Lunatics and the asylum

Ladies and gentleman the lunatics are running the asylum.

The lunatics are the CONDEM government for sure.

In a report published today, the Commons Treasury Committee concluded there was a "serious risk" that if communicating with the HMRC became too time-consuming, difficult and expensive, "respect for the tax system, and with it voluntary compliance, may be undermined".

The committee acknowledged HMRC operated "under significant pressures" such as implementing increasingly complex tax legislation, restructuring, plus continuing resource reductions and its impact on staff.

"Given the fiscal position, it would make little sense for the department to be cut back further if resource reductions in addition to those plans already agreed would have the effect of reducing receipts, displacing disproportionate costs on to the wider economy or further eroding public confidence in the tax system."

The select committee are right to point out if you reduce staffing numbers and undermine staff morale, this effects performance. Tax revenues are crucially important to fund public services and if the government undermines it's ability to collect revenues, this is seriously undermining government it's self.

Oliver Letwin has let the governments strategy on public services out of the bag.

He made controversial comments angering teachers, nurses and doctors, he warned that it was only through "some real discipline and some fear" of job losses that excellence would be achieved in the public sector.

Letwin added that some of those running schools and hospitals would not survive the process and that it was an "inevitable and intended" consequence of government policy.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union(PCSU), "Public sector workers are already working in fear – fear of cuts to their job, pension, living standards and of privatisation. Far from improving productivity, the cuts are creating chaos in vital public services."

Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, said last night that she did not recognise Letwin's portrayal of the public sector. "Death rates in hospitals have been falling, satisfaction levels have been rising," she said. "What hasn't changed is the Tories' antipathy to public services. And the idea that the way to improve public services is to put fear into those who provide them is absolutely grotesque."

In a nutshell, the government strategy is to see schools close, the Academy Schools are now essentially small businesses trading children/students like commodities, those who attract more young people survive and make a surplus and those schools who fail to attract pupils will close. This is "inevitable and intended" so no more community comprehensive schools.

The same agenda is being forced on the NHS, competition a Darwinii solution, the strong will survive and the weak go under.

Public sector reform is being conducted with fiscal contraction. The rationing of public services is back on the political agenda.

The public service like the HMRC are operating "under significant pressures" such as implementing increasingly complex reforms, restructuring, plus continuing resource reductions, as Einstein said "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" is a definition of insanity.

The CONDEM government are trying to prove Einstein wrong, but in truth, the lunatics are running the asylum.