Incapability Brown

All Hail the Chieftain

So it's official; Knacker of the Yard is back on the case of that serial offender, the Labour Party.

It may be that there may be the slightest glimmer of a smile on the face of some at Labour HQ. They will doubtlessly hope that the treatment the treatment of Ian Blair will be reciprocated in deciding whether actions were criminal, incompetent by design, or incompetent by accident.

There are already signs that the die hards of the left know the game is up. On another blog I saw in the comments left by one such pitiful creature whose proud boast was that even if recent polling data (properly treated with caution with those on the right) that the Conservatives may have a 13% lead in the popular vote was replicated at a general election, that a 20 seat majority for NuNuLab could be the outcome. He may well be right, but it's not something I'd be proud of even if I had the required mental insufficiencies to be a Labour supporter.

To be honest, on the facts alone, though serious, the latest Brownian debacle is the least serious charge standing against this group of pointless muppets. It is its position at the bottom of a long list of failures that makes it so significant, as does the general reaction of the media.

The only game in town over PMQs was whether it was Vince Cable or David Cameron who landed the heaviest punches on a Prime Minister who came into the ring with a large number of standing eight counts already counting against him and already knowing his only weak counterpunch would be to reel of a few discredited statistics.

On this matter I think the best contribution, quietly delivered as it was, was overlooked. Cameron's final assault was delivered well after an average start, and was harsh, but at the same time reflected the general mood of the media, and in that, for once, in all probability the instincts of all sentient life; Vince Cable's 'Mr Bean' joke was snappier, and drew the most instinctive support.

I though, give the trophy to someone that I had to abuse on the only other occasion he has drifted in to my political conciousness, Mr Michael Ancram.

He asked a simple question:

Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes) (Con): In the face of the recent crises that have beset the Prime Minister, particularly this last one, he has told us that he learned about them only at the last possible moment. Why does he think that members of his Government—and, indeed, of the party that he purports to lead—are apparently so intent on keeping him in the dark?

Source: Hansard

Quite, and let us not dismiss the idea that Brown was completely unaware of what was going on, pathetic as it is, out of hand entirely, for there is a reality that many, who have worked in the management structures of large organisations, will all recognise.

It is simply this, that one of the most identifying hallmarks of a bad manager is that he or she becomes a person that his immediate juniors feel they must hide every personal or organisational defect from. It's a pattern of behaviour discussed at length in every serious MBA course in the land and the 'villain' in every discussion is the person higher up the corporate food chain. Seeing Brown's ritual humiliation of West and Miliband is a better case study than any dusty textbook of why this is the case; a bad manager, by the very nature of who they are, engenders such behaviour.

I doubt, but do not entirely discredit, the theory that Brown was only aware of the manifest incompetence of his juniors days (and 'days', even in the singular, is, in of itself unacceptable) before it became public knowledge. Yet, even if this remarkable proposition is accepted it may raise more questions than it answers about Brown's fitness for office.

Management is a tough job. It's not something I was born to, and it's something I struggled with and sometimes failed on. I'm not Mother f***ing Theresa, but I did realise the overall failures were in no small part my own; I learned, and I moved on, and worked out how the world really works.

Sadly I think our Prime Minister would consider this beneath his dignity and, if we are to believe the 'I knew nothing' line he should, in any sensible society, realise that even the couple of years that our constitutional settlement will allow him before his name only has currency as part of a joke, is two years too many.

Getting into the Spirit

Blogging has been a little bit light of late due to paying work commitments and a bit of the general miasma that seems to have struck a couple of the authors of other blogs I enjoy. Now, refreshed by an invigorating couple of weeks of almost daily bad news for a rotten government I feel ready to spout forth my usual drivel again.

I'm a bit loathed to start with a Christmas tale, being very much a fully paid up member of the 'Christmas starts too bloody early' brigade and somewhat of a bah-humbug even when it does come in its proper time. That said I was quite amused to see the transformation at my local purveyor of tobacco products in the Village.

My local off-licence has recently been taken over by a group of, I believe Sikh, gentlemen who have improved the place immeasurably, not only in terms of the merchandise on offer, but also a genuine old-school welcoming attitude to their customers.

It is always 'service with a smile', but perhaps never more so than tonight as they were in stitches putting up their Christmas decorations, and very proud of their dressing of the cigarette display.

