Tuesday 24 June 2008

Another day, another watered down Bill.

Labour Ministers are hard at it watering down yet another one of their Bills. The Planning Bill is thought to be opposed by upto sixty Labour rebels. They are concerned (and rightly so) that there will be no more ministerial input into planning large projects, leaving the decision down to the Infrastructure Planning Commision quango.

When will the government learn that if your own MPs think your policies are crap, then they've got to be pretty damn awfull.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This bill is classic Labour. It establishes a supposedly impartial quango with which the final decision will rest. However, what are the chances it will be packed with Labour types? It's so the government will have plausable deniability when the body makes hugely unpopular decisions, but the reality is that they will still control it behind the scenes.

John M Ward said...

The Raven is correct. This was also a big reason for the (unwanted by everyone else) Regional Assemblies.

One handy side-product is that the Government can take the credit for everything that goes well ("We set up this excellent and independent system") but -- as suggested -- has someone else to blame when things go wrong (Wasn't our decision, guv!")

Saves Gordon having to hide away in the bunker on such occasions...

Anonymous said...

And that bloody Harperson is at it again
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7474801.stm