Is the government imcompetent

[newwave]

They're only incompetent from a certain perspective.

From the perspective of the bondholders, a right-wing government which seeks to privatise the NHS is doing a good job.

From the perspective of the arms industry looking to boost sales, a right-wing government which outmuscles Washington in the War on Terror 3 is doing a good job.

From the perspective of the bankers, a right-wing government which cuts corporation tax while cutting benefits is doing a good job.

From the perspective of the tax cheats, a government which announces that it will not seek to challenge the basis of domicile in an era in which non-doms in the City have fucked up the country, is doing a good job

my my, aren't we chippy today? LMFAO!!!

Actually newwave, having just been sarcastic for apparently no point whatsoever, other than it amuses me in a childish manner..... I totally agree with everything you say.

It only amazes me that a such a staggeringly large number of apparently apathetic, politically totally ignorant people are less than outraged by the current coalition. They have NO mandate to do what they are doing - and if you ask most people in the street whether they even understand the concept of 'having a mandate', they'd probably stop chewing their cud long enough to look in a dumb, bovine manner at you, and mutter something about 'well he sounded good in the political debates'. Then carry on with their lardy arses, wandering down the street, caring less about the rape and pillage of our society and more about - well, fuck KNOWS what they are worrying about, tbhwy!

Big society - cheapskate marketeer's way of dressing up the idea of the well-meaning middle class do-gooder (together with their pointy elbows) stepping in to try and shore up the rape and pillage of many services which have been put in place or strengthened over the past ten years.

God help us all. Lovely post, well done you for raising this issue. How sad that after 12 hours, only I have bothered to comment on it? See above... (not that MNers are bovine, natch! LOL) Let's hope it is because we're all too busy enjoying some blissful summery weather.

Lord help us all.

Love and peace out... (not to mention the BASTARD coalition...)
x

Sadly, they aren't very competent. They seem to be backtracking from privatising the NHS - they overcut defence and are having to revisit, and they are giving in to the EU/ECHR left, right and centre.

That said, be glad we don't have Labour in. We would be holding out the national begging bowl to all and sundry, whilst continuing to dole out benefits on an epic scale so that bogus asylum seekers can live in Notting Hill mansions.

The government aren't much to write home about, but at least they aren't Labour.

And at least their heart is in the right place - cut taxes, cut benefits, cut public spending, cut debt. They aren't very good at actually doing it, but at least they believe it.

They actually love this country, and unlike Labour, they aren't sickened by patriotism, tradition, the military, and other things which make Britain great.

You ARE a satirist aren't you longclaws? Excellent.

Why would cutting public spending indicate 'having their heart in the right place'? lol

Tradition and the military are not things which make Britain great. England's social conditions resemble the 19th Century, in many ways, and it's political system is archaic.

Britain has many things going for it, on the other hand, just not the things you mentioned: A long intellectual history of writers, scientists, philosophers, and artists, for example.

Longnails, if troll 3/10

If cerial: Wow. Derp harder next time.

I think I've covered all my responses.

Op - you should crdit your sources.

See:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/08/david-cameron-nhs-schools-tory?INTCMP=SRCH

longwhatever, I think you're trolling your face off. I prefer to think of Labour's recent state-funded support of other things that give our country credence...(although I think of myself as a totally federalist European by preference...) - oooh, let me think?.... yes, some suggestions for excellent historical tradition are coming to me....

....Writers? Scientists? Philosphers? Artists? Educators?

I MIGHT be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the coalition just f*cked them all over good and proper?

You're talking a pile of gobshite - the military made us great???? Do me a favour! Go file your fingernails, love.

Wow. This place beats Babycenter for nutters anyday!

Love and peace out - except to anybody who wants to cut funding for all the above, university funding, nursery places... but wallop a few more pennies into Trident. Magic!!

Tory gov: Cut britain! cut everything! cut them! cut babies and children! cut you!

Theyre off their trolleys.

Longfingercut: You must think of the economy like a business. You buy in goods/raw material at low cost. Then you manufacture/grow them into something useful and valuable.

The country is the same; the product is the people who make Britain. If you stop investing in the raw material, you will have less to sell, your country will be crapper. If you stop investing in transforming them into a valuable product, you will have raw material of little/no value, even though they may have great potential.

That is what the misguided fools have done.

If we think of the economy like a business then it's a bankrupt business and someone should have called in the administrators years ago.

In business terms we're running at a huge loss each year, we owe the banks trillions of pounds for "investments" we've made in schools, benefits & the NHS etc. All made no doubt in good faith but who thought about the return on investment? If you look at the results, the investment simply hasn't been worth it.

All that investment in education and standards are only higher because exams are dumbed down. Despite billions in real terms, the NHS remains a mess. Benefits? Well thats just a joke. Not only are we borrowing to give benefits to people, we've also trillions pounds of liabilities yet to come through more pensioners and less dying and public sector final salary pensions.

If we're a business we're not selling what people want to buy. Our "strength" is financial services. Good luck with that one right now! Unlike Germany who managed themselves astutely and have a huge manufacturing base selling quality products like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Bosch etc. we have virtually no manufacturing industry to speak of.

If we were a business we'd be owned by China right now.

Its not a bankrupt business at all, although it seems the banks have tried their best to achieve this.

The 'deficit' is at one of the lowest levels of the last 250 year! We've never had it so good (before the tories started dismantling).

'nice'guy2, you seem to have a very negative view of everything. It must be a very negative and sad way to live your life.

Without investment, there will be no growth, there will be no recovery.

Very well said Niceguy. I would add if we were a business we'd be owned by Russia right now. Oops...

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!

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.

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.

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......

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...

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 .

Totally.

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.

Mellow

Excellent post

Their mistake was to go for a slash and burn policy, but they know that they will not be voted back in, I pray to a God I dont believe in that this is true so they wanted to make their mark.

They will, they will, we will see their mark in the depredations, the squalor and hardship they will leave behind as they leave for the directorships in the companies that they helped to plunder the state resources of education and the NHS.

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.

"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...

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

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.