The message from today's session of the Labour Party rally in Liverpool is that, in government, Rachel Reeves would appoint an "anti-corruption commissioner". The aim is to recover the billions funnelled by the Johnson administration to dubious recipients of grants and contracts in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic.
This is tackling the problem from the wrong end. The mechanism for recovering this money is already in place and has actually started operating. However, it is scandalously under-staffed and under-resourced. One can draw the obvious conclusion from the lack of political will on the part of successive Tory prime ministers and chancellors to do more than the bare minimum to implement the pledge in the King's Speech to recover tax-payers' money. Labour is still too scared of Daily Mail headlines to admit that there is a need to recruit or reassign civil servants to the Revenue.
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