Little scenes like this, along with the selection of unhealthy but tasty range of Polish food the same shop stocks, is the positive side of multiculturalism if one exists, enjoying the positives in a festival that you do not celebrate, but are happy to join in the spirit of. It's a stark contrast to the po faced multiculturalism of the left, where all that makes us different must be suppressed, at least if it is from the more entrenched part of the indigenous culture, for fear of an offence that is never intended and very rarely taken.

I do believe this is a lesson that has, in the greater part, been learned, but I still hold out little hope that I will get to the New Year without hearing of ridiculous act of stupidity from one of the last remaining bastions of dogmatic, counter-intuitive, irrational leftism.

I don't believe, so I won't be shocked or offended, and even if I did I would not be. In either case though, I will be, or would be, saddened to see such ridiculous behaviour.

The Devil in the Detail

I'd really hoped to have a bit of a pop at the Met's much ridiculed boss, Sir Iain Blair, again. The problem is that the mainstream media appears to have let me down here, in it's coverage of the Metropolitan Police Authority's lukewarm vote of confidence in this arrogant buffoon.

Both Sky and the BBC web coverage of the outcome makes use of the same, or rather two rather similar quotes from Blair. Here we have the truth according to the the BBC:

[Blair] added: "I'm pleased to have the backing of the majority of the police authority. I don't in any way minimise the tragedy that is the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. "

Source: BBC News

OK, reasonable enough, though the nature of the make-up of the MPA doesn't exactly bear up to close scrutiny, as discussed over at The Croydonian, but in this case Blair, for all his faults would have been making a factually accurate statement, even if it did mean his was basking in immensely faint praise.

More worrying was the version over at Sky where the same quote comes out as:

"I am pleased to have the backing of the public. This does not in any way minimise the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. Now I am pleased I can get back to my job."

Source: Sky News

I've no real way of knowing which of the two statements is actually what Blair said, but somehow the Sky version seems to better fit the Blair we know and loathe.

It's bad enough that we have a serial incompetent in charge of the country's most important police force, but the growing signs that we in the capital may be being policed by someone who may well, if Sky version is to believed, completely delusional is even more worrying.

The comments I heard from a couple of PCs on the train recently on some Blair news in Metro would suggest that Blair's support even within the force isn't that solid beyond the managerial layer that immediately surrounds him, let alone amongst the public at large, unless I misheard the officers and they actually said 'anchor'.

Technical Notes #1 - Personal Data

How NuLab Sees You

OK, it's just 24 billion one day and a mere 25 million the next, but you couldn't say that life in the treasury team is exactly dull at the moment.

IT is boring. I earn my living from it, and at times it is a good living, but there is precious little joy in it. I can't get excited by the Wintel v Mac v Linux kind of debates that crop up from time to time on blogs and the like, and to be honest I could probably make a good argument on any given side of that sort of thing that I was dumped on. I write this on an amazingly good value Wintel laptop, I'm amazed by the 'bang for bucks' I can get out of the linuxy hosting platform I do the Facebook stuff on for £50 a year, and Apple stuff, at the very least, looks as if it deserves a place in design museums around the world from the moment it is released. I like it all, I hate it all

I normally steer well clear of the whole subject unless I get 'tired and emotional'. For all of that, I think to most people with experience of large 'customer' (and the term was used in the Commons about those on HMCE's systems even if it sounds a bit perverse - surely HMCE is the customer) databases there must be several points in Darling's explanation of the whole affair that must sound shocking.

My own company holds copies of databases, some with several million records of individuals that are used to help respectable companies develop and maintain their systems. It is more likely than not that anybody reading this article would appear on one of them. Ask me which though and I could not tell you, because, before they were given to me, any piece of information that could possibly identify you was removed. No addresses, everyone lives at 'A Street, B Town, C County, XX1 1XX' and you are called 'M/s Customer XXXXXX', your date of birth is the '01/01/1900' and your National Insurance Number is 'AB123456C'. Even this is only handed over after a debate over the necessity of such a handover and the terms under which I received this copy would be clearly defined and make me contractually obliged to treat even this obfuscated data with the same respect as if I was an employee of the company who legitimately hold the original version.

