Sunday 28 May 2006

Down with the Tsar

Can you believe it? We're going to spend £300,000 a year on yet another Scottish "Tsar":
A ROADWORKS tsar with wide-ranging powers to veto or delay ill-planned highway closures will be appointed within months, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

From the start of 2007, utility companies who break the strict new standards will be hit with £5,000 fines, and badly- affected stretches of highway could be declared roadworks-free for years

Yes, I know that Tsars are all the rage now in Scotland, but this is ridiculous. The reason that roadworks are uncoordinated is because the roads are owned and run by the government. A road Tsar won't solve the problem. Mass privatisation and the incentives it will bring is the answer.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Michael Stone
They keep pushing more of the poison and claiming it is the antidote.

31 May 2006, 04:40:47 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply





Martin
David, 
 
The thought of a 'roadworks Tsar' brings to mind the sight of a brocaded Kitchener charging down the M8 as if they were at Omdurman, mounted on a JCB like a steed of old, crossed cones and pneumatic drill on his epaulettes...

30 May 2006, 20:30:34 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply





David Farrer
AD 
 
Oh, yes. 
 
Whenever we see them we think of JM. 
 
(What we didn't know at the time was that JM's "hotline" was actually to Edwina Currie.)

29 May 2006, 15:15:51 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply





Andrew Duffin
Does anyone else remember John Major's cones hotline?

29 May 2006, 12:45:23 GMT+01:00
– Like – Reply





Neil Craig
His power is to "veto or delay" & will result in " badly- affected stretches of highway could be declared roadworks-free for years" which also means repair free.  
 
Vetoing things is much easier & safer in the shoert & medium terms & involves much less thought & work. The efficiency of any bureaucracy depends on the ratio of people able to do things to people whose power is only to delay & veto.

29 May 2006, 12:05:55 GMT+01:00