Craig - Squandered: how Gordon Brown is wasting over one trillion pounds of our money

David Craig has spent most of his career as a management consultant working for and competing against some of the worlds best and worst management and IT systems consultancies. He has helped to sell consulting to almost 100 organizations in 15 countries across Europe, Asia and the US, as well as the British public sector. He is the author of the controversial bestsellers Rip-Off! The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine and Plundering the Public Sector (Constable, 2006). He has an MA from Cambridge and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Praise for Plundering the Public Sector

A gripping and important book, one that is impossible to read without becoming angry.

New Statesman

If I were Sir Gus ODonnell or Gordon Brown, or indeed Tony Blair, I would invite Craig into Whitehall to reveal the many and ingenious ways in which taxpayers have been compelled to provide welfare for the wealthy.

Nick Cohen, Observer

Craig writes with passionate disgust and with rich detail.

Management Today

CONSTABLE LONDON

Constable & Robinson Ltd
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London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2008

Copyright David Craig, 2008

The right of David Craig to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-84529-832-6

Printed and bound in the EU

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

This book is dedicated to the memory of Paul Steane.
Unfortunately, I never had the chance to meet you.
Nevertheless it was the story of how appallingly you were
treated by NHS hospitals, bureaucrats and regulators that
gave me the idea of writing Squandered.
I hope some good comes from my book.

If you had left the UK just after the 1997 election which swept New Labour to power and then returned in Autumn 2007 to hear Gordon Browns first speech as party leader to a Labour conference, you would have been struck by a certain familiarity in what was being said.

In 1997, Tony Blair pledged he would be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. A decade later, Prime Minister Brown promised to punish crime and prevent it by dealing with the root causes. In 1997 we were told that education would be the Governments number one priority and that we would be given schools which identify the distinct abilities of individual pupils. In 2007, Brown told us that education is my passion as he promised schools where not one size fits all but responding to individual needs. Blairs education system would, he said, ensure every 16-and 17-year-old on the road to a proper qualification by the year 2000. A decade on, Brown announced that it was his ambition for every teenager to have a good qualification. Blair said the UK should develop the potential of all our people; in 2007, Brown told us we must unlock the talents of all of the people. In 1997, New Labour pledged we will relieve the police of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens to get more officers back on the beat. In 2007, Brown committed to cutting paperwork so that officers stay on the beat and do not waste time returning to the station to fill out forms. Blair told us, we will tackle the unacceptable level of anti-social behaviour on our streets, while Brown insisted he would take action against anti-social behaviour. In 1997 Blair pledged we will get the unemployed from welfare to work. In 2007 we were told by Brown that we would advance to a Britain of full employment in our generation. In 1997, before he surrendered both our money and sovereignty to the European Union (EU), Blair had assured us we will stand up for Britains interests in Europe. As Brown prepared to push through the shabby EU Constitution by another name, he echoed Blairs tough talk: at all times we will stand up for the British national interest. In 1997 Blair had promised pensioners everyone is entitled to dignity in retirement. Brown was still singing from the same song-sheet in 2007: I want to ensure respect, dignity and security in old age. In 1997 Blair promised us a Government that seeks to restore trust in politics in this country because I want to renew faith in politics. Ten years on Brown vowed to give us a new kind of politics in order to rebuild trust in the British people in our democracy (see Figure 1).

However, Browns 2007 speech was not all just a cut-and-paste job of what had been promised ten years before. There were differences between what these two leaders said some topics had changed during the intervening ten years. In 2007, Brown pledged a deep clean of all our wards to deal with MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) and C Diff (Clostridium Difficile). In 1997 there had been no need for New Labour to mention hospital-acquired infections as they were not such a problem back then. By 2007, due to growing public anxiety about New Labours ten years of almost uncontrolled immigration, Brown had to announce the introduction of immigration controls. Moreover, following the fiasco of the Home Office allowing dangerous foreign criminals to stay in the UK, a stern-jawed Brown now sombrely threatened, but let me be clear any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns will be thrown out. In making this statement, it possibly slipped the Prime Ministers mind that the European Treaty/Constitution that he was pantingly eager to sign would make it almost impossible to deport any European criminals as they would have a right to freedom of movement within the EU, and almost equally as difficult to chuck out non-EU criminals as they would be largely protected by EU Human Rights legislation.

There were other differences too. In 2007, after New Labour had set up the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, Brown had to keep repeating how he was proud to be British and how we all shared British values. In 2007 Brown expressed sympathy for those being killed in New Labours new wars: we mourn those who have been lost and we honour all those who in distant places of danger give so much to our country. There was no need to do that in 1997 as we were not at war with anybody. Also, amusingly, in 2007 Brown paid special tribute to those who had fought the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease: During the outbreak this summer, our vets, scientists and public officials in DEFRA cancelled their holidays. The only problem was that it was the Governments own bungling officials who had contributed to the outbreak in the first place.