12/09/2013 00:00
TW
0

by RAY FLEMING
IT was William Ewart Gladstone, four times prime minister of Britain in the second half of the 19th century, who was once mocked for his “candle-end” economies in government spending. By admitting that the projected savings he announced yesterday were no more than “pinpricks” David Cameron risked a similar reaction. Whether the cuts he listed will achieve their objective of persuading the public that under his leadership government and politicians will set an example in economies remains to be seen. There is some sense in reducing the size of the House of Commons by 65 seats but it will take years for boundaries to be revised; cutting the PMs and ministers' salaries by five per cent hardly seems right if they are doing their already underpaid jobs properly.

One economy that Mr Cameron has apparently not considered is merging departments under a single minister rather than having one for each. This idea came to me last Thursday when I found that the Conservative MP Malcolm Rifkind had a long article in The Times on Afghanistan and an even longer one in the Guardian on Libya. In his time Mr Rifkind has been Minister of Defence and Foreign Secretary and surely could easily combine the posts. He certainly has more “depth of experience” than that claimed for the additional Old Etonian Sir George Young who Mr Cameron added to his Shadow Cabinet yesterday.