I do read private eye. I have met Ian Hislop on several occasions and he is even more 'to the point' than in PE and HIGNFY.
At the end of the day, the Government (whether they are red, blue, yellow (nah, forget the yellow bit it will never happen) are all incompetent and have been for too long. A US president (I forget which) said of his government "the buck stops here". Our government is responsible for making sure LAs don't do what they are doing. In any case, can you blame them for wanting to emulate their ultimate masters?
We could go on all day about politics (and I suspect you and I might lay the blame in different places) so it isn't really fair to others here; I've seen the most objective and civilised dialogue between intelligent people get hijacked by troublemakers and so shut down.