I could not bypass this. Systems such as those I work on, let alone those overpriced government solutions do not have, as a rule, a menu option that says 'copy all customer data to 2 CDs'. The hypothetical junior civil servant at whose door the fault the latest fiasco can supposedly be laid would have had to have asked for specialist help to produce this data extract. If I went I looking for such an extract with my own customers, the relevant person would have said 'you must be joking'. This is not surprising, I'm only an external consultant, but they would have refused to do it for almost any in-house employee, and, especially in the case of FSA regulated companies, would not even have done it for a director of that company without formal written approval. Even the most junior of database administrators in most companies these days have awareness of the sensitivity of personal data, and have specific authorities granted to refuse to perform certain tasks, even from those whose nominal seniority far exceeds their own.

I encounter this on a daily basis, because it breeds a culture where even much more reasonable requests routinely cause a lot more hassle than they really merit. Fundamentally though, the attitude that gives rise to this kind of irritation also ensures that what happened, apparently so easily, within civil service circles, would be much less likely to occur in large, but not national government scale bodies.

I cannot construct any remotely reasonable scenario in my own mind where the single 'junior civil servant' is anything other than a politically convenient myth, and that there is a bigger problem in terms of the culture surrounding the handling of personal data than even Darling could admit in his humiliating admissions today. While it might superficially sound like something from the pointy tinfoil hat brigade, I cannot really imagine that there would be anything less than half a dozen people responsible directly for this failing. I do not cry 'conspiracy' but rather point to an institutional mindset that would allow these events to happen and, from that cultural failing, the Darling and, perhaps technically in this case his junior ministers, cannot maintain the distance that they currently desperately seek.

I honestly don't know which is the case, but there was little in today's revelations that inspired confidence. Darling waffled on about how he was 'concerned' that all 25 million records were transferred to the auditors when, as he implied, they couldn't possibly audit more than a dozen or so individual cases, which stands in stark contrast to the actual request for anonymized data, which suggests a wholly different kind of higher level statistical analysis.

There is, at least, some more than cold comfort in the whole debacle. I will at least know that the line of 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' next time I argue about the merits or otherwise of ID cards and the National Identity Register can only come from a certifiable imbecile. The case for proceeding with this scheme is now not so much dead, as hung drawn and quartered, and burnt on the brazier afterwards for good measure.

It would be the act of a fool to trundle on down the path we find ourselves on in this regard and while, it is true, it would appear that we have just such a fool occupying Number 10, the sounds of his fragile coalition on this measure disintegrating are music to my ears.

The Great Orifices of State

Donkeys led by...erm

To have a cabinet minister, even a senior one, find him or herself in a spot of political difficulty is hardly new and if I stretch my mind back far enough I can remember several instances of two simultaneously facing down the pen barrel of a hostile media.

My political memory does not extend back as far as some, but within my own recollection I cannot think of any other time where all four office holders of the four great offices of state have ended so far up into their neck in the brown sticky stuff in such a short space of time.

To see a Chancellor of the Exchequer face Commons humiliation twice in as many days is a pretty extraordinary, but when you consider how close this followed upon the heels of the Home Secretary's similar experience, it has been a remarkable enough period. Then you throw in the public humiliation of the Foreign Secretary by the holder of the most senior post of all, himself subjected to almost daily assaults on his fitness for the job.

To make a defence for any one is just about tenable, but overall the stench of the whole is even stronger than that of its component parts. It might be a smell of decay, not malice, but please God, don't let anyone believe any of self-selected tags such as 'competent' and 'talented' for the current Government ever again.

What may happen to polling data for the other parties in the coming weeks is hard to say, but I wouldn't mind betting that the raw data on the 'Best able to handle...' questions in polls over the next few months will not make happy reading for those sufficiently credulous to have any belief whatsoever left in Team Brown. These perceptions that can be a springboard to major change come general election time and that really can't come quickly enough.

Another Non-Policy?

Sacrificial Victim?

Much of the comment on the last weekend's BBC politics output has rightly focused on the 'Calamitygate' story surrounding the Chris Huhne's bid for the leadership leadership for that eternal political calamity, the Liberal Democrat party.

I would have to admit to enjoying the acrimonious exchanges; real Punch and Judy stuff from the party that thinks we are all stupid enough to believe their baseless assertions that they are above that kind of thing. If anything, it actually fell short of the level of intellectual warfare to count as Punch and Judy politics, being more like a scrap between two five year olds watching the show at a seaside stall, which, after all, could be said to be a metaphor fore the role of the Lib Dems in UK National politics more generally. No more Mr Nice Party then. Good, they never really were; no worse than the other two main parties certainly, but not the morally superior force they manage to hoodwink the gullible into believing them to be.

