Friday 28 February 2003

Nice "work" if you can get it

So this is where my taxes go. There's no stopping Labour's cronies:
Joan Aitken, previously a part-time chairwoman of employment tribunals, has been appointed the new traffic commissioner for Scotland on a salary of £70,000 a year, up 40% on her reputed wage as Scottish prisons complaints commissioner.
The Nationalists don't seem to approve:
Mike Russell, for the SNP, said yesterday: "She appears to be a professional quango sitter, having made a career out of moving from one well paid public appointment to another despite concerns about her closeness to Labour.
And the Tories are critical too:
Phil Gallie, for the Tories, said: "There seems to be a career path set ahead of this woman, despite questions over her earlier performance as a part-time chairman of employment tribunals."
Mr Russell and Mr Gallie are right to express concern, but the real question that they should be asking is why all of these quangos exist in the first place. Do the SNP and the Conservatives actually intend to privatise most government activities and abolish quangos or merely put their people into them?