Putting the Economy Back Off Track

The Office for National Statistics, whose literalist approach to figures has caused so much inconvenience for the faith-based community in Whitehall, has massively engorged the evil public sector by re-classifying Network Rail as a government body, just because the taxpayers are liable for its losses. Apparently the ONS has not yet caught up to the fact that the taxpayers' function in modern Britain is to prop up private companies as well as, if not in preference to, public assets. In the short term, the re-classification may annoy the Chancellor, at least until he sells the railway network back to the public or throws it in as a free gift when Chris Graybeing's spankingly profitable new McJustice system is floated on the stock exchange. An empty suit at the Ministry for Motoring welcomed the change through its gritted sphincter and emitted the usual blather about value for money, though it tactfully omitted to specify whose money and whose value. Then again, the Chancellor has never shown much sign before of being annoyed when mere sums don't add up; so perhaps this latest thirty thousand million will vanish in the grease along with all the rest.