Size does matter

I WASN'T surprised to learn that the MOD had spent £250M on Chinook helicopters that don't fly or the Scottish Assembly are facing bills of £400M for the construction of their new parliament budgeted to cost £40M. The bigger the bureaucracy the more incompetent they become.

Who will ever forget the £800M of taxpayers' money squandered on the Millenniums Dome? - money that could have built eight state of the art hospitals and relieved the suffering of thousands?

Large organisations are uniquely able to deflect responsibility (try and find anyone in the police, NHS, Civil Service or Government who admit to any blunder). Lord Falconer, who oversaw the entire Dome fiasco, actually got a promotion bestowed upon him for his reckless incompetence. What does that tell you?

Meanwhile, small businesses make do and mend, pay their taxes and strive to please their customers in the full knowledge that one bad decision can lead to closure.

That's why I don't want a North West Regional Assembly and I certainly would not recommend any council tenant vote for transfer to a private landlord. Just imagine how much buck passing would take place if Macclesfield Town Hall had someone else to blame?

Regardless of what anyone says, size does matter. Small operations are far more accountable.

If Sutton Parish Council wasted £500 there would be an outcry and the whole lot of them would be dumped.

Yet central government can splurge £250M on useless helicopters and no-one takes the blame. See where I'm coming from?

Fraud within the EU is on such a massive scale it dwarfs the gross national product of many third world nations. You could feed a continent on the amount of taxpayers' money thieved from EU coffers.

Competence and accountability decrease in direct proportion to the size of the bureaucracy (Barlow's Theory of Relativity).

So remember that when you cast your vote on Regional Assemblies and particularly when they offer all kinds of promises to encourage you to switch the ownership of your council home to a private landlord.

Big is definitely not beautiful.