HOW TO BANKRUPT BRITAIN OVER BREAKFAST

Leo McKinstry subjects the BBC's Today programme to an audit,

and discovers that in one week alone, its supplicants would add 10p to the standard rate of income tax

JOHN HUMPHRYS, the presenter of the BBC's Today programme, is understand- ably indignant at allegations of left-wing bias made last weekend by Jonathan Aitken. Aitken claimed that Humphrys' decision to chair a protest rally against the Government's 'education cuts' reflects his true political allegiance. Humphrys' imperi- ous response — that he had exactly the same journalistic role at the education rally as he has every morning on the Today pro- gramme — is absolutely correct.

For the rally adopted the spirit and format of the Today programme, with opposition MPs, trade unionists and pres- sure group representa- tives all trooping to the microphone to moan to Humphrys about 'lack of basic resources' and `chronic government underfunding.' The voice of the taxpayer, who would have to meet the costs of this unceasing barrage of demands for public money, was ignored by the rally, just as it is rarely heard on the Today programme.

Indeed, all that was miss- ing was an interview with Gillian Shephard live from the Radio Car, with Humphrys repeatedly asking her to justify the Government's refusal to meet the protesters' demands.

But those who have fulminated against Jonathan Aitken's utterances — some have said he is motivated by personal spite against Today's Anna Ford, others that he is trying to deflect attention from the Con- servatives' problems — have also missed a vital point. Aitken is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is therefore his job to ensure that public spending is kept under control. Like all his predecessors, Labour and Conservative, he must be growing tired of the litany of requests for public funding which are paraded across the Radio Four airwaves every morning. He knows that Britain would be bankrupt within a few months if he treated seriously these siren voices of profligacy.

A fascinating report from the Social Market Foundation*, published this Thurs- day, reveals for the first time the implica- tions for both public expenditure and, consequently, the taxpayer, of the tidal wave of funding demands made on the Today programme, BBC Radio's current affairs flagship. Researchers at the Foun- dation selected a week at random — Mon- day 20 February to Saturday 25 February — and analysed all the interviews on the Today programme during that period, putting cost estimates against the numer- ous demands for government action or changes in public policy.

This was not a week when the economy or public expenditure were high on the political agenda. The dominant story of the week was the publication of the Northern Irish framework document. Nevertheless, by the time Messrs Naughtie and Humphrys laid down their headsets on Sat- urday morning, the total sum of demands made on the public purse during those six days had reached an astonishing £15 bil- lion. Those who listen to the Today pro- gramme each morning and, over breakfast, nod sympapetieally at each interviewee espousing his or her worthy cause, might choke on their toast when they discover that this crippling sum would add 10p to the standard rate of annual income tax, a 40 per cent rise on current levels, in one week.

If this extravagant performance was replicated over a year of the Today programme, the total increase in pub- lic expenditure would be a nightmarish £780 bil- lion, more than three times the current level of government spending. As for the taxpayer, the Social Market Founda- tion points out that 'if each week produced a similar ledger to the undeclared costs [in the week chosen], it would take less than two months for the conse- quential effect on income tax to exceed 100 per cent'. When some government ministers complain that the Today programme puts them in an impossible position, they are talking the truth.

It cannot be argued that this estimate from the right-of-centre SMF is a wild guess, exaggerated for political purposes. In fact the researchers have been cautious in analysing the demands and, as far as possi- ble, have used official statistics as the basis for their figures. They have, moreover, left out from the £15 billion total some claims which were so sweeping or so general that their 'stratospherically high' costs could not be appraised in any meaningful way. The accusation of wildness should rather be lev- elled against pressure groups, lobbyists and politicians who make their demands as if government money — taxpayers' money like the universe, is infinite. The £15 billion was made up of a range of items. Some were explicit claims which contained a specific sum, such as the demand from both the Labour and Liberal Democrat education spokesmen, David Blunkett and Don Foster respectively, that the Government fully fund the teachers' pay settlement, calculated by the Depart- ment of Education to cost £270 million. Don Foster also attacked changes in the way the Government distributes its grant to local authorities. Retaining the present, arrangements, as he advocated, would cost, according to the Department of the Envi- ronment, at least £950 million. Still with local government — for whom the taxpayer is often a figure of either derision or irrele- vance — Frank Thompson, the leader of Gloucestershire County Council, demand- ed an extra £18 million to meet 'the real needs of his county'.

