Michael Portillo: "Gordon is going to meddle"

Michael Portillo wrote an interesting article in yesterday's Sunday Times. He seems to share a similar ethos to Picking Losers in many ways. I have taken a small extracts from the piece and published them below. Much of the article talks about the un-needed disasters that are the Home Improvement Packs and the chaos in the NHS - both recurring themes in Picking Losers. He blames these problems not so much on Government incomepentence (that is a given) but the fact that they did not need to take on these ventures in the first place:

The reason ministers behave so stupidly is that Blair made clear to them that their survival prospects hinged on looking busy. There had to be a constant flow of initiatives to create an illusion of dynamic modernisation and to hog the headlines. Bad policies were better than no policies, even when inaction (another word for stability) would have been preferable and much cheaper.

If Brown seriously wishes to break with the Blairite past, I have a modest proposal. He should penalise ministers who appear busy. Initiatives should be banned. Even suggesting a new computer system should bring instant dismissal. Stability would then reign, Brown would be hailed as a wise leader and Labour’s position in the polls would climb. It would be a worrying scenario for the Tories.

Some chance! Brown has been more besotted with initiatives even than Blair. He loves to meddle where there is no need and he is addicted to micro-management. His record on tax credits shows that he enjoys repeated upheaval and has a penchant for massive information technology systems that haemorrhage public money.

So under Brown, ministers will continue to implement harebrained schemes that civil servants thought would never see the light of day. The government will antagonise new groups of voters and further hamper the delivery of effective public services.

Spot on - though I disagree on one point. He seems to imply the Tories would be very much different. Unfortunately, I am not so sure - David Cameron seems to be very attracted to harebrain schemes also.

To read the whole article, click here.