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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Are the voters ready to countenance the idea of PM Boris? We might know more this week
In the last year there have been several polls from different pollsters using different methodologies that have sought to test the impact on voting intentions if Boris rather than Dave was CON leader.
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Will he be found / identified / become a celebrity?
Will he be the new Guy Goma?
Will Edward Snowden be the new Guy Kewney?
It may be Monday morning blues but am I alone in seeing a basic flaw in this plan?
We don't begrudge that which people have worked for. But just as I begrudge paying a burden due to doll-bludging layabouts who can work I begrudge £1 in £4 spent not being worked for.but instead burdening future generations.
UKIP has become what Boris was last year - someone/something voters can use to project their dissatisfaction through.
When it comes down to it Boris is pretty lazy, as anyone reading his column in today's Telegraph can see. He has a poor grasp of policy and is a weak campaigner. The only way he'll become PM is if he is elected by Tory MPs to replace a Tory leader who already holds the job.
"...Those who assured us that he was for the chop now say [George Young] will survive. Go figure. Quite what that means for Liam Fox is unclear, as his friends seem to think he's about to make a spectacular return. Ditto Andrew Mitchell, according to some, though I am told his comeback, if it comes, will have to wait until after 2015...Dave will send a signal to members of the 2005, and other, earlier intakes, that they too are still in the running.
Better yet, I am assured, more MPs who served in the last Tory government could find themselves recalled to the colours after a 16 year or more interval. Who could that mean? Ken Clarke is the doyen of long march veterans, and is only now beginning to show signs of running out of puff. We've mentioned Sir George's survivability. Michael Fallon is the unsung hero of the greater economic team. Who else might join them? John Redwood? James Arbuthnot? Sir Tony Baldry? Sir Paul Beresford? Stephen Dorrell? David Davis? Nicholas Soames? Sir Malcolm Rifkind? There's a wealth of experienced former ministers Mr Cameron could call on. Not all of them would want to serve. But some would, if the job was right.
By looking to the old guard, and to MPs who served their time in opposition and are consumed with jealous rage at the way the 2010 intake is lionised as the future, Dave would go some way in improving relations with his backbenchers." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100223085/tory-old-guard-lined-up-for-a-reshuffle-comeback/
Or beget, even
President Francois Hollande’s popularity in France is back down to a record low, according to a new opinion poll published today.
It come as a crucial by-election was contested by the conservative UMP party and the Far-Right National Front (FN).
Etienne Bousquet-Cassagne, 23, was hoping to clinch a third parliamentary seat for the FN after already knocking out a Socialist.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346920/French-President-Hollandes-popularity-drops-record-low-just-26-faces-losing-seat-election.html
Some more complexities:
Should only those with degrees pay? What about those with HND or nursing qualifications? What about those who did not finish their qualifications?
It seems as if we would need an army of tax inspectors to disentangle all the above.
Surely it is simpler and fairer to raise the rate of income tax than all the above contortions?
Fair taxes= those paid by others.
Why not add retrospective taxes on windfall inheritances? After all if one retrospective tax is OK then why not others?
I'm sure there are complexities, but that's why we have civil servants: to sort things out during the implementation phase.
I would focus this on gradute degrees, not vocational, and on finished qualifications only.
The fundamental principle is that people who got a free university education have had a disproportionate benefit from *that specific piece of government spending*. They are being asked to contribute some of the cost.
Increasing income taxes on everyone would be asking the 80% of people who didn't go to university (don't forget we are talking historically) to pay more so that the 20% can carry on pocketing the majority of the uplift in their income.
I'm happy to be flexible - say payment over 5 years, with commerical interest and no penalties for paying up front.
Thatcher turned out well
Hague was a good choice, but too inexperienced.
IDS was a disaster
Howard was the right man for the job
Cameron remains better than Davis would have been
So I give the "most sophisticated electorate in the world" 3.5 out of 5 - a darn sight better than most selectorates!
This story is going to run for a while. So far Hunt has come out of this quite well. Lansley, not so much. As for Burnham, well he looks less like the next leader every day.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130623-mainstream-opposition-holds-off-far-right-key-french-election
Blair was something a genius at the retail side of politics (getting elected) - but was and is an empty suit. He presided over an enormous majority that did precisely nothing apart from let Gordon Brown shit all over the country.
