Scruton: immovable quangocrats, destroying democracy for their own ends and living high on the hog

... the political process in Europe, where only unimportant matters are discussed in elected legislatures, and where the real decisions are taken behind closed doors, among members of the political class. This class includes a few elected politicians, or at any rate politicians who have at some point been elected to some office that may or may not still exist. But elected politicians form only a small proportion of the elite, most of whose members are in any case unelectable. Far more important are the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, the "captains of industry," the trade union barons, the favored members of the professoriate, and the people who, for whatever reason, are owed favors by the ruling party.

Until recently the British Parliament made spasmodic efforts to retain control over the use of tax revenue and to account for legislation to the people. Gradually, however, the political class has triumphed over politics: most legislation, and most political decisions, are now governed by bureaucrats who enjoy lifelong security of tenure and who need never account for what they do. And the decision-making powers of local government and civil associations have been transferred to "quasi-autonomous non-government organizations," staffed by tried and trusted members of the political elite. The Labour Party has been particularly energetic in creating and financing these "quangos," so that there are now nearly 900 of them, consuming a tax-funded income of £170 billion a year. Many of them have legislative or quasi-legislative powers, like the Health and Safety Directorate, which has encumbered our society with absurd regulations and imposed crippling expenditures on business. Some even have powers of policing, like the Commission for Racial Equality, which regularly prosecutes people, usually without success, for racist thought-crimes. Their officers are shielded from the normal consequences of decision-making while often receiving salaries that can be matched in the private sector only by CEOs. Two hundred quangos have been added in the last two years alone, including the "Herbal Medicines Advisory Committee," the "Thames Gateway Development Corporation," and the "School Food Trust," funded to the tune of £63 million in order to explore ways of improving the meals served in schools.

He's Right, of course.