The bulk of items were less direct claims in which the cost to the Exchequer is implicit, but no less frightening. For instance, a report from the International Labour Organisation, one of the arms of the notoriously prodigal United Nations, called for 'international action to enforce basic labour standards'. The SMF has assumed that this has a similar cost to the implementation in this country of the European Social Chapter, which, at a high- ly conservative estimate, would be £3 bil- lion. The report also wanted to see `international action to assist the least developed nations'. The SMF has taken this to be a restatement of the long-held UN policy that industrial nations could commit at least 0.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product to overseas aid. Such a commitment would cost the taxpayer another £3 billion, since our overseas aid budget currently stands at 0.3 per cent of GDP. Other elements of the ILO report are so vast that their costs are unquantifi- able, such as an 'active labour market pro- gramme', whose elements include 'wage subsidies and easy credit terms for new enterprises', 'public works', and supply-side measures 'to encourage young people into education'. (I thought our universities were always complaining about overcrowding). At times the authors of the report almost sound like John Maynard Keynes on prozac, demanding commitments to `expansionary macro-economic policies' and a radical reform of the International Monetary System.

On Friday 24 February, the Today pro- gramme covered another report, vast in scope and demands, issued by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which said that the `Government is not doing enough' (a phrase beloved of Today interviewees) to support family life. Demands in the report included increases in childcare facilities, measures to make it easier for parents to balance their responsibilities, and (inevitably) 'more counselling for parents whose relationships are under stress'. The SMF, using Treasury and Department of Employment figures, has estimated the cost of these claims to be £5.75 billion.

The next day, Saturday 25 February, another pressure group, Church Action on Poverty, went even further in its Utopian extravagance. Using the 'Thought for Today' slot, which these days makes the prodigal son seem parsimonious, the Action group called for 'a decent standard of living for all', whatever that may mean. While admitting that this item is so 'vague and vast' in its scope that it is impossible to cost reliably, the SMF report highlights some of the public spending increases that may be involved. An increase of £5 in weekly income support, for example, would cost almost £1.5 billion, a £5 per week increase in child benefit £3.25 billion, and a national minimum wage anything between £5 billion and £20 billion, depending on the level at which it was introduced. None of these amounts, however, has been included in the grand weekly total of £15 billion.

During the week, there were several `His drumming's improving.' smaller items, such as the British Rail unions' demand for more money for the refurbishment of trains and new safety measures, estimated by the SMF to cost at least £60 million. The Tidy Britain Group called on other London boroughs to follow the example set by Westminster Council in street-cleaning, which would add £540 mil- lion to their expenditure. That most vocif- erous of pressure groups, Shelter, condemned plans to remove mortgage sup- port for the unemployed, a move which could save the taxpayer £200 million.

You are about as likely to hear Gerry Adams singing 'Rule Britannia' as you are to find a Labour MP or pressure group representative on the Today programme talking of 'perfectly adequate government funding'. But then, neither opposition politicians nor pressure groups are respon- sible for finding the money that would be needed to meet their incessant demands. They don't have to worry that every increase of £1.5 billion in public expendi- ture adds 1p onto the standard tax rate. `Airtime Without Responsibility' (to mis- quote Stanley Baldwin) might be another title for the SMF report.

The Today programme's rolling festival of financial irresponsibility might not be so serious if it was not for the fact that it allows the pressure group representatives — who are not accountable to the elec- torate — and opposition politicians — who have failed to appeal to the electorate for the last 20 years — to set the political agenda. Government ministers, whose tax policies, at least until 1993, have won pub- lic approval in the last four elections, are constantly forced onto the defensive and made to explain their damaging parsimony.

The rumbling crisis over schools funding provides a striking illustration of this. For weeks, Today listeners have been treated to a catalogue of moans about the Govern- ment's refusal to fund the teachers' pay award. This decision will cause the destruc- tion of state education in Britain, we are told. As the wailing reached a peak this week, representatives of a group called Face (Fight Against Education Cuts: yet another example of the dreary modern obsession with acronyms) could be heard across Radio Four, warning of the immi- nent educational apocalypse. And then, providing Face with even more BBC-style credibility, John Humphrys performed his Today routine at its education rally in cen- tral London.

