That's Not Fair!

You said it, Bro

The Treasury has just published the Hutton Report on Fair Pay in the Public Sector.

As BOM readers will recall, back in the summer Mr Cam commissioned Will Hutton "... to investigate pay scales across the public sector, and make recommendations on how to ensure that no public sector manager can earn more than twenty times the lowest paid person in the organisation."

In other words, Hutton's job was to address the scandal of fatcat pay in the public sector - a scandal that was first exposed in a series of reports from the TaxPayers' Alliance (eg see here). And to work out how to implement a 20-to-1 cap on top public sector remuneration.

But predictably enough, left-winger Hutton has found it impossible to stick to that very clear remit. Instead, much of his 128 page report is a polemic on top pay in the private sector, driven by 1970s-style politics of envy.

He kicks off by charting how the pay of the top 1% has pulled away from the average:

No matter that this relates to just 1% of the population, and most them are being paid by the market not taxpayers, for Hutton it's a serious problem:

"Substantial and growing pay inequality poses a serious challenge to society and Government. Do high earners deserve such large rewards? And is it fair that a wide and growing gap should exist between the pay of those at the very top of the income scale and the rest of the population?"

Fair? This is the market, Will. The thing that in just two millenia has lifted us from mud huts to plasma tellies. Sounds fair to us.

He goes on:

"...chief executive pay for Britain?s leading listed companies rose by around eight times between 1986 and 2010... It is increasingly doubtful whether this has been proportional to increases in performance, or even reflects the real demand and supply for executive services. Chief executives have become treated as business super-stars drawn from an ever narrower potential pool... benchmarking between firms locks them into a kind of arms race... Any one company that tries to stand out against the trend risks losing its top people and inviting markets and investors to view it as second rate. Little... seems capable of creating more rationality or slowing the pace of increase... There is widespread scepticism whether this degree of increase in executive pay is fair."

Fair - there it is again. Look Will, we don't care what private sector chief execs get paid - especially when the figures relate just to the 100 FTSE100 CEOs. We only care about what they do for us as customers, whether they deliver good returns to us as shareholders, and whether they stay within the law. Everything else is so much envious wibble.

Now public sector pay, that's a different matter entirely. Because we have to fund that through compulsory taxation. We're very interested indeed in what those guys get paid because it comes straight out of our wallets. We can't choose to take our custom elsewhere, and we can't sell our shares in their companies.

So what does he say on top public sector pay - ie the job he was asked to do.

First, he tells us that there are now no fewer than 20,000 public sector employees in the top 1% of income earners (earning over �117,523 pa). Well, actually he doesn't tell us that - he merely rehashes some numbers given on a recent Panorama programme.

Anyway, most of those 20,000 turn out to be doctors employed by the NHS (ah, those brilliant Simple Shopper pay deals). But there are also 4,000 managers distributed across the various bits of the public sector as follows:

These findings are broadly consistent with what the TPA has previously published in its Public Sector Rich Lists (eg here) - if anything, Hutton's overall fatcat number is a shade higher than the TPA's.

In terms of pay growth under Labour, Hutton confirms that top public sector managers generally did outstandingly well. For example, between 2000 and 2009 chief execs of NHS hospital trusts got an average 50% increase in real terms:

The bottom line is that Hutton pretty well agrees with everything the TPA has been saying on public sector fatcats. So naturally he offers his thanks to the TPA for their outstanding service to taxpayers.

Except... just a cotton pickin' minute... he doesn't offer his thanks.. Actually he suggests the TPA has been misleading the public:

" Top pay in the public sector has come under greater media scrutiny in recent years... But public understanding remains divorced from the data set out in this[report]...

Limited understanding feeds through into the wider debate. Campaign groups such as the Taxpayer' Alliance argue that the public sector must get value for money � which they define as paying the lowest amount to secure a suitable candidate � but that it does not currently achieve this...

A media narrative which over-concentrates on public sector 'fat cats' while not offering the same proper scepticism and focus over what is happening at the top of the private sector does not lead to understanding, and can undermine the desirable move to greater transparency over pay."

Allow me to translate:

The TPA has been far too successful in focusing the public's attention on the cavalier way in which the public sector wastes their hard-earned cash. The spotlight on fatcat pay, and the number of bureaucrats who get paid more than the Prime Minister, has resonated with taxpayers in a way that has caused huge discomfort for the promotors of big government. People like Hutton need to hit back, and they aim to throw taxpayers off the scent by suggesting the real problem is excessive pay in the private sector. Welcome back 1970s incomes policy and the politics of envy.

