Is the government imcompetent

well actually, I think everybody should just get off the fence and say what they really feel. No - don't hold back, come on, let's share the love.

waving happy fluffy bunnies at everybody and running away

Ahhhh, politics. No entrenched opinion too radical. Lovely.

newwave "he would rather maximise profits from cheap labour than give his fellow UK citizens a job with decent pay."

Yeah, that is called c.o.m.p.e.t.i.t.i.o.n.

Had he taken your advice, his cost would shot up, wouldn't be able to sell his overpriced product, he would have to close his production line and R&D and join the dole queue. Great!

I am hiding this thread because ignorance here is just off the scale.

That is a shame newwave but he still has an R&D company here.

muminlondon I agree with James Dyson entirely.

We should not have caps on the number of science PhDs or bright engineers.

Immigration is a problem is because Labour let in hundreds of thousands of peasants who couldn't speak English. Banning a brain surgeon or physics professor isn't going to help with that.

We should let highly skilled, highly educated, highly entrepreneurial, and highly accomplished people in without any sort of quota at all. We should be even firmer in rejecting those who do not fit into such categories - but perhaps most of all, we should make life as uncomfortable as possible for the Labour immigrants - legal and illegal - who choose to scrounge on benefits, so that they are encouraged to leave.

It was really interesting listening to James Dyson on the radio last week. He was obviously really angry that the government was making a pointless gesture cracking down on work visas for foreign graduates that could include shortage skill areas. He gave lots of concrete examples of post-grad research students in engineering who go on to start companies and create jobs here. And the big shortage in UK engineering graduates. Another incompetent move.

Completely and utterly depressing.
There is little foucs on real growth.
As a small business owner I feel he does nothing for us, just the opposite. I do not agree with giving workers less rights and making it easier to sack people without appeal. Too many companies hire and fire in this market and he has just make it alot easier to do so.
As for the war :=( he we go again.

Muminlondon - the non-doms who don't like it will just leave the UK. The bankers seem to realise things had to change - but if it suits them better elsewhere, they will leave. (I don't take those threatening loudly to leave seriously though - I think they'll stay).

Business people just tend to get on with things IME. I suspect they find most governments a bit incompetent .

Yes, a depressing thought mellowfruitfulness, I am scared about that. Terrified about the NHS more than anything.

Mellowfruitfulness:"However, they are stalling. Is this because they are actually listening to what people say? Imo that's the most important job of government. No government should be afraid to back down if they have been shown that their policies are unworkable. Or - more likely, imo - have they been forced into abandoning/changing their policies? If so, then they will just wait, regroup, plaster over the cracks, repackage the policies and present them to us again in a few months' time."

In the case of the N.H.S. "listening" exercise, I suspect they just want a pause to get through the May 5th elections, planning to carry out their plans afterwards in the way you describe.

Good post, Muminlondon. I agree that they have been trying to rush through badly misjudged, ideologically based policies.

However, they are stalling. Is this because they are actually listening to what people say? Imo that's the most important job of government. No government should be afraid to back down if they have been shown that their policies are unworkable. Or - more likely, imo - have they been forced into abandoning/changing their policies? If so, then they will just wait, regroup, plaster over the cracks, repackage the policies and present them to us again in a few months' time.

Right, so even the arms industry, non-doms and bankers think they're incompetent then.

"However, as you say, they're serving their elite of bankers, non-Doms, the arms industry and investors in private healthcare and schools."

I doubt the non-doms (who just had a big tax increase) or the bankers (who face an industry shake up) see it that way. The private healthcare and education investors were already doing quite nicely under Labour - but yes may have more opportunities under this government. I thought the arms industry were not happy (but I could be wrong).

Bottom line - this government really aren't pleasing many groups, although the sensible and pragmatic ones will make the best of it - I think most people always knew the Labour gravy train had to end sometime...

