly and frail in order to shorten those waiting lists.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
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This really is bloody woke madness ! The police need sorting out ..
Doesn’t anyone wonder how we got here?
It’s all very well saying the police need sorting out, which I’m sure it does.
But isn’t it worth trying to get to the bottom of how our society has got to the point where we all have to play along with the deluded claims of an individual and if we don’t we get arrested?
Otherwise it’ll just go on and on.
Yes Stewart. Got any ideas as to who’s to blame for all of society’s woes?
I don’t know about ALL of society’s woes – there you go setting up a strawman again.
I don’t know about you, but, I believe the world is a far better place if people are judged based on their individual merits, not based on what category of person they belong to.
That goes for every and any category. And any category of person that wants to receive special treatment because they belong to that category, for what ever reason, be it real or imagined, historic or current, is undermining a better society.
Do you think we can agree on that?
What strawman Stewart? Why do you have to twist a simple question into some sort of attack or trap? How can a single question be construed as a “strawman”? Another of your favourite accusations, I note..
You can play your games of ‘one upmanship’ with yourself. Not interested. What a strange one you are..Do you speak to people like that in real life?
Try to find common ground with people?
Yes, thats pretty mich what I try to do in real life.
So you don’t even agree wthat the general idea that we shouldn’t treat categories of people with favouritism, but rather judge them as individuals?
Surely you agree with that?
Hi Stewart , thats a very good question but like all this crap it starts at the top ie Government .Our useless and uninterested MPs wave through laws without understanding them in order to get back to the bar .The Police/CPS then “interpret ” the badly drafted legislation so you end up with section 4A which can be interpreted so widely that you get nicked for hurty words …!!!
The Police/courts CPS etc should be focussing ONLY on real crimes .in the old sense Robbery , murder , drugs etc
Hurty words etc should all come under “Sticks and stones ….. and never even be touched by the law. The root cause is Parliament whose members pass crap in order to get a good headline in Daily Wail in shortterm.
I hope this guy sues the bollox off them …
It’s got so bad that the police now have tools to shut people up.
But I think political correctness predates any of these laws or police powers.
Despite having a system for a long time that pretty much treats everyone equally under the law, certain groups have insisted that they are discriminated against and should be given special treatment. It is their relentless campaigning that has produced these laws, not vice versa, in my opinion, anyway.
I think the problem is that there are too many groups within society that have seen there is mileage in being part of a category that claims some form of victimhood as a means to obtain favourable treatment.
And so we get the crazy situation where you can say all manner of things about Christians, white people, heterosexuals but are hateful if you say the same things about Muslims, black people, homosexuals etc. They’ve managed to get special, favourable treatment through highly motivated and powerful lobbies.
I won’t say which is the most powerful of all those lobbies by a country mile, because I’ll get shouted down (evidence if you need any more of how these groups get their way). I’ll leave you to guess.
Yes invent your own victimhood and the law will follow walking backwards and throwing rose petals .
Importing victimhood is even madder !!
I think the problem is that there are too many groups within society that have seen there is mileage in being part of a category that claims some form of victimhood as a means to obtain favourable treatment.
The problem with this statement is that it implies that these groups are heterogenous wrt what’s claimed to be the problem while they are not. There are political lobbying groups – often well-funded – who claim to be speaking for this or that group despite they certainly haven’t been elected to which act in this way.
^^
Should have been homogenous.
I think the problem goes way beyond lobbying groups. In schools, for example, you will find many teachers now teaching children about gender fluidity for example. Or the terrible problem of racism in Britain. Or toxic masculinity. And for sure about climate change and how if we don’t stop putting CO2 in the atmosphere the world is going to be destroyed.
There are the lobbyists and self appointed, self serving leaders, but then there are the armies of mindless idiots that follow them quite willingly.
But at the heart of it all, there is this notion that has taken hold that there are categories of people that need special treatment beyond simply being treated equally under the law. That idea is really toxic and ruining society.
Would other religions get the same treatment?
