Be Ee Sea Tee Eh?

Currently the government is spending 3 thousand million more pounds a week than it earns. You could say this was pretty good going considering they've only been in power for two weeks. They were given a good head start though by the other lot whose capacity for finding things to throw money at seemed to know no bounds. According to SuperDave one of those bits of bad spending was on what he called "Bee Cee Tee Ayy" but which some of us know is actually BECTA - more on that in a bit...

Now riding on to the scene to sort out the horribly complicated mess we have the milky bar kid and his big brother. For some reason the milky bar kid is in charge and we have to call him chancellor. He gets to dress up in a white bow tie and keep the city boys on side with a good line in posh banter and providing decent discounts on the family's wallpaper collection. This is important as if they stop lending him the money then he'll have to print it and it's hello Weimar Republic. The big brother is doing the real work and is very clever and very serious so we call him David, not like posh cousin Dave who lives in the Big House in Downing St or Uncle Nick who speaks a zillion languages and talks like a Sixth Form debating team captain. Big Brother David is the man who is going to come along with his shiny axe and chop that nasty overspending into tiny pieces.

I have very high hopes for David, he looks, talks and acts like a man who knows what needs doing and is willing to do it. However by taking the axe instantly to BECTA he has missed a great opportunity to turn an agency with a slightly confused purpose into a force for driving down school IT costs, disseminating some great research to improve practice and understanding of technology and providing a powerful central purchasing platform that could get those 'free schools' their kit at both a profit to the taxpayer and a saving to the school.

Sorry David - EPIC FAIL

If he does a really good job he'll be able to put the finances back in order in about 20 years or so. If he does it badly then we can welcome back old friends hyperinflation and balance of payments crisis. They've not been around for a while so some of us thought that like the compometer they were truly a thing of the past but watching Greece be strangled by debt deflation tells us that bits of the 1930's are due for a comeback.