{"id":14887,"date":"2024-12-11T15:48:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T15:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=14887"},"modified":"2024-12-11T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T15:48:20","slug":"two-fingers-versus-the-iron-fist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=14887","title":{"rendered":"Two fingers versus the iron fist"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n<p>Yesterday Rachel Reeves, a woman whose start-free talents include doing poor chancellor of the exchequer impressions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/lloyds-banking-group-chancellor-government-rachel-reeves-chancellor-of-the-exchequer-b2661812.html\">announced<\/a> she would use an &#8220;<em>iron fist&#8221;<\/em> to squeeze out waste to achieve expenditure savings of 5% in government departments.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2024\/12\/Lisa_Nandy_Official_Cabinet_Portrait_July_2024_cropped_2.jpg\" alt=\"Lisa &#039;Two Fingers&#039; Nandy, DCMS Secretary of State\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14890\" \/>However, it appears that Ms Reeves&#8217; iron fist has started to show signs of rust and of being ignored by Whitehall departments as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/department-for-digital-culture-media-sport\">Department for Digital, Culture and Sports<\/a> (DCMS) has already stuck two fingers up at the chancellor, as shown by revelations concerning its stationery supplies.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>As <a href=\"thenational.scot\/news\/24786965.uk-government-splashes-1200-two-folders\/\">reported by Scotland&#8217;s National<\/a> today, the DCMS has recently bought two ministerial folders from luxury leather goods manufacturer <a href=\"https:\/\/barrowhepburnandgale.com\/\">Barrow Hepburn &amp; Gale<\/a> at a cost of \u00a3594 each. The government is a regular customer of the company, as is the Mountbatten-Windsor family and its hangers-on.\r\n\r\n<\/p><p>Nandy&#8217;s folders cost a grand total of \u00a31,118. The National helpfully points out that similar leather-bound document holders are available in the House of Commons shop for just \u00a330. The excuse for spending the amount demanded by Barrow Hepburn &amp; Gale is to &#8220;<em>enhance<\/em>&#8220;. This enhancement would appear to be at the root of a well-known old adage: <em>a fool and his money are soon parted<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>In a clear case of government by gaslight, a spokesperson has stated it is &#8220;entirely focused on ensuring every pound of spending represents the best value for taxpayers, while also increasing investment in our public services and delivering on key growth projects&#8221;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday Rachel Reeves, a woman whose start-free talents include doing poor chancellor of the exchequer impressions, announced she would use an &#8220;iron fist&#8221; to squeeze out waste to achieve expenditure savings of 5% in government departments. However, it appears that Ms Reeves&#8217; iron fist has started to show signs of rust and of being ignored [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,32,15],"tags":[36,16,22,33,20],"class_list":["post-14887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","category-media","category-politics","tag-comment","tag-english-usage","tag-language","tag-media-2","tag-politics-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14887"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14900,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14887\/revisions\/14900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}