On Wed, 12 Oct 2016 10:13:05 +0100, Robin wrote:

On 12/10/2016 02:45, Recliner wrote:
Offramp wrote:
On Tuesday, 11 October 2016 17:03:14 UTC+1, Recliner wrote:
Offramp wrote:
It looks like the garden bridge is going to wither and die. That
£45,000,000 worth of prime compost will have to be sent to the EU.

More on the Garden Bridge. It seems Cameron was the ultimate backer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37616161

An opponent of the Garden Bridge said how the amount of money spent on it
so far is the equivalent of TWO Millennium (Wobbly) bridges!


Yes, I think that's right. Now, whether it gets built or not, it will be a
model of how *not* to do public sector procurements.


I suggest it will be more a model of how not to let "national treasures"
drive policies. Joanna Lumley stitched up Ministers so thoroughly over
letting gurkhas come to the UK[1] that I don't blame them from heading
for the bunkers when she backed another vanity project.

There are times I ponder the Treasury having power to task 00 agents


[1] Something the military and civil service had grave reservations
about all along because - as we have seen - the law of unintended
consequences has a wide reach.

I think the law of unintended consequences also applies with the
Gurkhas:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...s-2330107.html

Also, now that Gurkhas earn the same pay as UK recruits, there's less
of an economic case to keep recruiting them in the British Army. Now,
the army plans to recruit little more than 200 Gurkhas per year.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/224...-cuts-continue

“The Gurkhas have been at risk for a long time and, arguably, one of
the main reasons why they have survived for so long is because they
were cheap – the cost of a Gurkha brigade was half that of a British
brigade.

“Inevitably, after Joanna Lumley spearheaded what some consider an
ill-advised campaign to win Gurkhas equal pay and pensions, the Gurkha
Brigade has now been presented as a target.”