'We need to scrap the Net Zero fantasy! Labour's quangos are the blind leading the blind' - Howard Cox

A Quango is a semi-public, unelected administrative body outside the civil service that receives financial support from the government, which then makes senior appointments to it. They are usually ‘jobs for the boys’!

It’s in their DNA to award left-wing mates. Usually, millionaire Champagne socialists head up tax-payer-funded bodies that are already biased toward the government’s policies to give the illusion that expert advice is being afforded.

Politicians of all persuasions are frankly incapable of making decisions without the need to have overpaid special advisory teams holding their hands.

The electorate voted for the politician of their choice, not a bunch of inexperienced work-shy academics flooded with Government cash to massage the Ministers’ egos.

Before the general election, Labour relentlessly courted business leaders such as Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Sir Douglas Flint, John Caudwell, and Sir John Kingman, persuading them to switch their support away from the Tories by allegedly promising them advisory positions.

The Labour Party has already started announcing RIO, a “Regulatory Innovation Office,” a kind of all things to all men-quango that will supervise all the other rule-makers it plans to establish. This new body will be symbolic of how Starmer’s regime will reign.

Labour will use our overworked spooks to manage the small boats crisis and make Britain's shores 'hostile territory' for people smugglers; Keir Starmer has announced plans to create a quango-esque 'Border Security Command'.

The Adam Smith Institute has already reported 27 Quangos within the NHS. Will this number be reduced under Wes Streeting’s ministerial management? Not on your nelly, no, they will increase in number.

Remarkably, according to Stephen Wigglesworth, a political commentator, the "Health Department has eight quangos interfering, or helping, depending on one’s point of view, in NHS England’s business: the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, National Information Board, NHS Business Services Authority, NHS Digital, NHS Improvement, NHS Litigation Authority, and the two review boards for NHS staff pay and doctors/dentists."

With all these administrative advisory groups, patients must be being prevented from getting the healthcare they are entitled to.

Of course, this new Labour government's big flagship quango is to set up a new publicly owned champion, Great British Energy, to ostensibly give us absolute energy security from foreign dictators.

Labour claims Great British Energy will be owned by the British people, built by the British people and benefit the British people. It will be headquartered in Scotland, invest in clean energy across our country, and make the UK a world leader in floating offshore wind, nuclear power, and hydrogen.

So why do we need an unaccountable quango that will cost the taxpayer £8.5 billion and essentially will make big money for subsidised project suppliers?

The basic premise of this body is built around the costliest policy Labour is hell-bent on following: Net Zero! As a consequence, I am concerned about the impact on economic growth and this new quango’s ability to deliver value for money.

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To me, quangos are like the blind leading the blind. Labour will create dozens more, costing tens of millions of pounds as part of their “bloating” in the size of the state.

I have not even mentioned Labour’s promised ‘Office for Value for Money’ or their National Wealth Fund. They have pledged an independent Integrity and Ethics Commission and will introduce a new body called Skills England.

Plus, a nationwide network of Climate Export Hubs, Community Justice Payback Boards, and a Mission Delivery Board will have a role akin to the Climate Change Committee.

So, there you have it: We will spend our hard-earned cash on Labour's exploding number of organisational crutches, all of which sound fluffy and cuddly. But I promise that none of them will positively change our lives. You have been warned that this minority Government will hurt us all, big time!

The pain will not reward us with any positive benefits whatsoever. One quango I will support, though. An anti-woke team of common-sense advisors that will deliver growth put more money in our pocket, and scrap the Net Zero fantasy!