tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001867295510218749.post5914862332441185498..comments2024-03-20T16:05:23.293+00:00Comments on The Cynical Tendency: Tweedledum And Tweedledee Ride AgainDemetriushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17198549581667363991noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001867295510218749.post-75924892416484479972011-05-30T16:33:37.924+01:002011-05-30T16:33:37.924+01:00I remember the time well. A few years later (aroun...I remember the time well. A few years later (around 1970 I think) my aunt, quite a senior nurse, took a career break to look after my grandmother in her last years. <br /><br />She was sent piles of manuals to keep her abreast of the reorganisation of the NHS. She found great difficulty understanding what it was all about and why it was being done. I can remember her saying "There's no mention of the patients anywhere".<br /><br />At around the same time local government was reorganised quite deliberately to make a more elaborate career structure. I recently spoke with an elder statesman who was leader of a large council at the time. He said that, prior to the "reforms", "I was almost like a prime minister". Afterwards the quangos started to multiply. The result is that "we no longer have local government, only local administration".<br /><br />It was also in this era (1971 to be precise) that the beginnings of the corrupt system of parliamentary expenses took hold. Prior to that MPs got their salaries, first class rail travel to and from their constituencies, postage and 2,500 sheets of paper per year. No pension (unless they paid for it), no office expenses, no second home allowance, nothing. They stopped taking responsibility for their own salaries etc and contracted them out to something called the "Top salaries review body" - which set them on the road to duck houses, moat cleaning and dirty videos on expenses.Edward Spaltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04168350315689612490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001867295510218749.post-61903729001100093602011-05-28T19:34:36.052+01:002011-05-28T19:34:36.052+01:00Excellent post. I too lived through that era and d...Excellent post. I too lived through that era and don't see them as the good old days politically. <br /><br />My great disappointment is that political protagonists do not seem to have improved, have not become more rational, more sensitive to the aspirations of those they so eagerly seek to govern.A K Haarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05897490979828603179noreply@blogger.com