How much does bad government cost? I'm thinking about the public money that is spent on implementing various policies.
This, for example, is just the advertising costs relating to Johnson's hubris in declaring a 31 Oct Brexit date:-
Quote:
The government says it has paused its campaign urging the public and businesses to Get Ready for Brexit on 31 October. It comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson accepted the EU's offer to extend the Brexit deadline to 31 January.
The Brexit advertising blitz across social media, billboards and TV is reported to have cost £100m.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called it "£100m of misspent public money".
"How many nurses could have been hired, how many parcels could have been funded at food banks, how many social care packages could have been funded for our elderly?," Mr Corbyn asked MPs.
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Of course this is just one small bit of what the government has spent on the Brexit fiasco to date.
Because it happened in the 1990s, it's not mentioned much anymore, but one of the biggest-ever wastes of public money was over Mrs.Thatcher's Poll Tax. She had hit on the idea of meddling with local council taxes - the kind pay for street lighting and firemen. She pushed through a bunch of changes that were so unpopular that it cost her the next election. In fact, her Poll Tax was so unpopular that within three years things were changed back to the way they had previously been.
Quote:
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"It's worth remembering that when the poll tax was eventually replaced by the council tax,[=back to the old system] it cost about £6bn in money of the day - an enormous amount.
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So that was at least £12bn to change an adequate, accepted tax system for three years, then change it back again.
To me, there's a clear message to all politicians: if it ain't broken, don't fix it. Sadly, it's a lesson very few politicians are humble enough to learn.