Todays Lucky Numbers

738, 714, 646, 577, 543 and 44.

That's India with 714 million voters and 543 seats in its elected parliament against the U.K with its 44 million voters and 646 elected representatives. In France the 44 million voters elect 577 deputies to its National Assembly, trouble with France as an example is that it also elects to the Senate which has 321 senators - mind you the House of Lords has 738 members.

I'd be in favour of elected regional assemblies, local government for local people. Split the country up into geographical and political areas, most people understand the concept of Wessex, East Anglia, Yorkshire, Cumbria etc. Have twenty regional assemblies electing two members to a revamped House of Commons, pay all sitting MP's a basic salary, allow them a second salary as a regionally elected senator and take it from there. That way we have accountable government at every level, reduced bureaucracy and we don't fall into the EU trap of non-elected regional assemblies taking power away from Westminster.

It would mean the break-up of the Union but we have to move on. Once the dust has settled on the expenses debacle there should be a proper grown-up investigation into the whole of political life in the U.K from the top down to local councils. The down side of course is cost, when the left-wing think tank New Local Government Network published its 2007 report it concluded that the cost was £360 million a year. The thing is that the figure was based on the notion of unelected politicians and a labyrinthine set-up, don't forget that this current government has created more Civil Servants than any previous administration and that there are now more than 500,000 full-time members of the Civil Service.

Obviously you don't need to be an accountant to realise that £360 million is far greater than the £42 million we currently pay our MP's in salaries a year but one thing recent events must have taught us is that because something has existed for longer than most of us have been alive doesn't mean it's right, has any merit or that it it deserves to continue. The thing to remember about the NLGN report is that it was overseen by parties who had a vested interest in keeping elected democratic politics centralised.

We are such a small island, both geographically and in terms of population when viewed in relationship to the bureaucracy that serves us, reduce the number of people at the top and work down rather than the usual British practice of cutting from the bottom.

Last week I had a meeting with a compliance officer from HMRC. He was totally pissed off because he says that Inspectors are under pressure from central Government to increase the tax take whilst at the same time reducing manpower to cut costs. There are more levels of bureaucracy in his job than ever before and his boss, who used to be in the same building in Southampton, is now based in Reading and commutes every day! He did let on that there is a fraud case, involving mobile phones, currently working its way through the courts that if lost by the Crown will potentially necessitate an increase of 2p in the pound on income tax. This is the black number that the Government hope won't come up red because they have invested so much time, energy and resources into. The closure of local offices of both Customs & Excise and Inland Revenue now means that not only can you no longer speak to somebody locally about a client relevant issue but you can't actually talk to somebody who is aware of local circumstances. Our local VAT office for queries is Wolverhampton, it used to be Poole, when I started work there were five tax offices in Bournemouth, now there is one and that is due for closure because everything has been moved to Bristol. The old system of phoning up and hearing somebody go to a filing cabinet has been replaced by an anonymous voice giving you a sequence of options on an 0845 number, all the while the levels of bureaucracy and management are increasing and the people in management don't have the relevant skills - selling bananas is not the same as dealing with VAT issues.