My eye, or rather ear lest I thought to be a very sick puppy, was more taken by the appearance of the ever strange Ruth Kelly with Andrew Marr earlier in the day and what she had to say, or rather not say about plans for airport style security at major railway stations. It was only a few days since I posted my thoughts, for what they are worth, on this ridiculous plan and from the obvious downgrading by of the scheme by Kelly from a headline initiative to an 'option not to be ruled out' it would appear that the government may finally have thought through the implications of the scheme too.

This type of oft repeated story, especially under the current government, leaves the likes of myself, who has never worked inside the political bubble, scratching my head about how such daft ideas ever come to see the light of the day in the first place.

Ignorant of any real insight of the process I am forced to speculate that it must run something like this, with the only known facts highlighted in bold:

• Policy announcement - 3 days: Weekend of media criticism of visionless government


• P - 2 days: PM summons meeting of top secret eye watering initiative team at Number 10, memo sent to all cabinet ministers demanding ideas. Lists of remaining civil liberties that can be dispensed with and things that could be banned circulated.


• P - 1 day: CabinetPM selects least stupid idea from unknown minister, who is informed that it was the PM's idea.


• P day: PM delivers weak speech to House of Commons to announce his idea and is derided by opposition MPs who suspect the policy is unmitigated crap.


• P + 5 minutes: All intelligent life outside the Labour party realise that the policy is indeed crap.


• P + 1 day: Print media splash lurid headlines about PM's bold initiative, some though already comment on inside pages on the fact that the policy is crap.


• P + 2 days: Even slower elements of the media realise that the policy is crap, as do more sophisticated Labour MPs without ministerial sinecure.


• P + 3 days: PM informed that the policy is in fact crap and angrily summons the overworked Labour crap policy disposal team.


• P + 4 days: Expendable minister dispatched to non-announce the strategic non-advancement of a policy, in place of the Home Secretary whose political health was too weak to allow her to deal with what was fundamentally a Home Office issue.


• P + 5 days: PM slinks off back into hiding ahead of what he, unlike Parliament, already knows will be a week of disastrous news for his disintegrating government. Next eye catching initiative placed in production, illiberal line failed, so try banning something next time....plastic bags?

...and so the weekly cycle begins again. Well, this kind of knee jerk rubbish has to come from somewhere.

Ils Sont Tous Hors-jeu!

Best at the Pub, not on the box

This looks set to be a very challenging afternoon. It would appear that my only option for coverage of Biarritz v Saracens match in the Coupe Heineken will be a single web radio station en français.

I normally don't mind a bit of practice for my somewhat suspect language skills, but I've got a suspicion that a live commentary may prove more than a little challenging; after all it's hard enough to understand half of the BBC rugby commentary team when the action hots up.

Normally I like to have some other sporting action on the TV in the background, unfortunately this is not an option with ITV showing the pub game of darts, while that last bastion of taxpayer funded quality television, the BBC, is showing, erm...darts. Unfucking believable, obviously neither has rights to Heineken cup coverage, but have Sky and Setana really cornered the market to such an extent that both our main terrestrial networks are reduced a double helping of darts.

Perhaps, to be fair to the BBC, they felt that their sports audience needed something to calm them down after the excitement of last week's bowls coverage. To be fair to both, at least it's not the triple helping of horse racing that you can sometimes be subjected to on a Saturday.

I'd even settle for soccer at times like this.

Update H/T: The head is hurting a little bit, but there was quite a tribute to "ce monstre de la troisième ligne, Richard Hill" and more to the point, two essais see the score line at Saracens 14-9 Biarritz, so I'm not complaining! Allez les noirs.

Update F/T: Merde.

Ceding the High Ground

Celebrating Gordon's Gift

The arguments over government proposals for further supposedly anti-terror legislation, especially on pre-trial detention, have continued to rumble on today, and so they should.

I'm sure there is nobody rationale who would want anything other than to see the would be perpetrators of the types of outrageous crimes that have occured from time to time in recent years thwarted, caught and punished. This does not however mean that every 'get tough' policy from the government, should, as Gordon seems to believe, be nodded through simply because the police would like the additional powers.

