Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Fig leaves
The elegance of Conservative North Wales AM, Mark Isherwood, dazzled us again yesterday, this time on the scintillating subject of Major Expenditure Group Transfers. Mark was exercised by the extra money that had just been promised to local government. Like me he believes that it is not enough to avoid large Council Tax increases next April. I, however, do not have his devastating turn of phrase:
"I am pleased that that money is going to local government, but I regret that the amount remains a fig leaf on an elephant. Our bottom-line concern is that no matter how this Minister slices the cake, the First Minister and his Cabinet have, more than any Government, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought and the largest amount of expenditure into the smallest amount of delivery. Wales remains trapped between a borrow-now, tax-later Chancellor and a spend-more, deliver-less Welsh Assembly Government."
After all that I thought it was a trifle unfair for the Finance Minister to accuse him of an "incoherent contribution".
"I am pleased that that money is going to local government, but I regret that the amount remains a fig leaf on an elephant. Our bottom-line concern is that no matter how this Minister slices the cake, the First Minister and his Cabinet have, more than any Government, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought and the largest amount of expenditure into the smallest amount of delivery. Wales remains trapped between a borrow-now, tax-later Chancellor and a spend-more, deliver-less Welsh Assembly Government."
After all that I thought it was a trifle unfair for the Finance Minister to accuse him of an "incoherent contribution".
