If you don't expect too much from the Daily Wail you won't be disappointed. And in its own limited field, one can certainly acknowledge that it does this sort of thing supremely well. Thus does the paper report that the "Health Service chief who has ordered hospitals and trusts to save £20 billion, is blowing more than £5,000 a month on taxpayer-funded expenses".
This is Sir David Nicholson, who has racked up almost £16,000 in three months on restaurant bills, hotel costs, first-class train tickets and a chauffeur-driven car.
And it is not as if Nicholson cannot afford to pay his own way. He is receiving £210,000 a year salary, one of the highest in the public sector, and has accrued a gold-plated pension worth £1.6million that will pay out retirement sums of £100,000 a year.
That said, the great limitation of the Wail is that, while it brings to our attention these abuses, it has no remedy for them. Yet, add up the millions paid to these parasites (something the paper has never done) and there are probably several billions of public money being wasted.
These people then, in all sectors of public "service" are the real looters, and it is time we brought them to book. Referism is the beginnings of an answer. I would happily vote to reject a budget unless there was an undertaking to rein in public sector salaries.
That would have the makings of real power. At the moment, the looters are taking us for a ride and will continue to do so until we stop them. And it us that will have to stop them. No one else will - certainly not The Wail.
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