Mr Bates vs the post office.

Ed Davey is one of the doziest thickest stupidest Leader of a political party that there has ever been, is there any point to Ed Davey.

It would be highly surprising if one or another of the big Indian job-shoppers - Tata, Infosys, Wipro et al - did not supply Fujitsu (ICL had already expired by that point) with the code-jockeys and test monkeys for this project. They have had a significant presence in practically all HMG's IT business by that stage thanks to their ability to provide large hordes of so-called software engineers at short notice and with very keen pricing.

Why else do you think successive governments have declined to place a numerical cap on the numbers of Indians etc who can take up employment in the UK for Indian contractors under the 'intra-company transfer' wangle?

And he heads up the doziest, thickest, stupidest political party - to which there is also no point.

Signed.

And in an upcoming election there he’ll be smug as hell ,him people like him go on to a comfy club with subsidised food and drink jobs on the side whilst the little people the Alan Bates of this world deserve greater honour than they and that knowing of this whole affair Vennells was offered and accepted an honour and they wonder at the disconnect between people and parliament.

Indeed. The state sector does not automatically do things better than the private sector.

But of course the reverse is also true. The private sector does not automatically do things better than the state sector.

To assume either is to take an ideological rather than a practical position.

Which works better depends on who is in charge, who they are answerable to, what the checks, balances and incentives are, the level of competence and the ethos at the heart of an organisation. 

The private sector seems to perform better where there is effective competition. Where there isn't effective competition is most often where the private sector serves us most poorly.