Accountable Inexpensitivitability, Inexpensive Accountabilitisation

The Minister for Quango-Culling, Francis Maude, has registered irritation at a parliamentary committee's finding that the Government's abolition of two hundred agencies has failed to achieve its two main aims, namely "to improve accountability and reduce spending". Maude extruded a spokesbeing to say that the committee was labouring under a fundamental misunderstanding, which is no doubt perfectly true if the committee actually believes that the Government has much interest in improving accountability or reducing spending, except as a gossamer excuse for merrily clubbing public agencies into oblivion. The Cabinet Secretary, Gussie O'Donnell (that renowned enemy of corruption who thinks Rupert Murdoch's pet Jeremy C Hunt should decide whether Rupert Murdoch should be allowed to own an even bigger chunk of Britain's communications media), was so well briefed about the matter that he was unable to give an estimate of how much the slaughter would save, even after he was given time to go and ask George the Progressively Regressive for a clue. As if this were not indication enough of the importance the Government attaches to openness and efficiency, the committee also found it necessary to note that departmental business plans can "only be useful tools to help the public hold the government to account if the information contained in them is accurate"; which is all the explanation anyone should need for why the information isn't.

As a proud and upstanding member of the cabinet whose ardour in imposing policies for which nobody voted is barely exceeded even by the heat from Clegg's Bonfire of the Pledges, and only a week or two after Daveybloke himself showed his own respect for the public's misgivings by threatening to abolish the expenses watchdog, Maude responded to the committee's findings by wagging his finger at the "meddling and expense created by unaccountable bureaucrats".