Foot, Kinnock, Brown, Miliblob - oh deary me!
*blushes*
F1: Red Bull to pretend they're Princess Leia and set to lead a rebellion against the FIA and Darth Todt:
http://www.espn.co.uk/fia/motorsport/story/112205.html
A review ordered by Mr Hammond has revealed extraordinary examples of ‘expenses’ which firms attempted to charge to the taxpayer, but have now been rejected.
They included £16,500 for ‘depreciation costs for executive flats’ and £25,000 for ‘cake, flowers and catering for a commissioning ceremony’.
Other examples included £9,500 for ‘staff team building’, £650 for ‘2 x magicians’, £24,000 for ‘mugs for a launch ceremony’, £200 for ‘attending Christmas party’, and £8,000 for non-specified ‘entertainment’.
Perhaps the most bizarre attempted charge under a defence contract was £50,000 for ‘anticipated car accidents (two a week at £500)’. Defence sources said that it appeared many such claims were waved through without proper checks under the last government.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347065/Taxpayers-facing-huge-bills-MoD-Christmas-parties-flowers-Hammond-uncovers-huge-claims-defence-firms.html#ixzz2X7B2ifEf
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
I'd be more than satisfied with a mere £15,000 to cover my cake requirements.
" George Osborne announced yesterday that the Conservatives would join the Lib Dems and Labour in reviewing automatic handouts for the elderly, although he said that raising the pension age remained the best way to control the cost of an ageing population.
David Cameron has previously pledged that universal pension-aged benefits, which cost less than £4 billion a year, would not be touched during the current parliament. Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, Mr Osborne said this did not apply beyond 2015 and acknowledged “we have got to look at how we can afford them”.
He said: “Our society is getting older. We are going to be spending more on our older people. I want to make sure that’s sustainable. All those pensioner benefits — not the basic state pension, all those other pensioner benefits — we’ve got to look at how we can afford them... The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that means-testing the winter fuel payment and TV licence for those over 75 could save £1.4 billion a year. ” http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3798677.ece
The peak of the bubble was USD1910, now trading below USD1300.
Gold obsessives constantly harp about Gordon Brown's sale of shiny lumps of metal, and always conveniently ignore this side of the calculation.
She was the "wrong" result in that in an open process, most voters expected and wanted another candidate to win. Similar things happened with the elections of IDS and arguably with Major (who also copied Mrs T's under-the-radar approach and had diplomatic wisdom teeth extractions) and Hague too. Howard was elected unopposed.
So however the leaders turned out, the point is that the "most sophisticated electorate" has been repeatedly bamboozled.
according to Peston
Which brings me to one of the least well-timed investment decisions of this or any age, Gordon Brown’s sale of 395 tonnes of our gold in 17 auctions between July 1999 and March 2002.
The average price achieved in those disposals was $275.6.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2346826/Former-Geordie-Shore-star-Ricci-Guarnaccio-shows-toned-torso-frolicks-bikini-clad-girls.html
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2013/6/14693.html
In the last couple of races Raikkonen's lost a huge number of points to Vettel.
He didn't and the losses mount up....
Otherwise the danger of retrospective taxes is that politicians will like them. A retrospective inheritance tax might have interesting consequences.
In general retrospective legislation is poor legislation (it is unconstitutional in the USA)
And if a retrospective graduate tax, then why not a retrospective Grammar school tax? Or on windfall inheritances? Or on those who benefited from MIRAs in the 80's? Or thoee who benefited from family trust funds?
Rewriting the tax code retrospectively would be quite an unpleasant precedent for some.
What is wrong with taxing those on their ability to pay? This is the basis of income tax and wealth taxes such as council tax or inheritance taxes?
And anyway, who cares?
It is quite the mystery, though, as his grand vizier was Tim Montgomerie, who surely knows precisely what Conservatives of all hues think...
Furthermore, we would have more money (in cash or assets) if he had not sold any gold then, or if he had sold it later.
