Julia Langdon reports in The Daily Telegraph today of the scandalous waste of public funds on the part of the Labour Government by virtue of there now being 3,259 "experts" employed in the Government's PR business, a figure swollen from the few hundred employed when the Conservatives left power in 1997.  The cost to the public purse of these 3,259 salaries, pensions, benefits and provisions has not been publicly quantified.

Furthermore,

"there is the stunning threefold rise in the cost of the marketing exercise run under the name of the Central Office of Information (COI), which was £322 million last year as opposed to £111 million in the year Tony Blair's Labour broom swept into power."

Then,

"[these] press officers have been raised in a culture that does not seek to enlighten public opinion about the processes of government.

 

On the contrary, their job is to present the Labour Government and all its policies in the most favourable light possible. A press officer is more likely to telephone to dispute a published article — and to do so more quickly (under orders, of course) — than he or she will return an urgent request for information."

Finally,

"They tell you as little as possible and their words are meaningless. They use words with a literal accuracy that obfuscates the truth and does not allow for any suggestion of original thought or imagination."

For his part Graeme Wilson reports that the Labour Government spent £154 million on advertising over the past 12 months, more than Tesco and Sainsbury's combined, and that Government spending on advertising has almost quadrupled since Labour came to power nine years ago when it inherited a budget of only £39.5 million.

The Conservatives say (but wouldn't they just) the huge increase in the advertising budget proved that Labour was more interested in spin than delivering better services for the public.

It does seem a bit like that though, doesn't it?