And what about the job Mr Cam actually asked him to do? That 20-to-1 pay ratio cap for the public sector?

Well, Hutton likes the idea. He likes it for a number of reasons, but in particular:

"A pay ratio is an easily understandable reference point, and could give the public confidence that public sector pay is being kept in check. Defined appropriately, this can have more flexibility than merely using the Prime Minister's salary as a benchmark."

In other words, by accepting this ratio cap, public bosses could maybe get taxpayers off their back, while simultaneously getting round the current de facto pay cap of the PM's salary. The latter clearly has to go, since post Cam's self-imposed cut, it's down to a measily �142,500 pa.

Are you ready to be fooled?

PS So should Mervyn King be fired as Bank Governor? The preposterous lefty Blanchflower reckons so, because of King's supposed political bias. But in truth, there is no bias. Like most of his predecessors, King almost certainly reckons everyone down the Westminster end of town is rubbish. The WikiLeaks "revelation" that he thought Cam and George inexperienced and too political is what all previous Governors have thought about all inexperienced politicos ever since 1694 - you should have heard what Governor William Ewer said about Pitt the Younger in 1782. Cam would be mad to sack King - we'd be straight back to the final bunker days of Mad Murdo McMad.

Severe Shortage Of Millionaires

Wrong message - we need more millionaires

With Red Ed at the controls, we can expect Labour to target the undeserving rich just as stridently as they ever did back in the day. But the middle class, no, they won't be squeezed. Labour under Ed will cherish and protect the middle class. It's those rich bastards who'll have to pay.

But who exactly are those rich bastards, and are there enough to go round? Robbing from the rich to give to the poor is one thing, but robbing from the rich to give to the teeming middle class requires the rich to have an awful lot of riches in the first place.

If we define the rich in terms of income, then the official stats tell us that the top 10% of households get 30% of the income (ie gross market income going to the personal sector before taking account of government transfers - welfare etc). Which at first blush might sound like an ideal target for Ed's Robin Hooding.

But he needs to understand a couple of key points. First, the top 10% are already paying more than their share of the taxes - 27% at the last count - and they might not take kindly to paying even more (like, they might down tools and leave). And second, the gross income level that takes a household into the top 10% is around �50,000 pa, which in London and the South East at least is viewed as a middle class income - certainly not "rich".

If instead we define rich in terms of wealth rather than income, we find an even greater concentration in the hands of the top 10%. According to the ONS, immediately pre-Crash, total household wealth amounted to �9 trillion. And of that, nearly �4 trillion (well over 40%) was owned by the top 10%:

A concentration like that looks much more promising for Ed. Taxing wealth is arguably less damaging to growth than taxing earnings, and those rich bastards would surely not miss the odd trillion.

Except that when we look closely, we can see that the biggest single chunk of this wealth comprises the value of pension entitlements, a golden pot that already took a severe walloping from Ed's mentor, the Great Helmsman. With occupational pensions now a thing of the past (at least outside the public sector) it has become a wasting asset.

What's more, the second biggest chunk of wealth comprises property assets, which again, have taken a serious walloping since the ONS compiled its numbers.

In fact when you focus in on the actual cash and other readily realisable assets owned by the rich - ie the financial wealth that Ed could actually grab and redistribute - you find it is very much smaller, at around �0.5 trillion. What's more, because it is so liquid, any attempt by Ed to grab it would swiftly result in its disappearance out of harms way.

The real problem is that there simply aren't enough millionaires to go round. According to the 2010 World Wealth Report, the UK has around 450,000 so-called High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs), which sounds like quite a few. But a HNWI is defined as a dollar millionaire in terms of cash and other reddies, and these days even the average punter earns more than that over his lifetime. In terms of robbing the rich , it's pretty slim pickings.

No, whatever Ed may claim, robbing the idle rich could not possibly raise enough cash to protect the middle class from the squeeze. The reason that successive governments rob the middle class is simply because that's where the money is.

In  the real world outside Ed's fantasies, the only way the middle class can even hope to escape is if Cam and George push on with their spending cuts.

