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Saturday, June 02, 2012

turning

doesn't matter who is in power there will come a time when they have to make decisions that anger various groups in society. these interest groups will lobby parliament and try to get the decisions changed. that is democracy in action.

when we elect our politicians we are telling them to make decisions for us and in our name. the unspoken part of that pact is that there are going to be times when they are going to have to listen to the voice of the people even though there is not an election going on.

no government, no matter how strong or how wise is going to get it right all of the time. the strength of democracy is that a governments can rectify their mistakes.
what is odd is that we don't celebrate this evidence of democracy in action, rather we use it to castigate the government for being weak or stupid.

the recent con/dem budget has been described as an 'omnishambles' and it is an 'omnishanbles' that keeps on giving. there have been several u-turns that have punctured holes in the budget proposals. whatever else i may accuse the con/dems of being weak isn't one of those things. that just leaves being stupid. it does appear that george osborne and his team are guilty of either rank amateurism or they are very stupid.

i commend the government for changing tack on several of its headline idea from the last budget. it shows they are listening and are prepared to change their minds (of course they are not caving into pressure - who could think such a thing). judging by some of the recent changes it doesn't appear that a lot of thought is going into the plans that they are making - beyond the basic 'can we get those on low to medium incomes to pay more'.

a government that listens and can change its mind and decisions is a good thing.
a government that has to change its mind and decisions often is a bad thing.

phew - for a moment there i thought i was going to have to fully defend the con/dems but it seems i have given myself an out - they are lazy and clumsy planners and so are bad.

at least now we know why there isn't a plan b for the economy - they are still trying to work out what plan a was.

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