"...Nick Boles is touring the country, encouraging local councils to take advantage of the multiple government schemes that reward communities that agree to housebuilding plans. Unfortunately, large numbers of Tory MPs in particular are more concerned about the wrath of upset Nimbys than the gratitude of new homeowners. Even if all the main parties become pro-build, some are anxious that UKIP will steal the anti-development vote. This is especially true for those representing marginal seats on the outskirts of Bristol, Oxford, Nottingham, Leeds and other high-demand areas.
Many MPs are also frightened by the “hands off our land” campaigns being run by national and local newspapers. But they shouldn’t be unduly spooked by what we once called Fleet Street. In previous times newspapers could afford to champion a particular political party or a wider sense of the common good. Today, fighting for their commercial lives, newspapers have had to become more sectional. In the battle to stem a decline in sales they are more reader-focused and those readers are likely to be older, propertied and comfortably off.
Nimbyism is, of course, not irrational. Our countryside is a beautiful thing and we should protect the green belt, precious woodlands and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. But although there are still too many empty homes and there is some room for more brownfield development (which would suit younger, childless couples and older citizens in need of easy access to urban services), we are going to have to accept some building on greenfields..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3798564.ece
My issue is that housing appears to be done on a massive scale and without the supporting infrastructure to go along with. Certainly in my locale we've had at least 4 massive developments proposed and rejected because they'd swamp local facilities/transport.
I've no problem with small new estates being built or added to existing developments - its when 2000 houses are proposed on the edge of a village with only 3000 houses that its clearly going to cause problems.
I take your point on the danger of politicians though...
What it means is the Telegraph has no more idea than the rest of us, and less judgement than some of us.
Let's set retrospective taxation aside for the moment.
Would it be right to increase income taxes so that university education could be free for everyone? My view is that such an education creates very significant value for the recipient (over and above the value to society) and therefore it is wrong to ask those people who do not have the opportunity to go to university to pay for it.
"Hague was a good choice, but too inexperienced."
I'd put him as the worst choice of all. He was so bad that he destroyed Tory chances for years-rather like Foot/Benn did for Labour-and allowed Labour a free run. Howard who I dislike more than even the Lady herself would have been a much wiser choice.
The Tories ended the Hague era much diminished and it took three elections to get back on track. Standing in the rain during the election shouting "24 hours to save the £" must still be an image that haunts the Tories..
Do we need another not very good, part-time old Etonian in office?
A programme I saw some time ago asked about this, and his deranged response was that he wanted to 'diversify the portfolio', or very similar, of our assets because under the Conservatives we had, er, too much gold.
Starbucks pays some Corp Tax.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23019514
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/thomaspascoe/100018367/revealed-why-gordon-brown-sold-britains-gold-at-a-knock-down-price/
(I'm going to a Bitcoin meetup later that's going to be full of goldbugs so I'm just sort-of warming up on this stuff...)
Crowds love him, he is hysterically funny, there is a buzz of anticipation in a room where he is due to speak.
And as such people can't (and won't) believe that someone who is such good fun, so clubbable, so droll, so acute should be let anywhere near proper power.
"Today's newspapers make unhappy reading for those who believe institutions tend to be inherently good.
- A Health Minister openly states that parts of the NHS have been infected by a rotten culture.
- The Metropolitan Police are accused by one of their own officers of spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence.
- The Serious and Organised Crime Agency and Lord Leveson have both apparently turned a blind eye to evidence of endemic hacking by legal firms.
- The chairman of the BBC Trust's own finance committee apparently didn't bother to read a whistleblower's warnings of a scandal that cost the licence fee payer £100m.
- To top it all, it turns out that thanks to opaque invoicing, MoD contractors have been able for years to charge the taxpayer for car crashes that have yet to happen, magicians and other wasteful pursuits.
These revelations should teach us two things - one organisational and one cultural.
First, power (either in terms of policy, the law or spending taxpayers' money) must never be exercised without accountability and transparency. Seductive as calls for independent inquiries, putting power into the hands of de-politicised managers and restrictions on freedom of information may sometimes be to politicians, they all inherently bring a risk of waste, abuse of power or potentially deadly failure to public services.
