England's Audit Commission, which is supposedly to be politically neutral, paid nearly £60,000 to a lobbying firm who advised it to 'combat the activities of Eric Pickles', the Tory party's chairman.
Pickles has been leading a Conservative assault on the commission, calling for some of its powers to be handed back to local authorities.
Caroline Spelman, the shadow local government secretary, accused it yesterday of bankrolling lobbyists to save its own skin.
An official from another government regulator said there was 'real fear' inside the commission about the prospect of a Conservative government. Stephen Bundred, its £208,000-a-year chief executive, is a former labour councillor and associate of Ken Livingstone.
The commission denies Tory charges that it has breached official guidelines that ban quangos from hiring lobbyists to influence politicians. It used Connect Public Affairs - founded by Rosie Winterton MP, who is now a labour minister - after Pickles announced a plan to axe its regulatory regime, the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).
Pickles called the system time-consuming, over-complicated and unnecessary.
So, a government quango spends taxpayers money, with a business owned by a labour minister, on how to handle a conservative government. Spelman said: "We can no longer have confidence in the Audit Commission if it has become such a creature of the state that it bankrolls lobbyists to save its own skin and call for more red tape. This is a complete abuse of taxpayers' money by a body which is supposed to be standing up for taxpayers' interests."
If the tories do win the general election the Audit Commission will be one quango which will attract considerable attention from Mr Pickles and rightly so.
Eight of 23 Connect staff profiled on the company's website have worked for labour - and one is contesting a seat for the party at the coming election.
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8 comments:
The government cash tap should be cut off for the countries financial protection.
Vote with your money, peoples of the country. The less spent, the less Labour get. The general election can be another expression of dismay at the waste and corruption of our resources that is Labour, if the election is not fixed.
We live in hope.
We live in hope indeed VotR. Will people change in time? I doubt it.
I'll bet there is a real fear in a lot of quangos . The whole labour Government has been a waste of public money.
Bye the way, Obama is on record as saying he has got most of the money back from the banks, how are we doing on this? Have some of "our" banks had to cough up in the states? We would kind of like to know? Please?
D.
If the reports are correct I would say that they're verging on treason.
Now there's a thought Apogee. I think Brown has been asked that question and it's been fudged as usual.
Unfortunately the Iraq Inquiry has turned into a celebrity styled do and the media of course love those.
Hope someone has more knowledge of this than me to help answer your question.
David, I think once Pachauri has gone there will be more. He's only the beginning of those who have brainwashed many into believing these lies.
As you have hinted, Subrosa, when the Tories are elected, it is no use them messing about with removing one pain in the butt (Pachauri), it is necessary to remove all of them. Reform them, lock stock and barrel, or, better still, abolish all the quangos, un-fund all the fake charities, refuse to accept the blandishments of special interest groups and get control of the EU. As regards the EU, it should be returned to a trade organisation and its legal powers and powers to interfer in our Liberties removed. Oh, and the likes or the UN IPCC (climate change panel) as well.
Dick Puddlecote made ant extremely important point in his recent post. He pointed out that the pub smoking ban was entirely based upon the idea that pub staff were being harmed by passive smoke. Now, the Labour Government want to take the ban outside of these premises where there is no one to be harmed in any significant way. I believe that this is called 'mission creep', isn't it?
I do not think that there is any justification for this. It is not something to argue about on healthist grownds. It is simply a cutailment of our freedom and our liberties.
I think that we people who value our liberties need a high profile champion - in the same way that Lord Lawson is championing global warming sceptics.
Can you think of anybody?
(Got the hang of livejournal, by the way).
Richard North, EU Referendum, is the expert in the area of finding the frauds in the climate change scam junican.
Will the tories dig them all out? No. Because there's too much money invested in all the carbon footprint business and other scams.
Yes I read Dick's post and wanted to comment but was in a rush. What I did want to say was the bit about pub staff being harmed with passive smoking. Many won't be harmed nowadays because their places of work will have closed.
Mission creep is everywhere, everywhere you look.
I wish someone would come out of the woodwork and stand firm. Pity Kenneth Clark is still an MP, he would be perfect otherwise.
Can anyone think of someone to put an end to this government's determination to diminish our liberties?
Well done about livejournal. Yer clever!
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