There isn’t much to be said for Nicholas Ridley, the most desiccated market fundamentalist in Mrs Thatcher’s cabinet, but at least he was aware of the government’s contradictions. When he took over the Department of Trade and Industry in 1989 he asked, “What is the DTI for? I’ve got bugger all to do, and thousands of staff to help me do it.” Thatcher’s government had spent ten years preaching that people should stand on their own two feet and that the market should be free from meddling by the state. But it ran a large department whose purpose was to nanny free enterprise.
The name has changed, to Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, but the department’s policies have not. I think, however, that I have an answer to Mr Ridley’s question. BERR, now run by Lord Mandelson, functions as a fifth column within government, working for corporations to undermine democracy and the public interest. Since he became business secretary in October, Mandelson has been quietly building a bonfire of the measures that protect us from predatory corporate behaviour………
Business is perfectly capable of making its own representations. It does not require a cell inside government to ensure that its voice is heard; it should compete, like the rest of us, for the attention of ministers. Mandelson’s department has one legitimate function: simplifying and clarifying regulations. The others – the trade missions, the lobbying, the feather-bedding – achieve the rare distinction of undermining both social democracy and free markets.
BERR now has a budget of £1.92 billion, £460m bigger than it was last year. The government is looking for savings. It should close this department down.
George Monbiot
Baron Mandelson has a Departmental Budget of £1.92 Bn for the BERR. He has not been elected by anybody in this country, he is a political appointee.
£1.92 Bn is a lot a patronage to dispense, friends in large Corporations to employ, small favours to be called in. This is the largest Quango going, it is destroying enterprise whilst organising Jollies abroad in the fleshpots of the Far East, giving prizes to foreigners who are successful in importing to Britain, at the same time as shafting British Industry.
Last night the hapless Peter Hain sat squirming in front of Brummie Engineering workers on Question Time, who are now under threat because Mandelson and the BERR are incapable of understanding that making things and selling them is basic to the survival of this country, not playing at being a TV producer, sucking up to Russian Oligarch and bailing out bankrupt monopolistic Banks.
A furious Car worker said- You may have forgotten about us, but come Election Time we will not forget you- Hain was visibly shaken and the thought must have been how am I going to get out of here without being lynched.
£1.92 Bn of your money is in the care of somebody who is a stranger to the truth and has not been elected by you. The BERR produces nothing, absolutely nothing, why in Gods name has the lunatic been put in charge of the asylum ?
Monbiot’s article is called Mandelson’s Fifth Column
I don’t agree with a number of his conclusions, but the central premise that this Quango should be closed down and Mandelson thrown out of Government.
This man is personally wrecking British Industry, whilst vamping it up with titles and honours and personal greasing for deals that appear to benefit nobody but himself.
What Mandelson has got on Brown I shudder to think, but thanks to everybody who have been sending and emailing snippets on the character and private life of Mandelson, especially the ones from former members of the Hartlepool Labour Party. Was a man never so hated by his own side.
The file is getting quite large, and some journalists appear to be quite happy to pass on stories that their editors have squashed for fearing to offend the Noble Baron. Have I got News For You has apparently has been embargoed from mentioning The Prince of Darkness’ Private Life, ‘allegedly’.
Does anybody remember that HIGNFY had to say ‘allegedly’ every time it mentioned Maxwell. This apology for a man is effectively running the country now, and everybody is terrified of mentioning his name in a critical manner.
It is only months before he is going to be dismissed from office in a General Election- you can be sure that he is already negotiating another sinecure in the EU,IMF, World Bank.
I think his time would be better employed appearing before the Bar of the House of Lords to answer for the last twelve years, that has made him a very rich man indeed.
I cannot think of one positive thing he has done for the People of this Country, and as an apologist for Stalin in his younger years, he is a positive security threat to the economic security of this country.