The people I’m talking about are those who are in the top two or three of States departments – those that one imported but now long retired chief officer years ago used to describe to me as ‘captains of industry’ if they’d have been in the private sector.

Given that most of those he was referring to, and many of those who’ve caught the Heathrow gravy train since, would probably have found it difficult to survive longer than about 20 minutes without the comfy cushions the public sector provides, I still smile at the apparent conviction with which those words were uttered.

Indeed, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that the bloke actually believed what he was saying but, as they say, if you repeat something often enough you’ll eventually convince yourself it’s true.

The reason I ask – about the total salary costs, that is – is that it seems to me that somehow employing all these very highly paid people is at odds with asking the public to do their work for them by suggesting ways in which that lot in the Big House can begin to cut a public spending culture that’s been virtually out of control for decades.

Before whoever came up with this bright idea asked the public for their views, it would have been nice to hear what sort of ideas the senior hired help came up with – if indeed they were asked at all. After all, aren’t they all supposed to be experts at ‘thinking out of the box’ and all the other trendy little twee phrases that many of them have such fun using.

Not surprisingly, when the public were asked, things like flogging off the Airport seemed to pop out of the hat, which is all well and good, as is the suggestion that the ceiling on social security contributions should be lifted.

What neither of these otherwise laudable suggestions does is actually save any money – not a brass farthing. All well and good that they raise money but given the decades of an out of control spending culture I referred to earlier, this place needs more revenue streams like it needs a hole in the head.

Raise more money – by either flogging the Airport or whacking another few percentage points on income tax by another name, otherwise known as social security contributions – and it will burn a hole in the collective trouser pocket of that lot in the Big House, never mind the hired help.

Tell them there’s a surplus of a million quid and before the words have been uttered a dozen ‘urgent’ ideas about spending it will have spouted forth. Ask them to actually save a million quid and the silence will be so deafening that they’ll once again resort to asking the public to do their jobs for them.

And besides, seeing we’re on the subject of the Airport, is it actually ours to sell? It certainly wasn’t when the all singing, all dancing but now no room in which to swing a cat departure hall was being built because we were so damned skint – yes, even then – that our elected representatives had to go running to that nice Mr Hambro for a bank loan.

Of course, we could have paid off the mortgage but I must say that I can’t recall hearing about that. If we have then I’d have thought that one of the spin doctors or nurses would have had enough between the ears to recommend a positive news release – a good deal more positive than some of what emerges under the general heading of ‘news’.

SO, between them the Home Affairs and Treasury ministers, something called the Property Holdings Department, the Treasury department and (where do they dream them up?) the accounting officer for the Chief Minister’s department managed, either collectively or individually, to totally cock-up what to most people was a relatively simple, although horrendously expensive, deal to lease a hitherto empty property at the Green Street end of Fort Regent tunnel to serve as office accommodation for the States Police.

According to Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand, talks started early last year, at least 18 months ago, and all of a sudden, just when it’s all been made public and everyone thinks it’s a done deal, along comes another punter in the shape of a finance firm and, right under our noses, so to speak, snaps up a 21-year lease on the building.

My own view of this latest debacle – which sounds like some pedantic jobsworth working at public sector pace rather than with any sense of urgency – is that this could well be a blessing in disguise. As I said earlier, the deal sounded horrendously expensive and if it concentrates a few minds on making the best possible use of properties already wholly owned by the public, instead of entering into expensive arrangements for others, then this latest shambles may well have done long suffering taxpayers a bit of a favour.

That said, it would be interesting to know to which sites Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf was referring when he said that they were now being dusted off and looked at again. I hope that when a final decision is made, the cloth is cut according to our means and the sites being re-examined already belong to us, Heaven knows, there are enough of them and it’s office space that’s required, not specialist scientific laboratories.

And finally,

Surely there are grounds for appeal by the prosecution in the case of that cowardly baseball bat attack. The 18 months – out in a year at most – was only half that recommended by the prosecution and probably less than the term for bringing in a carton of Moroccan Woodbines.