You don't even have the type of passionate belief in individual liberties and basic values, such as a person's fundamental innocence until properly convicted to understand why the type of measures the government appears to be considering should be treated with the greatest of scepticism. All you really need to do is a very simple, though unpleasant, thought experiment and just for a moment put yourself in the shoes of a terrorist leader, and try and imagine how he will have reacted to recent announcements.

Will he have slammed down his fist in frustration on his desk or whatever he may have his dank cave and torn up his plans for attacking the UK overland train network? I suspect not, I think he will probably joined his brethren for a little jig firing volley after volley of AK-47 ammunition into the air. Why wouldn't he? After all he has forced, in his mind at least, a western state to consider placing a highly visible daily reminder of the threat his and similar organisations pose in 285 of the busiest railway stations. This is a measure he will know will have to all intents and purposes zero impact on his ability to operate but will create a very real sense of threat in the minds of the loathed infidels and that after all is his primary objective. As for pre-trial detention, he needs to nothing but wait for the first case of mistaken identity or bad intelligence leading to prolonged imprisonment for an innocent member of a very sensitive community.

As is so often the case with the current government it is the most headline grabbing initiatives that stand up to the least scrutiny. After all to grab headlines is their raison d'être, not actually to be effective. Try another thought experiment. You've got a backpack full of explosives and you want to blow up a packed commuter express just as it comes into London Waterloo during the morning rush hour, but the 285 busiest stations have airport style security scans; do you abort your mission? I've not read the Al Queda training manual, but off the top of my head I can think of a dozen or more ways I could render the inconvenience to those standing in the queues for the scanners completely worthless.

This particular suggestion is at best a symbolic gesture to show the government is doing something, albeit at enormous cost in cash and inconvenience terms. At worst things could take a rather more sinister turn. After all, once the National Identity Register is up and running, what better way could you find to 'encourage' us to file into the registration centre for processing like the mindless sheep the government wishes us to be, than introduce a 'common sense' ID check at these security bottlenecks.

I guess you could clamp down on all train and tube stations, with full airport style checks at all stages even for, say, a ten minute trip from Battersea to Waterloo. I guess there would even be those whose knee jerk reaction would be to say yes to this, just as they squeal 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' on ID cards. Fine, but all you would have achieved by this draconian action is a displacement to fear of buses, and so it goes on.

Airport type checks are appropriate for airports. They are relatively few in number, making the checks practical, the vast majority of journeys are of sufficient length to make the time spent going through security checks seem acceptable, the limited amount of weaponry or explosives needed to cause an outrage make them essential.

This particular gesture, for that is all it is, is about making Gordon Brown appear to be the tough man we all now know he isn't.

The suggestions on pre-trial detention are worse. They should outrage any fair minded person, as should the denunciations of those who speak against them. That said, I'll wait until we know what the government position is once all troublemakers have reported to Number 10 for their reeducation session, before venting my spleen on this subject.

Personally, the greatest tragedy of Labour's response to the terrorist threat, is a growing difficulty to feel proud of my country, in the sense of the values it demonstrates through actions not words to the outside world.

A Surfeit of Riches

Also available in Earl, Marquis and Duke

Blogging has been light for the last couple of weeks as real, though much less enjoyable work, as well as a surfeit of opportunities to consume alcohol in convivial surroundings have intervened. It's not come at the best of all possible times as wave after wave of opportunities to lay into a struggling government have come and gone.

The media has also had the occasional tale of the bizarre that I've had to pass on too. I thought nobody was going to comment on the man bites/is bitten bymarries dog story of the week, but fortunately Thunder Dragon picked it up in time to stop me making some tasteless reference to Blair (Mk. I).

Other than the Home Office's daily blunder, most of the serious debate has focused, naturally enough on the subjects of the Queen's speech debates. Overall it is a truly abysmal programme of legislation that is proposed, one that if it shows any vision whatsoever, it is a terrifying one. I guess for myself the most repellent items on the agenda will be the European Communities (Stuff the People) to ratify the EU reform treaty and the Terrorism (Unwitting Promotion of) Bills, but the Political Funding (Preferential Treatment for Labour) Bill runs both of these very close.

The unequal treatment proposed, that uniquely benefits one party and the likely further dipping into the taxpayer's purse is pretty a pretty vile blend of greed and corruption. One thing that has been rather interesting in the opening forays over this piece of forthcoming legislation is the relatively emollient tone of the Lib Dems over it, as they prefer to make facile attacks on Team Cameron. Might they fantasise that with one more lurch to the left, some of the less dogmatic unions might choose to buy a little influence with a third party that may hold sway in the far from unlikly scenario of a hung parliament?