Party Political Broadcast On Behalf Of The Envy Party

BBC R4 has just completed a week of propaganda broadcasts for the Envy Party, funded by your telly tax (you can listen again here).

They conducted a survey asking poor people if rich people get paid too much. And guess what - it turns out they do! It turns out that FTSE chief execs shouldn't get the average �2.1m pa they apparently pull in today, but only �118k - a cut of 94%. And at the other end, care assisitants should get an immediate raise of 50%. The BBC has a related quiz online, where you can test your own envy responses, and impose your own ideas of fair pay on our turning world.

Where to begin?

First of all, those of us who recall the 1970s well remember what happens when politicos try to impose their own ideas of fairness on the labour market. Back then we had punitive taxation intended to squeeze the rich until their differentials squeaked. We also had incomes policies specifically intended to stop the market operating. The result? You know the result - enterprise died, Britain suffered a catastrophic brain drain, and we slipped way down the international economic league tables. All of us were made poorer.

Ah, say the "new" socialists, money isn't everything. We might have been poorer back then, but we were all so much happier. No, don't laugh - that's what they say. Because incomes were much more equal, there was much less envy eating away at our souls. We were all in the same boat - just like the War.

How quickly these new socialists forget. Back in the 70s Red Robbo/King Arthur disputes over relative pay were much more rancorous and damaging than they are now. Why, even respected philosophers from the socialist paradise of Sweden were racked with envy:



No, the 70s should have proved once and for all that attempts to impose a "fair" income distribution not only make us all poorer, but they also leave us feeling just as envious and angry as the BBC reckons we are today.

Which of course is why socialists tend not to dwell on history - ie our actual experience. Instead, they point to how much better things are in more equal societies elsewhere. Supposedly.

The latest attempt to prove this got a lot of BBC airtime last week. It's a book called The Spirit Level which we blogged here. Written by a couple of left-wing academics, it has already become a key text for those advocating big increases in taxation and spending aimed at levelling out income inequalities, presenting as it does a slew of statistical evidence purporting to show that our big social maladies - like low life expectancy and mental health - are largely driven by income inequality.

The BBC and the rest of the left have adopted the book as the new gospel. But in reality, it is one of the most astonishing concoctions of statistical fudge and flummery you are ever likely to see. Once you start to probe the stats deployed they disintegrate.

The BBC's own Tim Harford did a pretty good demolition job when he interviewed one of the book's authors (a social epidemiologist, no less). His questions comprehensively undermined her credibility, although he was far too polite to dish out the humiliation the book truly warrants (do listen again here). The TPA paper we blogged here - written by three Swedish economists - does an even more comprehensive job. In fact, The Spirit Level turns out to be so bad, soft-hearted Tyler almost feels embarrassed for the authors.

Which kind of makes you wonder why the left still quote it as being gospel. Except of course, socialists have never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The truth is that despite all the BBC hand-wringing, it is by no means clear we are as unequal as claimed. According to the most recent OECD analysis (ie real properly based stats), we rank well under the OECD average for the proportion of the population living below 60%, 50%, and 40% of median income:

In fact, as we can see, on this straightforward measure, Britain (GBR) is more equal than most of our major competitors, including Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the US.

Where we seem to differ is that we do seem to have much higher rewards at the top end of the income distribution, which is why on some distribution measures we come out as being relatively unequal (eg the Gini coefficient).

But we really do need to remind ourselves of the benefits that have flowed from the increase in top pay since the bleak 70s. The boost to enterprise, and the re-rating of the UK as a good place to make money.

Because it isn't just the rich who have benefited. Despite the claims of the left, there have been trickle down benefits to the poor. The OECD calculates that from the mid-80s to the mid-00s, the real incomes of those in the bottom 25% of the UK income distribution increased by 1.6% pa. In contrast, in egalitarian Sweden, they only increased by 0.9% pa. So over the entire 20 years, our poor saw their incomes grow by 37%, compared to only 21% in Sweden.

Ultimately, it does come down to that simple old choice - would you rather be equal and poor, or unequal and rich? The left deny the choice is necessary, but those of us who are guided by what happens out in the real world know different.