Better question: Would people like the guy whose heroic deeds in the name of equality have been told here dare to do the same to preachers of said other religions? I think not. Abusing the relatively defenseless is always great, especially when you know the police is on your side. But taking any kind of personal risk while being true to one’s most heart-felt convictions, now, that’s an entirely different conversation!
When Lauren Southern tried something similar (likewise with the apparent intention of causing trouble) with another religion she was permanently banned from the UK.
The overt war against Christianity. So this preacher is now on the terrorist watch list? For defending natural biology and his Christian beliefs?
And the Churches say what? Will any help this preacher? Will any Christian come to his aid?
If it still has a penis attached, it’s a bloke. Should have been pretty straightforward to check I’d have thought.
I dunno man..but this sounds like a job for Alex Stein to me;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i-UmCQ-X-U&ab_channel=AlexStein
Fight insanity with insanity
He’s got balls, I’ll give him that.
Bonus points for not bothering to tidy up first plus for having a cat!
“He’s got balls, I’ll give him that.”
So had the lady that shopped him!
In my observation, magistrates do this, when the police pass an absurd charge to them they just ratify it, and it’s necessary to appeal to a judge to get sense.
Totally agree, and this is all intentional. Although he was always likely to win on appeal the punishment is the process. This is designed to put everybody off from saying the same things and going through the same process. He should sue the police for wrongful arrest.
14 hours in a cell overnight means 14 hours in a brightly lit room where nobody can possible get any sleep (unless he’s very drunk or drugged). But that’s just done for the safety of the incarcerated, it’s by no means forced sleep deprivation. They’ll have a water tap there with a big No drinking water sign on it. That’s for thirsty people. And technically, temporary inmates are supposed to get something to eat as well. Which doesn’t mean this will actually happen.
I don’t know how much has been won by preachers in damages from police forces so far. I think it would amount to quite a lot. But then who pays? Us, presumably.
Maybe a complaint to IOPC would get the police officer concerned to go through a process that he/she/they would not enjoy to even the score.
This is just extraordinary! We know mis-gendering merits losing your job, that’s just normal now, but is it actually a crime?? The conviction seems to have been as a public order offence. If “public order” now includes not saying anything that someone else considers offensive, that is just ludicrous. Our laws seem to have gone down the very dangerous path of controlling thought and speech, rather than actual harm.
Section 4A is committed when a person uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour [towards a stranger in public] Whether words or behaviour are threatening, abusive or insulting will depend on the facts of the case.
That’s a license to prosecute anyone for anything provided the police desires such a prosecution.
Would anyone care to give chapter and verse on what law this man was prosecuted under.
Judging from the article,
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/public-order-offences-incorporating-charging-standard#_pub127
Thank you RW. The relevant bit as I understood it is
“this offence involves the intention to cause (and thereby causing) harassment, alarm, or distress to a specific victim by words or behaviour. This offence could be appropriate for single incidents involving sexually threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour directed towards a stranger in public.”
The essence of this is intent, which I don’t believe can be shown, and it seems to me that a distressed and alarmed victim is unlikely to stay and join in the singing and laughing.
This is utterly ridiculous. Let’s imagine for a moment a Muslim having a disagreement on this sort of topic in the street, the police would suddenly vanish. It’s Leftist hate of white Christians, that’s been the Marxist plan for decades.
Get rid of the Equality and Diversity Act along with a load of other laws, purportedly brought in to protect us from ourselves, which can only be achieved by dismissing the LibLabConGreenSNP single Party that is running this country into the ground. Support the Heritage Party; help it grow with your individual skills and expertise.
Start a “fundme” page and I like many others, will support you.
Ps: The country is policed by a woke mob akin to the Keystone Cops. I laugh at law enforcement. How did lockdowns pan out?
You may identify a Leopard as an Elephant and that is entirely up to you. But to me it is still a Leopard.
He was convicted of having the ‘wrong, non-govt approved’ thoughts.
You have the right to request to be addressed by any gender you want but you do not have the right to be forced to address someone by the gender you do not think is appropriate.
In other words, the other person’s rights should stop at your mouth, where your rights take over.