We must ensure that each arm of government knows that if they do wrong they will be found out and that there is a clear mechanism to punish them if they do so.
Second, we should all as citizens, taxpayers and politically interested individuals ensure our sense of suspicion is healthy and well exercised. That is not to argue for nihilism or anarchism, but we should by now have learned that big organisations are not automatically good organisations, that senior figures are not automatically truthful figures and that independent authority normally means unaccountable activity, not unbiased decision-making.
Libertarian thinking has a growing impact on the Conservative movement, as polling in today's Sun demonstrates. The outrageous scandals revealed in today's press show why it is a valuable contribution to ensuring our country is well governed." http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2013/06/institutions-take-another-battering-which-shows-why-the-people-should-exercise-more-suspicion-and-mo.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4981030/yougov-survey-on-britains-young-adults.html
No one mentioned it at the time as the whole country was gripped my the sheer maddening supine acceptance of bonkers Austerity.
We've lumped our youngsters with the deep anxiety of tens of thousands in needless personal debt much of which won't be repaid anyway.
Morally repugnant. That's the Tories (and New Labour) for you.
Ashcroft always delivers on sample size.
Boat Race protester Trenton Oldfield has been refused a visa to stay in Britain after the Home Office told him his continued presence in the country was not "conducive to the public good."
The 37-year-old Australian, who was jailed for six months for disrupting the 158th Boat Race, told The Guardian he has been ordered to leave the UK.
Oldfield, who has lived in Britain for more than 10 years and whose British wife is expecting a child, told the newspaper he had lodged an appeal against the refusal of a spousal visa.
"No one was expecting this. I have a tier one visa, as a highly skilled migrant, and I was sentenced to less than a year," he said.
"The lawyer said I had nothing to worry about because it was less than a year. It feels to me that this is a very vindictive decision, very political and very much an overreaction." http://news.sky.com/story/1107276/boat-race-protester-faces-deportation-from-uk
http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=
But what I'm wondering is why Britain needs to be holding a load of gold in the first place. I mean, it's not like the currency's pegged to it or anything. What's it actually for?
We need more quangos! Remember Bernard's slogan from Yes, Minister: red tape holds the nation together.
The same attitude dictates rightwing policy on inheritance taxes etc. Acquisition of "wealth" above all else, including democracy and human rights.
"If you read the Leveson Report, you might have decided that phone hacking and the obtaining of confidential information by nefarious means was confined to journalists. We now know differently. And so did Lord Justice Leveson when he was drawing up his recommendations.
During the inquiry, His Lordship was handed a dossier by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which showed that hacking phones and computers was rife, and that the worst offenders were not reporters but some of Britain’s most ‘respectable’ companies.
Law firms, telecoms giants and insurance companies all hired criminals to harvest sensitive, confidential information. One of the country’s most prolific hackers, a private investigator, admitted that 80 per cent of his work was carried out on behalf of lawyers, wealthy individuals and insurers. Other clients of hackers included a household name who broadcasts to millions of people every week; another celebrity who paid a firm to hack into an employee’s computer; and a businessman who wanted to obtain intelligence on rivals involved in a £500 million takeover bid.
Lawyers involved in messy matrimonial and divorce cases were especially enthusiastic employers of hackers. Some companies were paying as much as £7,000 a month for a variety of services from private investigators, whose methods went way beyond simply hacking voicemails.
SOCA failed to act on its dossier for six years, until after Leveson. Where, for instance, were the heavy-handed dawn raids and fishing expeditions which became the trademark of the inquiry into hacking by journalists? Why did the police not move sooner? The report says that private investigators — often former police officers themselves — are experts at exploiting their contacts through ‘socialising with law enforcement personnel’.
But hang on, Met Commissioner Bernard Hyphen-Howe has effectively criminalised all contact between police and reporters. Shouldn’t that policy also include personal relationships between police and ex-coppers now working as private investigators?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347022/So-Leveson-investigate-phone-hacking-lawyers-Dont-hold-breath-says-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html#ixzz2X7WeFL66
That's nonsense, a gain or a loss is only made when a sale is made.. Should I be beating myself up that I didn't sell my house at the top of the market> Of course not. Brown made a foolish error. live with it, we all have to.
