Advisers’ pay adds to heap of mindless waste

We elect a government to govern.

However, that is not just what we get. On top of a plethora of junior ministers and now so-called super juniors, we get a lorry-load of advisers. These advisers have connections to the parties in power and, in some instances, it appears that their claim to expertise has more to do with the debt the party owes them rather than their specific briefs.

The notion of having ministerial advisers only took hold in the last 20 years. Prior to that, civil servants seemed to be good enough. The theory behind having advisers was that our 30-plus ministers and juniors needed independent advice — that is, independent of civil service think.