Politics Of Envy - Latest

Never mind about them - it's the poor we need to sort out

For this morning's edition of BBC R4 Today, there was only one possible lead story: a new report on inequality commissioned by Commissar Harperson (but paid for by us). And to give you a flavour, here's how the BBC's print edition (aka the Grun) headlines it:

"A detailed and startling analysis of how unequal Britain has become offers a snapshot of an increasingly divided nation where the richest 10% of the population are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10% of society...

...Much of it will make uncomfortable reading for the Labour government, although the report indicates that considerable responsibility lies with the Tories, who presided over the dramatic divisions of the 1980s and early 1990s."

Ah, yes, back to the old favourites - wealth as the embodiment of capitalist exploitation, and the Tories are evil. But at least the report has some nice charts.

Let's kick off with this one, which shows weekly net incomes (ie after the deduction of direct taxes, and the addition of cash benefits) as they are distributed across the UK's 25 million households (actually, these are "equivalised" households containing a commissariat standardised 2 adults and no children - see chart footnote - but don't let that distract you from the big picture):

As we can see, the top 1% of households (aka the 99th percentile) have a weekly net income of at least �2 grand (�104 grand pa). The top 10% (aka the 90th percentile) are on at least �806 pw (�42 grand pa). In contrast, the bottom 10% (aka the 10th percentile) are on �191 pw or less (�9,900 pa) - remembering of course, these are notional 2 adult households (the single adult equivalent would be �6,650).

Still with this? OK, the gap between the incomes of the top 10% and the bottom 10% is one of the most widely used measures of income inequality deployed by the poverty lobby: it is known as the 90:10 ratio. And from the chart we can see that it's currently standing at 4.2 to 1 - ie �806 pw is 4.2 times �191 pw.

What should we make of that? The report has no doubt:

"[This represents] high levels of inequality by comparison with those in the UK a generation ago, when, for instance, the ratio... was just over 3 to 1... most of this increase occurred during the 1980s."

The 1980s - it's That Evil Woman again, the one who destroyed the workers paradise we all enjoyed so much during the 70s.

Just in case you missed it, pre-Thatcher Britain had become the sick man of Europe. Our growth rate lagged far behind everyone else's and the economy had stagnated. And a key reason was that successive governments had taxed and regulated high earners to buggery, totally undermining enterprise and effort. We were equalised in poverty and national decline.

The report continues:

"A similar gain in the shares of those with the highest incomes occurred in other English-speaking countries in the 1980s and 1990s, but not in continental Europe. Earnings and income inequality in the UK are now high in international terms, compared with other industrialised countries."

Weeellll.... that's often said, but the facts are rather less clearcut. Here are the latest OECD stats on that 90:10 ratio:

Yup, there's the UK on 4.2 all right (in red). But it's right next to the overall OECD average, which in Tyler's book is not "high in international terms compared with other industrialised countries".

So to recap, the fact that measured income inequality has increased since the 1970s simply tells us we wanted to progress from our wrecked Austin Allegro economy. And on this widely used 90:10 measure, inequality in Britain today is bang in line with the OECD average, neither better nor worse.

So does this report actually tell us anything useful?

Yes. It reminds us that we have an appalling problem in our state education factories. As we've blogged many many times, they are failing large numbers of our children, especially those at the bottom. Here's a very striking chart from the report, showing points scored at GCSE (5 grade C's - the absolute rock bottom minimum "pass" - is equivalent to a points score of 200):

That long tail of failure is a shocking indictment of Labour's equalising education policies - especially when you factor in a suitable adjustment for their dumbed down exam system, and the fact that this chart is based on total GCSE scores (ie not restricted to those whose A-C GCSEs include Maths and English).

Whatever Hattie and the BBC may say, we simply cannot afford a return to politics-of-envy style taxes and income policies. Especially in current circumstances, they are a recipe for national penury. If we are serious about helping those at the bottom - and Tyler is - by far the most important thing we need to fix is our woeful state education system.

This is now down to Cam. As we've said many times, on Day One he must tell Gove to get on with the school reforms pdq. And when the unions threaten to strike, and when the BBC and the Grun start screaming, Cam will have to be Tough Tough Tough.

School choice and vouchers - whatever label they go by - are totally non-negotiable.

