Britain’s mainstream political parties are united not only by increasing ideological convergence and political myopia, but also by staggering financial incompetence. The first two items on my little list are attested to in daily life and in the media and increasingly in even government reports, but the last item – financial incompetence – has been highlighted by the publication of a new book. Written by David Craig (of whom I had never heard before) and published by Constable, it has the splendidly unpretentious title of Squandered: How Gordon Brown is Wasting Over One Trillion Pounds of Our Money.

Mr Craig has done a great public service in exposing just how appallingly badly Labour and the Conservatives between them have managed things over decades of ‘Buggins’ Turn’ governments. Between them, they have managed to lose almost all of Britain’s gold reserves, divest the country of many of her once-impressive state assets, outsource much of her industrial capability, make property exorbitantly expensive, and encourage Britons to get themselves more deeply into debt than any previous generation.

They have lavished billions and billions of taxpayers’ money on the most ridiculous projects, and starved worthwhile recipients (such as the armed forces) of desperately needed monies. And even when they spent money on the right things, such as the NHS, they have often spent it in the wrong areas – giving hopeless healthcare managers golden handshakes while hospital wards are encrusted in filth, and people die of preventable diseases because drugs are not available in their postcode. In education, a growing number of overpaid and often unintelligent managers and consultants are propped up by ever harder-working teachers working in ever more difficult and depressing conditions. In inverse proportion to all this aimless extravagance, all government bodies and even some private firms have become much less responsive, much less capable and much less pleasant. Mr Craig goes into devastating detail to bolster his case that modern British governments seem to exist for the chief reason of throwing good money after bad. MPs and CEOs alike exist solely to give themselves large pay rises and generous expenses accounts, while others have to worry about how to pay their next electricity bill.

All this is fairly ironic now that all parties pride themselves on their adherence to supposedly efficient free market laws. But in a way it is also unsurprising. Why should we expect sensible management of money from the people who haven’t ever provided sensible management of anything else? DT