Teresa Hunter: Too right I'm bovvered about the government blowing £700bn of our cash

Published on Saturday 6 February 2010 15:44

IF A fool and his money are soon parted, taxpayers must be award-winning idiots.

In recent weeks, we have warned readers to check their tax codes, as many are wrong. Now HMRC has admitted that this year more erroneous codes have been dispatched than usual. Given the state of the public finances, this must be a happy accident for a cash-strapped government.

Taxpayers are now being hit by duplicate codes, wiping out personal allowances, with basic rate taxpayers hammered by 40 per cent deductions.

HMRC is blaming a new National Insurance and PAYE system that it is using for the first time.

Are we surprised? Or should I put that question another way. What are we more surprised about? HMRC screwing up its new system and over-taxing us, or Westminster MPs fiddling more than 1 million on their expenses?

Just a few highlights. Barbara Follett, wife of millionaire author Ken Follett, has been asked to repay nearly 42,500; husband and wife Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride over-claimed more than 60,000. I could go on, but are we bovvered?

What about the out-of-hours GP service, scaled back in some parts of the UK to the point where one doctor is overseeing 300,000 patients a night?

What a bitter irony that the Cambridge pensioner who died, after receiving an overdose from a German doctor with no English or experience of the NHS, who had arrived here only a day earlier, was exhausted after the journey and four hours sleep, was himself the father of a hardworking GP. His son's verdict: "The whole system is just abysmal." Are we bovvered?

And what about soldiers sent into battle zones not properly equipped. Face? Bovvered?

Of course we are bothered, particularly when many of us have just written substantial cheques to meet our self-assessment tax obligations, and many others are being over-taxed through tax code blunders.

We are the ones paying for the 700 billion spent each year on our public services, our hospitals, schools, defence and politicians, so we have every right to ask where has all the money gone.

Undoubtedly, much has been thrown around the system to little effect. The cost of quangos jumped over the recession by more than a quarter from 37bn to 46.5bn. These are busybody organisations, whose staff have shot up by around 10,000, as jobs have haemorrhaged from the productive part of the economy.

The highly respected Institute of Fiscal Studies last week produced an alarming budget of its own, warning that the recession is not over for the UK economy.

It is likely to shrink a further 2.5 per cent, leaving us 7.5 per cent poorer, rather than the 5 per cent we have come to terms with.

When growth recovers, it will be subdued for a number of years and borrowing will reach 80 per cent of our wealth as measured by GDP within a few years.

This is serious stuff. Concerns about UK Government borrowing has already triggered bigger falls in sterling than were witnessed at the 1967 devaluation, the 1974 IMF crisis or the 1992 ejection from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Economists and politicians all agree that public spending and borrowing will have to be cut, although there is disagreement over timing. The IFS lies between Labour and Conservatives, believing the next government will have to cut more aggressively than Labour is planning, to safeguard our credit rating. But it is cautious about cutting too early, and does not think beginning at the start of the coming tax year is essential.

Battening down the national hatches will lead to further rises in unemployment, it says, but fewer jobs will be lost if we attack public spending rather than increase taxes.

It's a message the Conservatives are mellowing to, softening their earlier rhetoric on speedy cuts, partly due to the weakness of the recovery, but mainly because it was frightening the horses.

We all know cuts are coming. But it's a bit like going to heaven. We can't wait to get there, yet no-one wants to die.

My instinct is politicians are chewing the wrong bone, which is why debate is sterile and parties are failing to make progress in the polls. Cuts are no longer the issue with the public. Members of the public know, because they have to live with the consequences, that cash has been sprayed round

a corrupt and incompetent system which is not fit for purpose… which no longer knows what its purpose is.

It's how our money is being spent or rather squandered and embezzled that is galvanising the public. The big joke is, that's one debate no party wants to let us in on. But then politicians and civil servants are all part of this kleptocracy, and the thing about political jokes is, they get elected.