Pointless Ministers

The public administration select committee, which monitors Whitehall for signs of efficiency, has just discovered that, despite the recent departure of Liam Fox, the Government is wasting public money on pointless ministers. Certainly no government which includes the likes of Michael Gove, Eric Pickles and Wee Nicky could be accused of an excess of justifiable expense; but it appears that Daveybloke and his fellow patronisers have taken matters a little further. The committee claims that Daveybloke's Cuddly Coalition is appointing MPs to ministerial posts in order to ensure that they vote with the Government, and calls for cuts in the number of ministers proportionate to the proposed cut in the number of MPs at the Great Daveymander. The committee even went so far as to say that certain tasks now being carried out by ministers might be better performed by civil servants; and that parliamentary aides perform "few functions of real value" - a great sin in Whitehall, now as always. In order to help enhance the moral character of government, the coalition has even been appointing unpaid ministers, although the committee cynically dismisses this improving whiff of the Big Society thingy as an attempt to circumvent the legal limits on the number of ministers who can be appointed. In response, the Government has promised to keep things "under review"; which, as the chair of the committee observed, is parliamentary code for "Get stuffed".