Politics and Self-Interest
Ed Balls - the former Labour minister - appears to have cost tax payers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
How so?
For his role in sacking the a senior official in Haringey Council - over the death of Baby Peter - whose neglect and abuse shocked the nation only a few years ago.
Three Court of Appeal judges agreed yesterday - unanimously - that the senior official (Sharon Shoesmith) had been unfairly sacked from her £133,000 a year job.
The former senior is now likely to receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation - but the taxpayer will pick up the tab - not Ed Balls or his government advisers.
Which is often the way of these things.
Because the politicians want someone's head on a plate - in fact anyone's head on a plate - so long as it's not their own.
And the same politicians are also happy to act 'tough and decisively' - safe in the knowledge that if it all goes wrong and costs the taxpayers a fortune - then they won't be held to account for their actions.
Someone else will be to blame - of that you can be sure.
So this terrible tale has ended as it began - in complete chaos.
Sadly, no one has emerged looking as though they had anything - but their own narrow self-interests at heart.
How so?
For his role in sacking the a senior official in Haringey Council - over the death of Baby Peter - whose neglect and abuse shocked the nation only a few years ago.
Three Court of Appeal judges agreed yesterday - unanimously - that the senior official (Sharon Shoesmith) had been unfairly sacked from her £133,000 a year job.
The former senior is now likely to receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation - but the taxpayer will pick up the tab - not Ed Balls or his government advisers.
Which is often the way of these things.
Because the politicians want someone's head on a plate - in fact anyone's head on a plate - so long as it's not their own.
And the same politicians are also happy to act 'tough and decisively' - safe in the knowledge that if it all goes wrong and costs the taxpayers a fortune - then they won't be held to account for their actions.
Someone else will be to blame - of that you can be sure.
So this terrible tale has ended as it began - in complete chaos.
Sadly, no one has emerged looking as though they had anything - but their own narrow self-interests at heart.