PS I've just seen Reverend Easton's sermon based on this report. Apparently, equal societies are happier societies - a fact so well known, his Reverence didn't feel the need to offer any evidence (see previous BOM posts on so-called happiness economics eg here and here). Which reminds me, I really must find out why the suicide rate in Sweden is twice what it is here. I guess it must be all that pickled fish. Or maybe they've actually all been murdered by those white supremacists who caused such grief for Wallander in the last series. And come to that, how come everyone in Wallander is so miserable all the time? I mean, it's a great TV series, and Ken is superb, but it's Sweden FFS! Equality central! You'd think they could lighten up a bit. Maybe Rev Easton should go over and give them a couple of sermons.

Politics Of Envy (cont)

We already have big redistribution

Pol was back on an old favourite this morning:

"A high pay commission would change the climate of what is socially acceptable by challenging the self-serving myths of mega-earners... With powers to investigate, it would make transparent who is earning what and why, ending secrecy: information has transformative power. I would go further and make all income tax returns public documents. The initial shock would be salutary, as it threw daylight on earnings and wealth. When so few people know where they stand or what others earn, how can voters judge questions of fair distribution?

...No one suggests some national pay scale of merit from street cleaner to superstar, but it's time politicians stopped being bamboozled by bog-standard bankers blagging their way into billions "because I'm worth it". Call their bluff, before the bubble blows up all over again."

To the left, the bursting of our financial bubble is a lifeline. It surely shows once and for all that bankers are not worth their exhorbitant pay, and that they only get it by exposing the rest of us to hideous risk as guarantors.

Well, actually we agree with the bit about bankers exploiting our willingness to stand as ultimate guarantor - which is why we would change the rules of the game by splitting high street banking from the casino, and restricting our guarantee to high street bank deposits (see this blog).

But beyond that, pay can only be sensibly determined by the marketplace. End of.

These days you may have thought that principle was pretty well accepted by all want to live in a modern prosperous society. But not by the left it isn't.

When it comes to incomes, the left have never given up on the Marxist idea that the cake somehow arrives already baked from the bakery, and all "society" has to do is distribute it in equitable slices.

Their latest idea is to harness the politics of envy even more directly than they have in the past. According to some recent focus group research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, most people have no idea what top earners get, and have "a strong tendency to overestimate the number of people who earn higher levels of income". For example, whereas only 10% of us actually get a paid above �42,900 pa, most people apparently think it's much more. Focus group members are shocked when they discover the truth:

"I don�t believe that, I just don�t believe that. I don�t think that �42,000 is in the top. I would obviously have thought there is more than 25 per cent of the country earn more than that."

Hence the left's calls for a High Pay Commission: if only The Facts could be got out there, then people would see just how unusual - and therefore outrageous - all those City fat cat packages truly are, and would demand action. They might even demand maximum wage legislation (39% of JRF focus group members already pronounced themselves in favour).

Ah, if only that cake really did arrive fully baked - life would be so much easier.

But in the real world, someone has to get up at 4am to mix the ingredients and pop it in the oven. And he's not very keen on having his cake sliced away at the whim of the commissars.

Which is why the hedge fund managers are already heading for the exit. According to today's Wall Street Journal (HTP JW):

"A stream of hedge-fund managers and other financial-services professionals are quitting the U.K., following plans to raise top personal tax rates to 51%. Lawyers estimate hedge funds managing close to $15 billion have moved to Switzerland in the past year, with more possibly to come.

Richard Jordan, a partner at law firm Thomas Eggar, said: "I would say that 40% of my work involves advising people on ways to leave the country. We have reached a tipping point, in terms of hostility to the U.K. tax system."

One of his clients has just received a dividend of �2.5 million from his business. "He said to me, I'm going to be start being charged �1.3 million on a payment like that. It's time I thought about leaving," Mr. Jordan said.

Recent research by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers suggested that married bankers earning �250,000 a year in the U.K. would retain less of their income after 51% tax than their counterparts in Paris, Frankfurt, Singapore and Dubai."

Sounds like divvying up the cake is going to be the least of our problems.

The Resurrection Of Faith

But surely he was the one who destroyed it in the first place

Yesterday we gave Cam 6/10 for his New Politics speech. On reflection that was maybe a tad harsh. Having now heard the panicky, vacuous, response from various Labour ministers and their erstwhile supporters in the press, we'd move Cam up to a 7.

Take the detailed analysis of the speech in today's Times by their leader writer and Labour insider, Philip Collins. He attempts to dismiss Cam's linking of the expenses row to the much broader small government agenda as being "plausible but spurious". According to him, Cam has cunningly "changed the subject" - a low-down political trick of the kind Collins himself routinely pulled when he was writing Bliar's speeches.

