Efficiency Savings

Amazingly enough, the greenest government ever has been saying the thing that was not about its spending on flood defences. Both Britain's Head Boy and his badger-busting environment minister, Owen Paterson, have been grandstanding about increased spending, historic levels of spending, unprecedented levels of spending, in response to the recent floods which caused so many voters in the south of England to feel they were being treated as northerners. As one would expect, the figures had been calculated according to the Duncan Smith formula, and outside the faith-based community spending on flood defences has, in fact, slightly decreased. Owen Paterson has far better things to do than explain himself (Thursday evenings are when he attends his phrenology class); so a Deputy Conservative flunkey by the testosterone-rich name of Dan Rogerson was delegated to dismiss the falsehood as a minor discrepancy caused by the ministry's inability to understand its own figures. In contrast to the fiscal irresponsibility of the last Labour government, the higher reckoning included money which the coalition vaguely hoped to screw out of local councils later on.