New Labour went one better and sold the family gold. But at bottom dollar.
Nor does Osborne's refusal to sell at the top of the market even though Osborne has "lost" us £billions too.
I'd much rather we had fewer quangos and more direct accountability re ministers. At least we'd know who was responsible for what - today we have unelected bods/placemen and agendas that we can do nothing about.
I am sure you are and I am equally sure you don't understand that Labour's stewardship of the economy is costing you and will cost your children and most likely your grandchildren.
Thatcher and Major.
"David Cameron has written to the daughter of the last British resident held at Guantánamo Bay to explain what the Government has done to try to free her father. Shaker Aamer has been held at the detention camp for 11 years and is on hunger strike. In the letter to his 15-year-old daughter, the Prime Minister detailed approaches made to the US Secretary of State and other officials. He also raised the issue with President Obama last week at the G8 meeting at Lough Erne.
Mr Cameron’s personal intervention is likely to be controversial. Mr Aamer, a Saudi citizen, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and accused of leading a unit during al-Qaeda’s last stand at the battle of Tora Bora. He was also thought to be associating with the London-based terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui, who had planned to be a pilot in the September 11 attacks, and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. He had lived in Britain since 1996, and is married with a wife and four children who live in South London.
Mr Cameron told Johina Aamer that the Government “remains committed” to securing the release of her father, who is now on hunger strike with 104 of the 166 inmates. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3798613.ece
Quangos are a very convenient way to distance politicians from what they've directed and I think that is fundamentally wrong.
But what's the family gold for? Is the government expecting to be doing a lot of urgent dentistry or something?
Obama 2007 vs Obama 2013 ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8
He's been a huge disappointment. Maybe worse than Blair.
Boris for 2020 PM - good chance I'd say.
We had 50ish deaths here on 7/7 - imagine if 3000 had died instead? It's mind-boggling.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/23/uk-young-princes-gift-republicans-queen
We've lumped our youngsters with the deep anxiety of tens of thousands in needless personal debt much of which won't be repaid anyway. Morally repugnant
Err - yes. It is was indeed repugnant to push so many into tertiary education, often ill suited, often doing useless courses. Blair's vain attempt to get a much higher % into 'uni' hasn't actually delivered us a huge increase in highly paid professional jobs. It has delivered us a whole new cohort of graduates with empty bits of paper and a debt. The problem was not about the concept of loans to fund 'top end' degrees - it was about pushing so many into the bottom end and giving them unrealstic top end expectations.
"One of the country's most prominent black female judges will appear in court today accused of perverting the course of justice in connection with the Chris Huhne trial.
Constance Briscoe, 56, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court accused of two counts of the offence, relating to statements made to Essex Police.
The first count alleges that, between May 2011 and last October, she provided police with two statements that were inaccurate.
The second alleges that on October 6 she produced a copy of her witness statement that had been altered and maintained that it was the correct version..." http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/judge-constance-briscoe-to-appear-in-court-accused-over-chris-huhne-trial-8670579.html
I think the second thing is to say that someone in favour of the monarchy typically weighs that cost (like the Nazi incidient, for example) against a wider range of positives than a republican is likely to recognise, including the "soft power" value to our international position, assigns to it a greater share of tourism, perhaps places some value on history for history's sake, and so on. They are also more likely to be pessimistic about replacing the monarch with any other position (a President, for example) or the effect of transferring the Queen's remaining powers, which range from small to purely notional, to government. So I think most pro-monarchy people would have a greater freedom to 'forgive' the Tatler-boys (if that is correct) than republicans, on the whole.
"The producers of Sesame Street have taken on a difficult new subject — helping children familiar with Big Bird come to terms with having a parent as a jailbird.
Reflecting the fact that the number of US children with a parent behind bars has risen by 80 per cent over the past two decades, makers of the TV show that introduces young viewers to new vocabulary and numbers have launched an initiative spelling out the concept of i-n-c-a-r-c-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.
