Yet more Evidence that the Coalition is incompetent

Pete111

LauraW10 wrote: »

Really? You actually think this is all Labour's fault? How old are you? 10?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9257353/Tory-MP-apologises-for-incompetent-Government.html

And that was in May!!!! Since then we have had the complete mess surrounding the exam system, the revelation that the structural deficit is not improving and the Natioal Debt is getting bigger, the mess with the NHS and the police and now the cherry on top a complete mess with a £5billion rail contract.

One of the great things you can do in your first year or two in government is endlessly pass the buck. When things go wrong you can point your finger at the previous administration and say "it was all their fault".However these opportunities slowly ebb away as time passes. For instance, after 2001 you rarely heard Tony Blair make reference to 17 years of Tory misrule, which had almost become a mantra in his first term in office.

In the second half, governing will get harder. Lib Dems facing electoral annihilation will have to consider early exit from the coalition. Peevish and disappointed at the loss of both electoral and House of Lords reform, they must surely now start to veto the Tories' worst excesses....

So by your reckoning the Govt can use 'the previous' lot as an excuse for ...ooooh about 2.5 more years then!

Gracchus_Babeuf

The government has no ideas other than to cut. Cutting means reducing people's incomes, which leads to lower spending, which leads to lack of growth, which leads to a poorer economy with higher unemployment, which leads to a bigger deficit, which leads to increased inability to pay off the deficit, which leads to.......disaster!

Generali

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

The government has no ideas other than to cut. Cutting means reducing people's incomes, which leads to lower spending, which leads to lack of growth, which leads to a poorer economy with higher unemployment, which leads to a bigger deficit, which leads to increased inability to pay off the deficit, which leads to.......disaster!

We can worry about your grasp of economics later but your mathematics is terrible. Government spending has risen every year since the Coalition took power:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/total_spending_2010UKbn

It is predicted to fall but hasn't fallen by a single penny as yet.

Gracchus_Babeuf

Generali wrote: »

We can worry about your grasp of economics later but your mathematics is terrible. Government spending has risen every year since the Coalition took power:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/total_spending_2010UKbn

It is predicted to fall but hasn't fallen by a single penny as yet.

These figures mean nothing because much of the spending is due to benefits the government has had to pay as a result of its own policy of economic retrenchment. Also, given that the population has also risen it's bl**dy obvious that spending would rise!

Generali

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

These figures mean nothing because much of the spending is due to benefits the government has had to pay as a result of its own policy of economic retrenchment.

Perhaps you should go back and read the last couple of Budgets.

nicko33

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

The government has no ideas other than to cut.

Does the opposition have any ideas other than to spend more than we can afford?

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

We can worry about your grasp of economics later but your mathematics is terrible. Government spending has risen every year since the Coalition took power:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/total_spending_2010UKbn

It is predicted to fall but hasn't fallen by a single penny as yet.

That is quite a harsh double whammy.

Being seen as the 'cutting government' by general populace, and the 'spending government' by markets.

There was a Beeb article which proved inciteful. It is the government's inability to restrain the PS pay bill which has led to cost cuts through reduction in numbers. Is this proof you can never share the burden of hard times evenly?

Conrad

GeneHunt wrote: »

The current coalition government is working flat out to eclipse memories of Gordon Brown's incompetence. It is succeeding to such an extent that only two years after he was a minister in Brown's team, Miliband can, with a straight face, stand on a stage and lecture the Tories on competence...

Labour had a much better record;

• Expenses gravy train allowed to trundle on
• Highest proportion of teen pregnacy
• Highest proportion of children living in wrokless households :mad:
• Replaced wealth creation with private and public debt to fill the void
• Refusal to carry out unannounced visits on care homes, with many disasterous consequences
• 2 pointless wars
• Foreign prisoners never deported - no attempt at it
• Wrong kit for troops in theatre
• Wrong helicopter strategy
• Clown ignoring working classes being put out of work by armies of Poles
• Manufactuing halved
• Public sector non jobs abounded
• Repeated failure in child protection - over and again councils saying 'lessons must be learned'
• H&S culture permeated every egg n spoon race
• Odious claims culture (typical of a 'my rights' political landscape)
• Cherries dodgy deveoper dealings
• Eccleston's dondgy donations
• 3 Asian Labour peers thrown out for fraud simultaneously
• Mandelsons bent mortgage applications
• The Geoffry Robinson debarcle
• Patricia Hewitt slow clapped by nurses
• Not fit for purpose home office - 6 MINISTERS IN 7 YEARS!!
• £20bn on the NHS failed computer
• Overspending well before the crunch
• Epic mismanagment of contracts
• Growth of the odious 'oooman rights' landscape so beloved of all those we want rid of
• Sucking up to Europe, with spineless subservience (Danny ALexander)
• 66 stealth taxes
• Selling our gold when price was lowest
• Mass raid on private pensions
• Tuition fees introduced despite the promise not to
• Soft on school bullies
• Allowing many dangerous offenders out who re - offended (remember the 3 yo kidnapped near river 7), thanks to ooman rights and so on
• Biggest gap between rich n poor
• School guidance 600 pages long, compared to Swedens 12 pages (classic interference)
• Hospital super bug - lessons not learned over and again
• Youth unemployment doubled from 2004 to 2009
• Worst cancer survival outcomes in Europe

princeofpounds

you might also like to 'discuss' the fact that the current lot of conservatives were so worried about the national debt whilst in opposition that they promised to match labour spending plans.

Don't get me wrong, I think all shades of political party have played a part in this. Some more so than others perhaps, but I specifically spoke about it being a problem for both red and blue.

The point was just about hypocrisy. I can't listen to the Eds lecture anyone about this stuff any more, or criticising the coalition for failing to dig out of an almost impossibly-deep hole of their making.

I think the promises you refer to above were a wrong policy, but I suppose the game is that if you promise to actually sort out government spending in an economy where probably half the voters are paid a cheque by government each month, you'll never get elected. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, just as client voters never vote out their paymaster.

What an eloquent requiem for the complete failure of capitalism.

Thanks for the backhanded compliment.

Actually, I think it's very questionable whether the UK has been operating a capitalist economy for some time now. When the government is 42% of GDP it pretty much becomes the dominant force with all the problems that brings. A number of societies with 50% government share of GDP considered themselves communist, so we aren't that far off.

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

That is quite a harsh double whammy.

Being seen as the 'cutting government' by general populace, and the 'spending government' by markets.

This is a spending Government, it's just spending slightly less than Labour said it would although there is a decent chance that had Labour won they would have had to follow similar policies to the Tories IMHO (although that doesn't mean they would have f'd up the train thing of course, not that similar).

kabayiri wrote: »

There was a Beeb article which proved inciteful. It is the government's inability to restrain the PS pay bill which has led to cost cuts through reduction in numbers. Is this proof you can never share the burden of hard times evenly?

The problem is that wages generally rise faster than inflation so if you are running an organisation that is a large employer, like the Government, then your costs tend to run ahead of inflation. If you also can't make efficiency savings because strong unions won't let you then you face a choice between increasing taxes or borrowing every year in real terms.

Clearly that's a finite proposition when GDP is flat or falling.