Unfit To Govern

Well, it’s been interesting watching and reading the coverage of the first 100 days of the coalition.  Those that are pro coalition said how wonderful they were but I didn’t see any details of any good that had been achieved.  For those, like myself, who believe that the coalition is going to bring the country to it’s knees it was very easy to cite examples of poor government, blunders, arrogance and downright incompetence. Here’s a reminder of a few of these;

David Laws’s resignation. The new coalition government was plunged into its first crisis as the Liberal Democrat cabinet minister charged with cutting the £156bn deficit resigned following revelations about his expenses.

NHS reorganisation. Government has embarked on massive NHS restructuring, even though Tories said before the election that these restructuring exercises caused “terrible” disruption.  For further details see the UTG blog posts on this subject.

The Michael Gove fiasco of the cancellation of the ‘Building for Schools Programme”. Michael Gove should get the incompetence prize for the way he announced the cancellation school building projects. See UTG Blog posts.

The economy.  Despite many warnings Osborne and the coalition are bulldozing ahead with their cuts which is almost certainly going to result in a ‘double-dip” recession.  The plan relies on new jobs being created in the private sector to replace the 600,000 or more which will be lost in the public sector as a result of the cuts. Cloud cuckoo land.

Refusal of the £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters being challenged. Its chief executive said directors were willing to sell shares, contrary to what Cameron and Clegg said.

Capital gains tax. Coalition agreement said CGT would go up to rates “similar or close to those applied to income”, but George Osborne only raised it to 28%, not 40%.

VAT increases to 20% in January.  Despite the Lib Dems stating they were against a VAT rise in the run up to the election the Chancellor  announces the poor targeted inflationary VAT rise.

Stabilisation of Fuel prices ruled out. Back in the summer of 2008 Shadow chancellor George Osborne told the BBC the party was looking at plans to cut fuel duty when oil prices rise and increase it when prices fall. This has now been ruled out.  Another case of saying one thing in opposition and another when you get into power.

Abolished The Film Council. This is the body which promoted the British film industry and provided funding for many top British films.

No Crackdown on Tax Avoidance.  There has been a complete lack of any announcements regarding how the coalition is going to plug any of the Tax Avoidance loopholes.

Cancelling The Child Trust Fund.  Stopped this progressive idea which has been copied by other countries.

Scrapped the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) – the Commission’s latest (and last report) shows that even the modest measures that the previous government introduced to save energy and water and reduce waste have cut the state’s annual bills by £60m to £70m.  See UTG Blog Post.

Scrapping of ASBOs. Abandoning the whole ASBO system suggests the ConDems are returning to a  mentality where  police will only act after a crime has been committed.

Abolition of the Regional Development Agencies. This decision will once again centralise regional decisions in London reversing 10 years of gradual de-centralisation which is being adopted by other European countries.

Scrapping of ID Cards.  Political decision with no real rational behind it.  This will make it harder to catch criminals and terrorists than it would have otherwise been.  Also to illustrate the arrogance and  unfeeling nature of the Government they have refused to refund the relatively few people who have signed up for the trial.

Scrapping of Home Information Packs. This one affected me directly as it closed down my expanding business at a stroke without warning. This move alone increased unemployment by 3000 people with a total of 10,000 being affected. This was done without embarking on a 100 day consultation period which was promised prior to the election.  In doing we have returned to our old, slow and  inefficient house buying and purchasing system.

Announcing a spending review which will result in job losses of at least 600,000 in the public sector. All department (except NHS and overseas aid (why overseas aid)) have to find between 25 and 40% budget savings.  A conservative estimate puts resulting job losses at, at least 600,000.

The Abandonment of Regional House Building Targets.  Desperately need more housing, despite this the Coalition has abandoned targets which aimed to have 3 million more homes by 2020.

I really do hope we do not have 100 more days of the above.  Unfortunately I fear it can only get worse.  The polls indicate that at the moment it appears that it is possible to fool most of the people all of the time.

Further Reading: 100 facts about the coalition’s first 100 days, LabourList 50 mistakes series

The Centre for Social Justice accuses the government of a “blunderbuss” approach to reducing spending.  The group warned that Whitehall were in danger of applying a short sighted approach and end up axing schemes that are giving good value.

The group is suggesting a “more joined up” approach should be applied.

Some strange decisions have already been mentioned in this blog:
Government’s attempt to save £3m could cost many times this, 
Clegg’s Blunder during PMQ – ‘Illegal’ Iraq War (mention of withdrawn Forgemasters loan)

Source: BBC News:Spending cuts: Think-tank calls for joined-up approach

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, appears to have problems with his figures?  He rushed the ‘Academies’ Bill through Parliament on the understanding that over 1000 schools were ready to apply to be academies. However it has now been revealed that only 153 have actually applied and probably won’t get the go ahead before the start of the new academic year in September.

So what was the rush? Was this just another blunder by Michael Gove or was it more sinister, as suggested by Shadow Home Secretary and Labour Leadership Candidate, Ed Balls. As reported in the Guardian Ed Balls is quoted as saying “It seems to me that the real reason for the rush was to avoid proper scrutiny for a deeply flawed piece of legislation”.

Further reading here: Guardian  Left Foot Forward  Paul Waugh

The Coalition continues to bulldoze ahead cutting here and there without considering the consequences of their actions.  I came across this interesting blog by George Monbiot of the Guardian.  It’s worth a read as he explains how scrapping the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) to save £3m is the definitive case of false economy.

George explains that the Commission’s latest (and last report) shows that even the modest measures that the previous government introduced to save energy and water and reduce waste have cut the state’s annual bills by £60m to £70m.  Furthermore that the Commission could have saved the public purse considerably more had it been allowed to continue.

He sums it up by writing “Scrapping the commission is stupid, irrational and counter-productive. It suggests that, for all its talk of listening and engaging, the new government can’t handle criticism and fears effective scrutiny”.

This looks like another blunder and once again causes me to ask ; “is our Government fit to govern?”.

Read George Monbiot’s whole blog post here.

Yesterday, during Prime Ministers Question Time (PMQ) the deputy PM, Nick Clegg, made a blunder when he accused Jack Straw of being involved in the decision to take Britain into an ‘illegal’ war against Iraq.  Whilst it’s well known that Nick Clegg holds this personal belief it’s another matter if stated while representing the Government in answering a question at the despatch box during PMQ. This outburst came when, clearly Clegg had become agitated at Jack Straw’s questions relating to anomalies in the reasoning for withdrawing the promise of a loan to Forgemasters in Leeds.

To quote from the Guardian; “Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London, said: ‘A public statement by a government minister in parliament as to the legal situation would be a statement that an international court would be interested in, in forming a view as to whether or not the war was lawful.’”

Clegg’s view is clearly at odds with the Conservative party who backed the then Labour government’s decision to commit troops to Iraq in 2003 (albeit as we now know, there were no weapons of mass destruction which were believed to exist at the time).

How it’s been reported elsewhere; Guardian, BBC, Independent, Sky News, Kiran Stacey FT Blog

Michael Gove will admit the list he put out was full of errors.

Hundreds of schools checked a list, published by the Department for Education on Monday, to see whether their rebuiling plans were going ahead. It has now emerged that the list had 25 errors.

Michael Gove, is to “apologise unreservedly” for dashing the hopes of scores of schools across the country after mistakenly promising them new buildings.