Monday 3 October 2005

Vote Jenkins

I wrote a similar piece about this some while ago but haven’t yet found the link. The latest copy of a UK-wide professional journal arrived today and I’ve done another audit of the advertised vacancies. There are 65 altogether. Of these, 40 are in London and a further 15 are elsewhere in the Home Counties. Four are in the Bristol/Bath area and two are in Birmingham. One is in the “Northwest”, and I expect that means Manchester and not Sutherland. If you want to avoid contributing to the Za-NuLabour regime you may consider the jobs in Bermuda, Kuwait or the Cayman Islands.

So, some 89% of the UK vacancies are in the London area and 95% of them are in southern England. All are in the southern half of Britain. I submit that this would not be the situation in any comparable country.

I also submit that this state of affairs is the great secret of British public life. And I say “public” because I don’t believe for a moment that this southern concentration of jobs – almost all in the private sector – is the result of market forces. As far as I know the only mainstream journalists who have written about this are George Kerevan of the Scotsman and Simon Jenkins in the Times.

So, if this concentration of highly paid positions in one small part of the country isn’t to do with market forces, what’s going on here? I believe that we must never lose sight of the amazing concentration of government power in the British capital that is unparalleled elsewhere in the western world. In an economy that is so much influenced by government decisions, depredations and regulations, it’s only natural for almost all of the head offices of our largest companies to be near to the seat of power. This results in an overheated southeast with much of the rest of the country relying on state handouts.

The solution of course is to privatise almost all functions of government thus removing any incentive for companies to locate near the capital city.

In the meantime though I believe that Simon Jenkins has seen the way forward and I thoroughly recommend this article in which he proposes a plan that would sweep the Conservatives back into power. As long as they don’t mention social justice of course.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

IJ
SS  
 
It's really up to any UK government to action the annual waste of £81bn and reimburse taxes.  
 
Parliamentary steps to tighten control of public finances - the Civil Service Bill, for example - for the benefit of taxpayers were vetoed. The measures were "demanded by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the anti-sleaze watchdog, and the Commons Public Administration Select Committee."

4 October 2005, 19:54:49 GMT+01:00
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steve shackleton
IJ 
 
An effective system to pevent abuse of taxpayers money? 
 
Let us keep more of it, that would be the most effective me thinks

4 October 2005, 14:12:33 GMT+01:00
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IJ
Based on investigations by political parties in the UK, the Taxpayers' Alliance concluded that public sector waste had risen to £81bn in 2004 alone. Perhaps we could have, at least, an effective system to prevent the abuse of taxpayers' money; followed by a public inquiry into how the huge waste escaped the notice of public watchdogs in the first place.

4 October 2005, 12:21:28 GMT+01:00
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Andrew Duffin
Go Muckle Flugga!

4 October 2005, 12:21:15 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer
Lerwick? 
 
Not good enough - I demand Unst!

4 October 2005, 08:13:10 GMT+01:00
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dearieme
I repeat an old suggestion: move the UK capital to Berwick. Or, more radical, Lerwick.

4 October 2005, 00:19:19 GMT+01:00
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Martin Kelly
David, 
 
It's a great idea,of course; but I don't think it would ever happen.  
 
The Conservative Party 1979-97 was one of the biggest of big governments - how else could you describe the body which, through the Child Support Act 1992, effectively nationalised paternity?

3 October 2005, 23:02:29 GMT+01:00