Articles

Firstly, from the Mail:

Benefit claims by Eastern Europeans have almost trebled in the past year, official figures show.

The cost of the payouts - to almost 112,000 migrants - is put at £125million a year.

The Home Office figures mean that one in six of an estimated 683,000 Eastern European incomers is living off the state to some extent.

A year ago, only 42,620 were claiming benefits.

Critics say that the welfare bill will rise further because 700 more migrants arrive every day from former Soviet Bloc states.

So, one sixth of East Europeans are on benefits. And it means that another central tenet in the 'economic-benefit' argument for mass immigration from Eastern Europe, falls apart.

Secondly, from the Telegraph:

New Labour has presided over the creation of a quango superstate that spends nearly £170 billion a year - more than five times the budget of the Ministry of Defence.

The figure has been revealed by an investigation into the accounts of nearly 900 agencies, advisory bodies, monitoring boards and other public bodies that are all termed "quangos".

The study also shows massive pay rises over the past decade for those running a slew of agencies, including the Coal Authority, the British Waterways Board and British Nuclear Fuels.

Last year, Ken Boston, the head of the Qualification and Curriculum Authority, received £273,000 in annual pay and benefits in kind.

In 1998, his predecessor received £43,563. Trevor Beaumont, head of The Tote, was paid £369,000 last year. In 1998, an official received £115,000 to do the same job.

Two years before Labour came to power, Gordon Brown spoke publicly of the need for a "bonfire of the quangos". His party's 1997 General Election manifesto sharply criticised the Tories for allowing their number and cost to soar.

A suggestion, then, for Dave: follow through Gordon's excellent idea for a bonfire of quangos, and you could go into the next election promising to balance the books, increase spending on the health service and cut taxes.