Thursday, November 13, 2008

For years he made fun of the absurd, gold-plated public sector jobs, but now...

It's gotten worse. It's bad enough when government wastes money on silly while while the economy is growing. But Now jobs are being cut in the productive sector, while still growing in the silly sector. Daily Mail Online (UK): Over the years, I've made a good living pillorying and poking fun at this never-ending carnival of politically motivated profligacy. My columns and TV shows have featured regular Nice Work If You Can Get It sections, diligently spotlighting the ingenious and often hilarious jobs invented by councils and quangos to expand their empires and devour our taxes. This non-stop recruitment drive at our expense has gone through a number of different phases. There was the great Aids scare, when no self-respecting council could bear to be without an army of HIV prevention workers. At one stage, I worked out there were more people in Britain earning a good living from Aids than were actually dying from it. That was followed by the crazy multiculturalism obsession, which could be satisfied only by hiring thousands of equality and diversity commissars. Today's driving force is the great global warming scam, entailing the recruitment of legions of eco-warriors and enviro-crime fighters, on salaries commensurate with their self-righteousness. In between, we've had such lunacy as real nappy co-ordinators, tasked with encouraging women to use washable nappies instead of disposable - until someone worked out that all the detergent being used to wash dirty nappies was actually doing more harm to the environment than throwing them away. The NHS is just as bad. For every doctor, nurse and ancillary worker doing a valuable job, there's a supernumerary cluttering up the offices. I've written about all sorts over the years - from condom commandos to advisers hired to address the very special needs of gay alcoholics. In yesterday's Guardian, for instance, Nottinghamshire NHS was advertising for an assistant director of equality and human rights, salary up to £77,179 a year. 'Acting as our champion on equality, diversity and human rights, you will work in collaboration with our external partners to develop and co-ordinate strategic policies.' After that, I lost the will to live.

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