Rosie Winterton: GOSPLAN advocate.

I sat there open mouthed* while I heard woolly-headed Rosie Winterton blather on about the dire economic situation on "Any Questions" (R4, 14/11/2008). Rosie, in effect, exposed an often downplayed strand in Socialist thinking - that things can be fixed if we find out every detail and micro-manage it. 

Take a read at the following:

ROSIE WINTERTON
Well as I said it depends on if you can stimulate the economy enough to improve the employment situation you have more people in work and therefore you have more people paying taxes now if you can through that get back on an even keel it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to increase taxes. That is the point; the point is to get confidence back into the economy, to get people back into work

So, Rosie first hopes that increases will not be needed. She is at the tables and intends to put everything on "Red".

DIMBLEBY
OK Baroness Afshar...

...snip...

ROSIE WINTERTON
Jonathan can I come in again. I was in this area on Monday with the Humber Economic Partnership looking at what the situation was and I think this is a very important point. That at this time we do have through the regional development agency a very effective way of analysing exactly what is happening in different sectors of the economy and particularly at a very local level and the reason why I think that is important is because for example here in Scunthorpe I visited one of the companies on Monday where they were supplying smaller supermarkets with food and what they said was that because of the current economic situation peoples habits had actually changed and they were more likely to be shopping locally and what that meant was that for their section of the economy it was actually they were saying that their business was going to be 10% at the moment.

Ah, the Regional Development Agency. Regional Government-in-waiting with a taste for micromanagement, it seems. Rosie thinks that by finding such "information" out - for their "Doomsday Book", I suppose - things will change. They will not. It is a waste of money. Rosie seriously thinks that all this prodnosery is of value. She thinks that by understanding everything she can control everything. She is delusional. Stop taxing small companies, stop interfering in their business and wrapping them up in red tape and they might have a chance. Otherwise, all you do is rob Peter to pay Paul (with a %age for the Government Shylocks).

DIMBLEBY
So this is a kind of always look on the bright side argument is it

ROSIE WINTERTON
At the same time the caravan industry has been suffering. We have some areas but what we need to do is have a very careful analysis of exactly what is happening in different areas so that we can at regional and local level assist those companies that are in difficulties and stimulate others…

There we have it. Intervention. Meddling. Micromanagement. Pathetic. The arrogance is just stunning. Rosie thinks she knows what is best, that each company should be levelled out into a grey soup - the weak propped up and the stars taxed into mediocrity.

What a ghastly fraud she perpetuates. Does Rosie Winterton believe all her hogwash? I suppose she does, but the question is, did she first lie to herself, or has she just swallowed the lies of another? Who cares. Rosie is inviting a truck load of FAIL.

* No, Lionel Blair was not trying to pull off "12 Angry Men".