I know the passage of this piece of legislation will frustrate me intensely, but that will be more over the principle of it. On a practical level, I hardly think that the attempts of a governing party to pass one of the most self-serving pieces of law in recent times will endear it to the public, and there have been a number of analyses that suggest that the impact on those not blessed by special treatment in any act should, while doubtlessly unwelcome, would not be as disastrous as the baying hoards on the government back benches may hope.

There is though, perhaps one additional precaution the Conservatives could consider taking. Members of the House of Lords, let's be honest, get the tarry end of the stick when it comes to pay and conditions, compared to the Commons trough diners. Surely, it is time for these downtrodden masses to unite.

It is time for the Union of Conservative Peers. If some if its members should opt in, following all of the correct laws, to paying into that union's properly constituted political fund, for disbursement to political parties whose aims they support, who are we to complain?

Ad Astra (per Taxpayer)

One that works - Navstar

Through the ages addiction to 'grands projets' has been been one of the greatest vices of the political class. Successes? yes they do happen, but on a somewhat less of a common basis than the simple toss of a coin would suggest they should, even without totting up the consultancy hours that should have taken whatever assessment was performed out of the realms of uninformed guesswork.

This is not a 'brutal' capitalist assessment. It is one that factors in a lot of pride in the seemingly impossible being achieved that we can all appreciate. The US gave up at the first hurdle, Concordski as I understand it did fly, but never went into commercial operation, but Concorde did and, for all its costs to the relevant exchequers, I'm as happy as mes frères français that it did. It broke through a barrier, that in their own way, so did projects as diverse as Bazelgette's sewerage system and the channel tunnel. Not one of these would have or will ever return cash to the taxpayer, and I don't care. I believe in small government, but on occasion government can deploy the strength of the resources that even the most minimalist of administrations can muster to catalyse something that, even with the best will in the world, the private sector of its own volition would just find to be a little bit of a step too far.

There really are the opportunities a good government should consider big ticket expenditure on; unfortunately we have Gordon Brown, the EU, and Galileo.

GPS was a fantastic innovation. I used to go sailing now and again and its navigational predecessor, in terms of hopping over to the Channel Islands, DECCA, was the most unreliable pile of cack I have seen outside a local government IT department. Along came Navstar/GPS and you knew exactly where you were for the price of a crew night at the only decent subcontinental food emporium in Lymington.

For some though, there is a problem. Not one that actually will ever put lives in jeopardy, something worse than that, it was a project with its roots in the US military. It is true that it is less accurate than the proposed European alternative. So far though, the value in this enhanced accuracy seems to be explained as either the ability to support new and innovative ways of taking more money out of the taxpayer's wallet, or, for reasons I guess to do with frequency ranges, the capability for the new system will work inside buildings too, so that hard pressed bureaucrats can find the nearest lavatories in the Berlaymont after a prolonged lobbying session with all the free booze it may have entailed.

Everyone knows it is fundamentally what one could crudely, but fairly, call a 'dick length' project, even within the governing party:

"What taxpayers in the United Kingdom and other European countries really need and want is better railways and roads, not giant signature projects in the sky," said committee chairwoman Gwyneth Dunwoody.

"The government must stop this folly and endeavour to bring the European Commission to its senses," the Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich added.

She called for independent evidence that proceeding with Galileo - a rival to the US GPS system - was worthwhile and offered value for money.

Source: BBC News

Ambitious is not a word you would use in its normal tired political context for Ms Dunwoody, but in the idea of bringing the "European Commission to its senses" she does show that a spark of naive optimism cannot be fully extinguished by the mandarins.

Slightly less pleasing from the same story was the BBC commentary that:

In September, the EC said that unused agricultural and administrative funds from 2007 and 2008 could be used to plug most of the £1.7bn (2.4bn euro) hole in the project.

Source: BBC News

How good would have a statement saying "we've saved some money, so we don't need a superinflationary increase in funding this year" have sounded in place of "we've found another wall to piss it up"?

I would comment on whether some of the target dates quoted in the BBC article sound remotely attainable, even with a fair wind, in the context as described, but to do so would be an insult to the intelligence of anyone who can read it, let alone anybody who has run a project of a fraction of such complexity.

Just so long as there are swish launch parties for the the right people, what's the problem?