There has been a lot of coverage over the latest Special Advisers list from the government.
The interesting thing is that, yes numbers have gone down, but the thing is - why does a government need that many advisers? What do they all do? Most are comms experts but I worked in organisations that had one or two PR people, not 18.
Also, how does less people cost more? Then again I suspect there has been some dodgy accountancy in the past considering how stable the figure was previously.
In this age of austerity, surely the numbers could have been cut even further.
Anyway, for your enjoyment here's the breakdown from 2003 to 2010 of No. 10 SPaDs and SPaDs in total:
David Cameron
2010 -
Number of No10 SPaDs: 18
Total Number of SPaDs: 61
Total Cost: £6.8m
Hansard: 10 Jun 2010 : Column 34WS
Gordon Brown
2008-2009
Number of No10 SPaDs: 25
Total Number of SPaDs: 69
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 16 July 2009 : Column 74WS
2007-2008
Number of No10 SPaDs: 23
Total number of SPaDs: 73
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 22 July 2008 : Column 100WS
2006-2008
Number of No10 SPaDs: 18
Total number of SPaDs: 68
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 22 Nov 2007 : Column 149WS
Tony Blair
2005-2006
Number of No10 SPaDs: 22
Total number of SPaDs: 74
Total Cost: £5.9m
Hansard: 24 July 2006 : Column 90WS
2004-2005
Number of No10 SPaDs: 20
Total number of SPaDs: 68
Total Cost: £5.5m
Hansard: 21 Jul 2005 : Column 159WS
2003-2004
Number of No10 SPaDs: 26
Total number of SPaDs: 76
Total Cost: £5.3m
Hansard: 22 Jul 2004 : Column WS41
Showing posts with label Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cameron. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Monday, 24 May 2010
DANGEROUS GAME
So Dave has managed to annoy the backbenchers in the last two weeks?
It's a dangerous game he is playing. Unlike Labour, Tory backbenchers are very efficient assassins when it suits them and quite a lot of them no longer play the discipline game that was the conservatives' trump card in times past.
Eventually a few will break cover and the games will begin.
Hey ho, something more interesting to write about rather than the micro-management of State.
Pic HT: Fuchsia
Monday, 22 June 2009
tories amok prt 2
So Hague and Clark are at loggerheads over the Lisbon Treaty according to Peter Osborne.
Europe is a fault line that has blighted the Tories since the mid-80s.
Since the putsch of Margaret, Europe has become the rallying call for those who misremember Thatcher and how closely she put the UK within the EC. So an eeiry sight of a dogmatic Tory appeared.
To be honest this lot are chasing some kind of ideological purity in the way that the left pursued in the Labour party post-79. A purity that has never existed. These people would rather see a Labour victory than see a pragmatic Conservative party in power and it is those people that are betraying party traditions not the other way round.
Let me explain, since its creation the Conservative Party has had one ideology - power. That's it, nothing more. If being a one-nation Tory got them power, then that's what the party became. If it was Friedman and economic liberalism then that would do to.
I like pragmatic governments, those that are generally use any means to help the country, (and of course in turn help their party win elections). Blair was pragmatic, hell, Thatcher was one of the most pragmatic leaders the country ever had. Although in my opinion Thatcher would never run away from Parliament to argue what she thought was right (even when she was wrong).
Some would say that parties need to identify with their supporters. Well no not really. They need to identify with the 20% of floating voters that decide our elections. I think it's fair to say that this 20% were disgusted with the left ideology of the likes of Foot and the right ideology that infected Hague, the two Ians and Howard's campaigns.
That is why Cameron is consistently ahead in the polls, the latest Comres gives a Conservative majority of 104. People like the pragmatic young communicator, again much like they liked what they heard and saw with Blair.
Blair knew the importance of kicking the ideologues into touch, so does Cameron. Indeed, if bedblockers become a problem (see below) then it could give him that decisive Clause 4 moment to finally break perceptions of the Nasty-Europe-obsessed party and place the Tories back in the pragmatic bracket that led them to be called the "natural party of government".
And if they want to be true to their roots, some tories had better remember that.
Europe is a fault line that has blighted the Tories since the mid-80s.
Since the putsch of Margaret, Europe has become the rallying call for those who misremember Thatcher and how closely she put the UK within the EC. So an eeiry sight of a dogmatic Tory appeared.
To be honest this lot are chasing some kind of ideological purity in the way that the left pursued in the Labour party post-79. A purity that has never existed. These people would rather see a Labour victory than see a pragmatic Conservative party in power and it is those people that are betraying party traditions not the other way round.
Let me explain, since its creation the Conservative Party has had one ideology - power. That's it, nothing more. If being a one-nation Tory got them power, then that's what the party became. If it was Friedman and economic liberalism then that would do to.
I like pragmatic governments, those that are generally use any means to help the country, (and of course in turn help their party win elections). Blair was pragmatic, hell, Thatcher was one of the most pragmatic leaders the country ever had. Although in my opinion Thatcher would never run away from Parliament to argue what she thought was right (even when she was wrong).
Some would say that parties need to identify with their supporters. Well no not really. They need to identify with the 20% of floating voters that decide our elections. I think it's fair to say that this 20% were disgusted with the left ideology of the likes of Foot and the right ideology that infected Hague, the two Ians and Howard's campaigns.
That is why Cameron is consistently ahead in the polls, the latest Comres gives a Conservative majority of 104. People like the pragmatic young communicator, again much like they liked what they heard and saw with Blair.
Blair knew the importance of kicking the ideologues into touch, so does Cameron. Indeed, if bedblockers become a problem (see below) then it could give him that decisive Clause 4 moment to finally break perceptions of the Nasty-Europe-obsessed party and place the Tories back in the pragmatic bracket that led them to be called the "natural party of government".
And if they want to be true to their roots, some tories had better remember that.
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