Quangos: the more we pay, the less we get

Telegraph
"An understandable wave of shock ran through Britain last week when our new Government revealed the explosion in recent years of the pay given to our top public officials, 170 of whom now allegedly earn more than the Prime Minister. But the other side to this grotesque inflation in salaries is that it has been accompanied by a corresponding deterioration in the performance of almost every public body one can think of.

One glaring example, not on last week’s list because it is not a government body, is the BBC, the head of which, Mark Thompson, now receives a staggering £834,000 a year. Twenty-odd years ago, as I learn from one of Mr Thompson’s predecessors, my old friend Alasdair Milne, the salary of the director-general was a mere £80,000, less than a tenth of what his successor now takes home in his wheelbarrow. "