Services must go up a gear to end taxpayer rip-off

IT IS a deeply perplexing conundrum: despite record spending, public services are woefully inadequate.

But part of the answer is the low productivity of the state sector, due to a host of factors – including weak management, excessive sick leave, paralysing bureaucracy and a culture of grievance manufactured by the unions.

Official figures just out show that public sector productivity fell by 2.3 per cent last year, taking the overall drop in output to almost 7 per cent since 2019.

Until this problem is resolved, taxpayers will never receive anything like value for money.

■ I ADMIRE the King for refusing to cave into sentimentality over Prince Harry. A pantomime of reconciliation might have brought temporary applause but that would have let his younger son off the hook, despite the way Harry so eagerly trashed his family for financial gain.

We should remember the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shamefully insinuated the Royals are racists, one of the most foul charges that can be made in our modern culture.

■ AS SOMEONE who lived in Northern Ireland during the darkest years of the Troubles, I have always despised sectarianism.

That is why I am alarmed at the rise of fundamentalist Islam in our politics, reflected in the group Muslim Vote’s list of 18 conditions to be met if it is to support Labour, such as the introduction of shariacompliant pensions and support for prayers at school.

Keir Starmer cannot possibly give in to this political blackmail. The anguished story of my homeland shows what can happen when bigotry prevails.