Good link breadandbutterfly and good points newwave. They are looking incompetent - getting the school building projects lists wrong and now seeing legal challenges, the child benefit cut anomalies for middle income families that penalise single parents and SAHMs, tuition fees policy costing us more to implement than we will save for years to come, the whole forest privatisation thing, the NHS reform fiasco in the face of almost universal opposition from all sectors of the NHS, criticism from business entrepreneurs like James Dyson on their visa policy for foreign engineering graduates, u-turns on sport and music education (unless I misunderstood and music is still shafted) while cutting school IT budgets.

I also think they are rushing through ideological cuts which will prove to be more expensive in the long-term, in the same way that PFI and other outsourcing contracts have cost the taxpayer billions (Labour got much of this wrong too). There are also unforeseen social consequences which ultimately cost the whole of society in terms of crime, inequality, bad housing, health (and mental health) problems.

However, as you say, they're serving their elite of bankers, non-Doms, the arms industry and investors in private healthcare and schools.

But ultimately I think they willl be seen as incompetent because they are nowhere near as popular as they think they are. They have completely misjudged the priorities even of their own party (both Conservatives and Lib Dems in fact). They're trying to rush through their right-wing agenda because they are a minority government with an ever dwindling chance of getting re-elected.

Yup, I think the government is floundering - but that's not good news for anyone.

Their mistake was to go for a slash and burn policy, but they know that they will not be voted back in, so they wanted to make their mark.

How could the individual members of the government possibly hope to understand the intricacies of the benefit system or the NHS or even the state education system? They walk on a cushion of air, a few feet above the hard tarmac pounded by the feet of us normal folk.

This is what you get when you vote for rich young men. They are just not representative of the population they should be trying to serve. That's not their fault, nor can they be blamed for lack of imagination - but next time we need to vote for more people who have lived among us, as one of us. The government should come from a cross-section of society, in order to represent the interests of all of us. But where will we find people from the poorest groups, when all routes to the higher echelons of society are so firmly blocked? They are completely unrepresented in the present government. They don't have a voice - except through demonstrations, etc.

What the present government needs to realise, imo, is that until they tackle the real (not relative) hardship in the heart of society, they can't start trying to make things better for the rest of us. Previous governments have tried and made some significant inroads, but this government wafted airily in and tried to undo all their hard work. It's not a top-down approach that is needed, but a bottom up one. If we are a ship, say, and there are leaks in cabin class below the waterline, the whole ship sinks.

Thanks for the link to the Polly Toynbee article, btw, Breadandbutterfly. Very interesting.

Totally.

bemy - I've almost given up too!

But - I really can't blame people. And it's not a purely lefty thing - Osborne's 'paying down the nations credit card' is very misleading.

Though, IMO, it would help if the Guardian's entire editorial team were given an 'Economics for Dummies' lesson. UKUncut could benefit from one too .

Jack I stopped explaining the difference between the national debt and the deficit a long time ago. Those people (not HH personally of course ) either do not understand the difference between the two or deliberately manipulating those reading who don't... 'oh, dear' to both cases...

HH

• "The 'deficit' is at one of the lowest levels of the last 250 year"

No it's not! By some measures (ie proportion of GDP) the national debt is at a lowish level (by war time standards) - but not for long as the deficit is extremely high!

It's the deficit we need to urgently reduce. The national debt we will leave to our children to deal with......

Cate you're exactly right they try things out to see just what they can get away with so even more reason to protest, protest, protest.

Sorry but a Govt that does more u-turns than a white van man IS incompetant! In one year they have already started to trash services and when "pulled-up" on a sensetive issue they back-track. Govt on the hoof...not great!

Yep, government on the hoof. In their arrogance they try things, blinkin' awful things, see if they can get away with them and if they can't they do a u-turn.

Sorry but a Govt that does more u-turns than a white van man IS incompetant! In one year they have already started to trash services and when "pulled-up" on a sensetive issue they back-track. Govt on the hoof...not great!