Collins either doesn't get it, or he thinks he can ignore it. Cam has struck a deep chord with many of us because he's resurrecting the Old Faith.

As we blogged here, the reason we are all so furious about the expenses scandal is not simply that we're paying for duck ponds. It's because the troughing epitomises the contempt with which our political class have treated us for years. That's what we're angry about, that's why we are demanding real change, and that's why Cam's linkage is absolutely direct.

The Old Faith says we must return power to the people to manage their own lives.

But faith alone is never enough. The real strength of Cam's speech - the bit that lifts it from a 6 to a 7 - is his linking of faith to a specific programme of action (school vouchers, elected sheriffs, etc etc). Yes, there's more he needs to do (see yesterday's post), but yesterday he moved way beyond the realms of pious platitudes: he finally showed us a radical policy platform rooted in a strong and coherent philosophy.

The official Labour response has been lamentable. In today's Independent, his batteries virtually flat, Gordo can do no more than repeat the same old meaningless guff we've been suffering for years:

"Jack Straw will announce the outcome of a long period of consultation... errrr... since March we have been consulting on a Green Paper on a Bill... drrrrrrr.... I spent time meeting young people in Fife... click... I will meet members of the Youth Citizenship Commission... drrrrrrr... click, click... in the Court of King Caractacus... click... there is no option I will not consider... click... Daisy, Daisy, giiive meeee yoooouuuuuurrranssssssssss...."

No wonder the massed ranks of the left are panicking. Carefully crafted triangulation no more than a distant memory, they are scurrying back to their own true faith, the faith of class war and conformity.

Also in the Independent (not an organ I normally frequent), an obscure theologian called Johann Hari lays into Cameron for being a rich toff who practises Voodoo Economics when people aren't looking. Hari warns that the evil Cam follows the dark faith of the false prophet Laffer, entirely ignoring the path of righteousness laid out in the teachings of Saints Obama and Krugman:

"Cameron is advocating policies that will benefit his tiny class of super-rich Trustafarians at the expense of the rest of us... and now he has announced his enthusiasm for a bogus economic theory that will justify shovelling far more of our money their way.

...it's clear how he will pay for these cuts for himself and his friends � by slashing the few redistributive programmes for the poor built up over the past decade, like the Educational Maintenance Allowance for poor kids to stay on to sixth form which his team derides as a "bribe", or the tax credits which his frontbench openly compares to the disastrous nationalised industries of the 1970s, or the SureStart centres which he has described as "a microcosm of government failure." They belong to a world he has never seen, or shown any interest in."

This is the Other Faith. The faith that hates toffs, hates markets, and believes in the wholesomeness and efficacy of Big Government.

Never mind that in the real world, Labour's EMA system is a disgraceful and costly shambles (eg see this post), or that according to its own official analysis, Labour's �3bn Sure Start programme has actually made things worse for the poorest kids it was supposed to help (eg see this post). Never mind any of that, because they belong to a world Hari and his fellow theologians have never seen, or shown any interest in.

Still, we should welcome the resurrection of political faiths, however whacky. Mainstream politics has lacked conviction for far too long. And we shouldn't decry the primitive faith of the left: they will need it to sustain them through the next 20 years in the wilderness.

PS Great article by Daniel Hannan welcoming Cam's speech:

"Brilliant: I couldn't have put it better myself. No, hang on: this is exactly how I did put it in my book Direct Democracy, serialised in this newspaper four years ago.

The solutions which David Cameron goes on to propose are drawn directly from that text, and from its sequel, The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, which I co-authored with Douglas Carswell six months ago: local control over schools, housing and policing; fewer MPs; more power for councils; referendums, local and national; legislation by citizens' initiative; a shift in power from the executive and judicial branches of government to the legislature; weaker Whips; the end of the patronage powers enjoyed by the Prime Minister under Crown Prerogative; the appointment of public officials through open parliamentary hearings.

Then again, there is no such thing as plagiarism in public life: we are all in the business of proselytising our creeds. As Ronald Reagan used to observe: "There is no limit to what a man may achieve in politics provided he is indifferent as to who takes the credit".

A great quote. And if you haven't already done so, you should read The Plan asap.