More rewards for failure.

There's always been a 'North/South divide' in terms of finance, so the government set up two quangos to try to alleviate this, to try and improve the lot of Yorkshire.
Those two quangos are called Yorkshire Forward (YF) and the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly (YaHA) and they've been working so hard that conditions have - er - worsened. The gap is greater than ever, and Yorkshire is the second worst performer in England, with an average income of £12,224 per annum.
Instead of apologies, the Director of Strategies at YF, one Don Stewart, has stated:
"The government is not looking at the big picture, the success of other regions should not detract from Yorkshire's achievements!"
YaHA are not reported as saying anything, but one thing they have done is this:
When they were set up, members did not receive any allowances;
In summer of 2003 they decided that allowances were necessary;
between 2004/5 and 2005/6 those allowances increased, by 43%
Not a bad increase one might suppose, but then the members decided to really go for broke.
YOUR broke that is.
Although figures for 2006/7 are not out, a quick calculation reveals that it is expected to show that the increase on the year before is no less than

300% plus!

Making an increase of approx 480% since 2004/5 to 2006/7 - two short years!
Craven District Council have a member on that quango, it's Carl Lis, the leader of CDC.
Lis is well used to such colossal increases, after all didn't CDC increase councillors' allowances fivefold in only 4 years?
He is also chairman of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and allowances for that quango will be determined and printed.
We're hopeful that some mild form of restraint in spending our money might be observed - or that our long lost Australian gold mining uncle will leave us his fortune.
'Cos that's much more likely.