Compare and contrast these two parliamentary answers. Good to know the bean counters are so good at their job.
Mr. Hands: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister spent on ballpoint pens with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister branding; and how many were ordered.
Meg Munn: The then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister spent a total of £3,450 on 20,000 ballpoint pens with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister branding.
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister spent in the last 12 months on pens marked with the 'Office of the Deputy Prime Minister' title.
Meg Munn: The then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister spent £1,900 on pens marked with 'Office of the Deputy Prime Minister' in the 12 months to the 5 May 2006.
I've go a grand piano, but I can't play it.
ReplyDeleteI bet he uses them to write obscenities on lavatory walls.
ReplyDeleteI can just imagine the big fat oaf sat with his pants round his ankles in some government office scrawling words like
w***
and C*** ,
Gordon Brown s**** my c*** ,the pen clenched in his fist like a monkey holding a banana , he probably does this having finished reading the Daily Sport whilst sat on the pan.
Why does anyone in a Government department 'need' branded pens? I thought government departments where....er......how shall I put this, 'Government Departments', not organisations which need marketing gimmix such as 'branded pens'!
ReplyDeleteCan someone explain the logic of this, or am I just being thick.
What's wrong with a box of bix?
I'd have thought other obvious questions include why does he need 30,000+ pens or why, if in fact the questions refer to the same calendar year, are there two answers?
ReplyDeleteBut surely they are two separate questions - the first asks for the total, the second for the 12 months up to May 2006.
ReplyDeleteHardly surprising, therefore, that the first answer is higher.
Its the samr logic the BBC has in paying its people so called market rates. They are not in the market and should be paid civil service rates.
ReplyDeleteThis is all to do with 'Joined Up' Government. Prescott needs lots and lots of pens to practice his joined up, he's only semi-literate after all. He needs to be able to identify his pens amongst all the others at a glance, otherwise he'll be accused of nicking them.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I thought this government was spending vast amounts of our money of their friends in the computing industries in order to eliminate all that paper and, presumably, all those pens.
Great minds...
ReplyDeletehttp://kerroncross.blogspot.com/2006/09/question-of-day.html
They are probably prizes for whichever naive secretary can find the cocktail sausage.
ReplyDeleteIain old chap, I know you have a thing about hunting Prescott, but he will be gone within a year and this bit of news hardly constitutes a scandal!
ReplyDeleteMore new and ingenious ways for the NuLab government to waste taxpayers money. The ODPM branded pens could become a collectors item though, like the Charles Clarke Home Secretary branded mouse mat, or the Peter Mandelson DTI branded stress relever in the shape of a penis, or the Gordon Brown Treasury branded dart board with Tony's beaming face on it
ReplyDeleteIain, maybe you should take one of the pens and let us have your views on the Marr/Brown performance at the weekend
ReplyDeleteDoes this just mean that the rest was spent outside the 12 month period?
ReplyDeleteLooks fine to me:
ReplyDeleteOne question asks how much was spent in total without any sort of time frame attached. Which came to £3,450
The other asks how much was spent in 12 months, which was £1,900
So the other £1,640 was presumably spent outside of the 12 months to 5th May
I think they might need to clamp down a bit on people nicking from the stationary cupboard though :)
To be fair the two questions are different - one asks for expenditure in a set timeframe the other doesn't. So there's no inconsistency in the answers.
ReplyDeleteThat said I'm with everyone who questions why they were needed...
There is a slight technicality in that Spelman's answer relates to the last 12 months whereas one would presume Hands' question is more open-ended and could cover several years.
ReplyDeleteBut why does he need branded bloody pens? He is not running a company (thank God), it's a government department! Headed letterheads and comps slips - OK, but branded pens?
ReplyDeleteI suspect it is part of Labour's obsession with PR, and all part of their attempt to 'sell' bigger government, 'justifying' ever expanding officialdom by making us think than the ever increasing and always pointless growth in government, Whitehall and bureacracy is somehow essential to the success of every tiny detail of my life!
Incidently, since none of this bunch of muppetts have ever had a proper job (i.e. where there is an end of year accounting process where the accountant works out how much you have made/lost over the year), they clearly seem to think that all you need to look 'businesslike' is branded pens and a sharp suit!