Peers of the Realm are besides themselves with rage over the standard of the subsidised food available to them in the restaurants at the Houses of Parliament. Pork steaks are reported to be tough, chips are not arranged in a pleasing pyramid shape and there is a definite shortage of Chilean wines available it would seem. And yet the restaurants are actually profit-making and, as neoliberal economic dogma assures us, should be both ultra-efficient and deliver a service second-to-none. That they don't simply shows us what ideology is - the world as a self-serving elite would like it to be instead of how it actually is. But all this rather begs the question as how this serves the taxpayer who is actually footing the bill? If the restaurants are "profit-making" who gets the profit? The suggestion is that making a profit provides "value for money" to the taxpayer. How exactly? Are we expected to believe that the taxpayer is charging himself higher prices in the restaurants so he can get some of his taxes back? Is so, why bother? Why not charge lower prices, forego a profit and pay less in terms of the subsidy in the first place. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark and its not just the pork steaks.
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