It's not as if a Conservative minister is the only alternative voice to Face and its friends in the Labour and Liberal Demo- crat parties. There are many outside the Cabinet who think that the real problem in the state education system is not 'lack of resources' (the Today mantra) but the use to which those resources are put.

Even more important, the needs of the taxpayer could be given much greater weight in the Today programme. In view of the hair-raising message of the SMF report, that a single week of Today's demands could increase the basic annual tax rate by lop, I am submitting a modest proposal for reform to the BBC. Just as there is a convention on the Today pro- gramme that every time a politician is interviewed we have to hear from his oppo- site number, so in future, every time a demand is made for an increase in public expenditure, we should be allowed to hear the counter- opinion from the British Tax-. payers Association, a real group whose wise frugality has been ignored for far too long.

Of course, the Labour Party and the pressure groups will not like this proposal. United by their proclaimed belief that, whatever the problem, 'the Government must act' or, when the Government does act, it's always 'too little, too late', they will hate to be challenged by someone who, at every turn, will remind them that the Exchequer is not a bottomless pit.

In fact, the symbiosis of the Labour Party and the world of pressure groups — elo- quently demonstrated during the current education controversy — operates on a number of levels, beyond their mutual addiction to public money. When I worked for Labour at Westminster, I saw how pres- sure groups can influence both the views and policies of Labour MPs. They play a crucial role in briefing MPs, who can be surprisingly ignorant about issues in the news, even political ones. 'I'm on Any Questions this Friday. The Government's Homelessness Review is bound to come up. Can you get the line from Shelter? And those prison riots. Where were they again? Safeways? Can you get me something from the Prison Reform Trust?' a Labour MP might ask his or her researcher.

As a result of briefings from pressure groups, Labour MPs' performances are often littered with ill-founded statistics usually exaggerated by the pressure group to highlight their own case — and with fatuous comments like: 'According to Action on Allergy, Britain is now bottom of the European league for government spending on allergy research.' This sort of nonsense sometimes extends from the BBC Today studio to the chamber of the Com- mons itself, where the number four in Labour's social security team might well be heard to ask: 'Why won't the Minister lis- ten to the experts like the International Stress Management Association and set up an independent public enquiry into this problem?' In some respects the pressure groups have almost become an alternative civil service for the parliamentary Labour Party, providing the sort of administrative and research support which the Govern- ment has in Whitehall.

Some Labour MPs are so intimidated by pressure groups that they even allow them to dictate the development of Labour poli- cies, no matter what the cost. Under the guise of 'consultation' during policy review exercises, meetings are held with pressure group leaders and documents are submit- ted for comment (approval). It is a brave shadow minister who is willing to incur the wrath of a pressure group by rejecting its advice. He could find himself condemned in the press, and forced to answer ques- tions from constituency activists, who are often the most fervent of pressure groupies.

The influence of such pressure groups in the Labour Party is hardly surprising, when it is recognised how closely intertwined are their personnel. Large numbers of former Labour Westminster researchers are employed by pressure groups. Many Labour MPs, such as George Galloway at War on Want or Tessa Jowell at Mind, have been deeply involved in such groups. Several leaders of lobbying organisations, such as Jennifer Edwards at the National Campaign for the Arts or Chris Pond at the Low Pay Unit, have aspired to become Labour MPs.

While there is mutual convenience in the nexus between lobby groups and the Labour Party, it will cause real problems if Labour wins the next election. A successful government and a dynamic enterprise economy — Tony Blair's frequently expressed hope — are unlikely to come from a party dominated by MPs who, like their soulmates in the pressure groups, are pathologically disposed to demand ever increasing expenditure of public money and who regard government intervention as the solution to every problem.

The monetary rectitude of Gordon Brown will be hard-pressed to withstand the orgy of spending demands with which he will be confronted as Chancellor. And he will not want to go the despatch box every few weeks to announce yet another increase in taxation to meet them. When he's at the Treasury, perhaps he will be attacking the bias on the Today pro- gramme, as pressure groups start to com- plain of the 'penny-pinching' Blair government. He may then be glad to have that taxpayers' representative permanently ensconced in the Today studio.

And in the meantime perhaps Mr Humplirys could treat the arguments of socialist pressure groupies with as much asperity as he shows — rightly — to gov- ernment ministers.

* Costing the public policy agenda (A week of the Today programme). Social Market Foundation, 20 Queen Anne's Gate, London SWI.