WE PAY FOR ACTING LESSONS FOR THE WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT

I wasn't particularly surprised to hear that the UK government spends vast amounts of our taxes on media training for their hapless and not immediately appealing ministers. More than any in my lifetime these people don';t appear to belong to the same race as the rest of us. The probably had to earn how to speak to people who weren't born with silver spoons somewhere  about their persons.

One of those who has been in receipt of our largess is the unelected, thrust-upon-us-whether-we- like-it-or- not, blue blood the Noble Lord Fraud who works for the DWP. It’s a pity that money was spent on him, because he seems not to have profited from the training. (Or maybe it’s because frankly he doesn’t give a stuff whom he insults in the lower orders.) 

I was, however, a bit more surprised that the bunch of hooray henrys that comprise the present London government seemed to think that the taxpayers should be prepared to stump up for acting lessons from RADA.

The way I understand “acting” is that it is the art of convincing an audience of the authenticity of something which is not true. Now, I realise that the government spends its life trying to do this, and that clearly its ministers would like us, or at least some of us, to believe at least a little of what they tell us, but seriously it's not the work of the government to do this.

Would it not be more appropriate for political parties to pay for acting lessons? Is it not their raison d’être to spin a good yarn?

Nonetheless, according to Government credit card records, the Treasury last year paid for two sets of courses from RADA, a highly respected English acting school. They actually spent £1,541 in October and £1,500 in February, just days after the Osborne told us that there would have to be more cuts. (It's sometimes difficult to believe that we REALLY are all in this together, don't you think?)

The Department of Health in England spent just over £3,500 for three courses in 2012, the Cabinet Office spent a meagre £612, presumable trying to teach Maude Francis how to act like a human being (note to Cabinet Office: you'll need a great deal more than that and a 4 year course to make that happen) and the Department for International Development also spent £2,370.

 

Believe it or not a London government spokesman actually had the nerve to respond to inquiries about this waste of money by saying: "Civil servants need the right skills to perform at the highest level and deliver better, more efficient services for the public."

He definitely must have been on an RADA course. Probably the one entitled: “How to act your way through a badly written farce”.

Just one question. I thought that before you could get training from RADA you had to show some talent... so what happened to that rule?