Aimed at children aged from three to eight, the multimedia kit — available online — provides resources including tips for carers on how to comfort those with a parent in jail, an animation broaching what to expect when visiting an inmate, and a video starring a blue-haired Muppet called Alex who struggles to explain to his friends why his father cannot come out to play.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3792560.ece
The political class' energy policy is to make energy so expensive people will use less of it. The economic suicide that will result from this energy policy means there's no need to build the adequate, secure capacity that would be needed by a sane country.
"...The NSPCC is launching a helpline on Monday to protect children from FGM after research found that more than 1,700 victims were referred to specialist clinics in the past two years, likely to be a fraction of the true figure for women affected. The youngest victim was seven.
In one of the most significant developments in efforts to combat FGM in recent years, the helpline will provide a means to tackle this form of "complex and secretive abuse", said Lisa Harker, the NSPCC's head of strategy.
"The UK's child victims of female genital mutilation are hidden behind a wall of silence. Like other forms of abuse, if female genital mutilation is not exposed it will continue to thrive and more children will suffer," she said.
Harker said children who were victims of FGM or at risk often did not know it was abusive and harmful, because it was being done at the behest of their family.
"They are told they are unclean and immoral if they are not 'cut' and that it is in their best interest," she said. "There is also a huge pressure within these communities to keep quiet about female genital mutilation, with some people even being threatened with violence if they speak out. This is why we believe a dedicated helpline with specially trained child protection advisers is needed to help overcome the difficulties in protecting children from such a complex and secretive form of abuse...
FGM – a dangerous procedure that involves the partial or total removal of the external female genital organs – is common in some African, Asian and Middle Eastern communities in the UK.
Carried out in secret and often without anaesthetic, FGM has been illegal since 1985 but there has never been a prosecution over it in the UK." http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jun/24/nspcc-helpline-girls-female-genital-mutilation?CMP=twt_gu
Now I have a question for you. The current baseload price for UK Electricity is £51.68 for a Megawatt hour of electricity. If I build a new windfarm, what will the government pay me per MW/hour of electricity?
Much more importantly is that they have split themselves into two irreconcilable political camps. The lefty camp is determined to spend til things go pop and to bring on state control and surveillance of everything- an ambition they are delivering on in spades. (Today Detroit - tomorrow the whole country). The righty camp is determined to talk about abortion and race and religion and to make itself unelectable to the middle - an ambition they also are delivering in spades.
Suggest any interested PBers have a regular gander at Instapundit or Zerohedge to get a flavour of where they are headed.
"Lincolnshire Police has slashed its spending by nearly a fifth or £5 million per year, equal to the cost of 125 police officers.
The police force cut their budget through a deal with security firm G4S, transferring several administrative departments over to the private firm. Lincolnshire police and crime commissioner (PCC) Alan Hardwick claims the national purse could save £1 billion if the other 42 police forces in England and Wales followed suit.
The contract, which saw 18 operational and organisational support areas and 585 staff transferred to G4S Policing Support Services, started on April 1 last year and is due to last for 10 years.
Independent PCC Mr Hardwick said: "Tomorrow's Spending Review is likely to outline billions of pounds of additional cuts to public spending. This is on top of sizeable reductions already made.
"For police forces, whose budgets are already nearly 20 per cent leaner than in 2010, the challenge - to improve quality while finding savings - is about to get bigger."
Among the departments transferred to private hands were the force control room, firearms licensing and custody. Mr Hardwick, who was heavily criticised by a High Court judge earlier this year for wrongfully suspending Lincolnshire's chief constable in a decision that was ultimately reversed, said the force had slashed crime by more than 14 per cent in the first year of the contract.
The police force had expected to make savings of £3.6 million in the first year but exceeded this by £1.6 million.
A four-month backlog of files for processing firearms licences has been cleared while the 999 call response rate has improved to an average of more than 93 per cent of calls answered within 10 seconds, up from 89 per cent in 2011/12. The full term of the agreement is expected to see Lincolnshire Police make £36 million in savings..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10138477/Police-force-saves-5million-in-private-deal.html
"Among the departments transferred to private hands were... firearms licensing and custody."
I think that means G4S will have to do, if anything, a better job not to be attacked for their failures.