Unfit to Govern

I wrote many times in the past five years how bad, how lacking in the basic skills or knowledge of Governing or getting anything done, the Governments of Johnson, Truss and Sunak was.

This week, The National Audit Office released a series of reports of the moneies wasted simply because those responsible in Government did not have the skills to put policy into action, and the vast cost it leaves the taxpayer and the new Government to fix.

Ian Dunt says it better than I can: (via https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-truth-that-dare-not-speak-its?utm_source) "The report on NHS financial management and sustainability found that the health needs of the population are continuing to increase, but the health service is already working "at the limits of a system which might break". There is a fundamental mismatch between growing demand and available funding, which the previous government did little to address. The most likely outcome is that service levels "will continue to be unacceptable and may even deteriorate further".

The report on HS2 concerns failure of a truly totemic scale. Rishi Sunak kept Phase One of the new rail system between London and Birmingham, where it was least needed, but scrapped Phase Two between Birmingham and Manchester, where it was most needed. This has now created some of the most preposterous examples of waste and pointlessness in the modern era. Platforms are being built at Birmingham Curzon Street station, for instance, that will not be made operational as part of the programme, simply because it's cheaper to finish the work than scrap it.

Despite all the money already spent on HS2 - one estimate puts it as high as £57 billion - there is now no plan for the existing capacity problem on the West Coast Main Line which it was intended to solve. The line north of Birmingham will reach capacity by 2030. In a statement so insane you have to read it twice to fully believe it, the project is likely to actually reduce capacity between Birmingham and Manchester. The plan is to put the HS2 trains on the old West Coast Main Line, but they have fewer seats than existing services, so the government will end up having to discourage people from travelling by rail: an affront to the most rudimentary logic of public infrastructure policy and the mission to address climate change.

If those passengers chose to travel by roads, they'll suffer for it. A report on the condition and maintenance of local roads in England found they were in a state of decline, with an expanding backlog of necessary repairs. The Department for Transport "does not have a good enough understanding of the condition of local roads", it "does not use the limited data it does have to allocate its funding as effectively as possible" and it doesn't even know "whether the funds it allocates are delivering improvements in road condition".

High above the earth, a report on the UK's National Space Strategy and the role of the UK Space Agency found a strategy with very broad desired outcomes, a government department with no idea "how much it would cost to deliver" and no implementation plan. Three years after publishing it to great fanfare, the Tories were "still in the early stages of identifying and developing the plans and capabilities". There was no clarity on the "aims, outcomes or priorities" of the Space Agency, or indeed, on the most elementary level imaginable, "what [it] was supposed to deliver and by when".

It was the same wherever you looked. Disadvantaged children were suffering in the educational system. The Department for Education "does not yet understand the outcomes resulting from a significant proportion of its expenditure" and it "does not have a fully integrated view of its interventions, or milestones to assess progress". Homelessness has spiralled out of control. Numbers are at record levels and expected to increase. And yet the government "still has no strategy or public targets for reducing statutory homelessness", while it fell behind on key programmes to improve housing supply. It was the same picture with help for benefit claimants, or the treatment of farmers, or any other number of topics the NAO looked at.

Failure, failure, failure. Failure in every aspect, at every level, across every policy area. Failure at the most granular technical level and failure at the highest, broadest range of expectation. A tombstone in place of a government. An abyss in place of a plan."

And if we look elsewhere, anywhere: Brexit, Justice, Local Government, its the same pattern of chaos and failure, with no clear evidence where all the money the Government collected has gone. Other than to Dido Harding and their friends via the Dodgy VIP lanes for shit PPE.