Indiscretions of a Treasury manadarin

I recently travelled on a train out of London. I was reading a paper and so my head was invisible. Opposite a distinguished looking person was sitting, next to a vacant seat. A person of about the same age sat down, and then the two travellers realised they were old friends. One was a senior- a very senior-civil servant at the Treasury. The other was an important manager in the public sector. My vagueness so far has been deliberate, because I wouldn't want to get anyone into trouble. The manager asked what her friend had been doing. "Preparing the cuts to be implemented after the election", came the reply. She said that a programme had been agreed upon; it was horrendous, and would be implemented in its entirety whoever won the election. The person also said that, after the election, severe penalties wou;ld be imposed on any person or company late in paying tax. I was able to hear these comments very clearly.

You read speculation to this effect but it was fascinating to have it confirmed. It suggested, importantly, that the Civil Service regards the outcome of the election as unimportant It implies that the Chancellor has agreed to cuts which he is concealing from the electorate, and that Labour charges against the Conservatives over public spending are dishonest.

Don't Despair

Never in my life have I approached an election with so little enthusiasm for either of the two main parties. Indeed, I regard both with horror. One is the party of the Iraq war, of dependable duplicity, that regards education as a sub-branch of business, that attaches zero importance to personal liberty, and that will not be satisfied until a plague of targets of Stalinist proportions has bettered all services on paper but not in fact.

The other is in the pocket of the Murdoch organisation and dedicated to trimming the B.B.C. in the interest of its commercial rivals. Perhaps the B.B.C. has over-reached itself somewhat but it plays a vital role in keeping the politics of the Tea Party at bay. In so far as I fear for the B.B.C., I fear for Britain as a relatively sophisticated and well-informed democracy.

And so I would despair were it not for the Liberals. As exciting as soya, certainly, but that is the point. Logic and sense rarely stir the blood. But a Hung Parliament may concentrate minds upon sensible solutions.