Mess in Scotland and Wales sums up EVERYTHING that is wrong with our country - John Redwood

The truth is the devolved government of Scotland with the SNP in government and the devolved government of Wales with Labour in office have failed to run good public services, have put taxes up and have gone in for expensive posturing.

Far from giving their parts of the UK a faster growth rate or more prosperity, they have held their areas back with more regulations, more interventions and bad management. Welsh health waiting lists and waits are longer than in England.

School standards in Scotland are below England. Wales is literally grinding to a halt as 20 mph limits are introduced to make it slower to get to work or make a delivery.

The devolved governments are good at playing politics, blaming the UK government for anything that is poor and claiming credit for anything good, whatever the cause and wherever the initiative and money came from.

The poor performance and big overhead of the devolved governments is reflected in all too many of the UK and devolved quangos, so called independent bodies.

They do not even have the redeeming virtue of devolved governments that they are accountable to electors who can change their management if they annoy.

We have a nationalised Post Office which imprisoned some of its decent staff on trumped up charges and lost taxpayers a shedload of money.

We have a Bank of England that gave us 11% inflation whilst promising us it would stay around 2%.

It has now sent us a bill so far for £49bn for its excessive losses on buying and selling bonds. It is taking over our budgets as it sends the bills for its losses to taxpayers and may lose tens of billions more.

We have Ofwat that has not managed to regulate water companies to combine affordable bills with more pipe capacity to avoid so many sewage spills .

There is the Environment Agency who has allowed large building programmes on flood plain leading to more flooding and who failed to man the pumps and clear the ditches in some crucial areas.

We have HS2 Ltd, a government owned company, unable to build a new railway line to within three times the original budget or to timetable so the government has had to abandon part of the promised scheme.

I am all in favour of consulting and using good experts. I want a doctor who knows about medicine and an economist who knows how to control inflation and promote growth.

What the country does not need is bodies packed with experts who get it wrong or hold views many of the public dislike. The Bank of England all my life has allowed or promoted boom/bust cycles by wayward monetary policy.

The nationalised industries have specialised in making big losses and sending taxpayers the bill. We have too much government, competing to take our freedoms away.

The mess of traffic policies in Wales with the devolved government pursuing its anti vehicle and driver policy sums up what goes wrong when government runs amok.