Mark Thomas TV - Fred Allen - Author Unknown - Robert Copeland - Milton Berle - Ernest Benn - Peter Wright - Robert Tressell -
99,559. Give evidence at a Select Committee in the House of Commons … Public Bodies: Quangos: they’re looking at patronage … they’re looking at the appointments’ system. (Government & Civil Service & Honours & Committee) Mark Thomas Comedy Product s6e6
99,460. There’s about a 1,000 of them. There’s 30,000 people who sit on them … They’ve got budgets of billions … It’s like the Queen’s New Year’s Honuors List … They’ve got more power than MPs … (Government & Civil Service & Honours & Committee) ibid.
99,461. They have the ‘Government Wine Committee’ … (Government & Civil Service & Honours & Commitee) ibid.
67,927. Committee – a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. Fred Allen, American humorist, attributed
67,928. A committee is a group of the unwilling, chosen from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. Author unknown
67,929. To get something done a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent. Robert Copeland
67,930. A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. Milton Berle
67,931. Our age will be known as the age of committees. Ernest Benn
96,001. Science in wartime is often a case of improvising with the materials at hand ... By the end of the war this attitude had all but disappeared; the dead hand of committees began to squeeze the life out of England. Peter Wright, Spycatcher p16
96,019. ROC was one of the most important committees in postwar British Intelligence. For ten years, until the new generation of computers came in at the end of the 1960s, ROC was crucial to much of the success of GCHQ’s cryptanalytical effort. But of even greater importance was the way it began to break down barriers which had previously separated MI5, MI6, and GCHQ at working level. As in the war, British Intelligence once again began to function as a coordinated unit, and as a result was much more successful. (Spy & Committee & Intelligence Services) ibid. p114
96,570. He would enquire into the case and lay his application before the committee at the next meeting, which was to held on the following Thursday – it was then Monday.
Linden explained to him that they were actually starving. He had been out of work for sixteen weeks. (Poverty & Starvation & Committee) ibid.
96,571. The case had been duly considered by the committee, who had come to the conclusion that as it was a ‘chronic’ case they were unable to deal with it, and advised him to apply to the Board of Guardians. (Poverty & Starvation & Committee) ibid.