In the current climate, one of high inflation, falling wages and a rising cost of living there has been mcuh commentary on what governments should do or could do in order to address the situation. In the UK at the moment there are strikes across multiple sectors: nursing, ambulance staff, teachers, train workers – this year even saw strikes from lawyers; most if not all of which concern the underfunding of services and the wages of the staff employed in these industries. In light of this we have often seen government members or political leaders linked to a governing party asked about the situation and their plans to address it.
One such minister, Michael Gove was interviewed this week by Sky News and was asked whether or not he thought that nurses were adequately paid and therefore not managing because they simply (as a group presumably) couldn’t manage their finances. The response was, as has been the case throughout this crisis – that the government “do need to make sure that they are paid properly” and then went on to say that the government also that they “do need to recognise that resources are tight”. On the face of it, this could appear to be a very reasonable argument – “we cannot pay you more because we simply don’t have the money”…. and yet…. I would ask “are you not responsible for managing the country and therefore ensuring that there IS enough money?”.
Perhaps I am simply niave, however I have worked (hithertoo mind you) under the premise that the whole purpose of government was TO MANAGE the country. On the assumption that this is indeed the case, then if government ministers accept (as it would seem from Mr Gove’s comments) that public sector workers should be paid properly, it surely follows that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that this happens – and that there ARE enough resources for this. So where then are the questions about this? Who is asking the government WHY there aren’t enough resources? How has it come to pass that the people elected to MANAGE the country cannot or more pertinently HAVE NOT been managing it?
In this particular case, the current political party (Conservatices) have been in power for more than 12 years – ample time one would have thought for actions to be taken to ensure that public sector pay could be handled in the manner which the governing party consider appropriate. Which leads one to conclude that either:
a) they have managed it in the way that they wanted – which leads one to conclude that they don’t believe that the public sector workers are badly paid (so Mr Gove is lying)
or
b) that they do believe that public sectors workers should be piad more, and they they are so uttelry incompetent that they cannot do anything about it
Either way, it would seem that both the current government are not fit to govern – they are either liars or incompetent… it is just a shame that no-one thinks to challenge them with this.
UPDATE – 22-01-2023
In a similar vein, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequor Nadhim Zahawi it turns out has just had to pay taxes and fines (to the department he used to run no-less) for taxes that he hadn’t previously paid but didn’t. Nadhim Zahawi does however claim that this was ‘careless not deliberate’. Surely when one is involved in such activities, and one uses accountants to determine the amount of tax to be paid – things like this cease to be carelessness and can ONLY be deliberate… at some poitn a question was asked and a decision taken. This can hardly be described as carelessness. It remains unclear as to whether or not Mr Zahawi was under investigation when he was appointed the job of Chancellor – certainly his colleague and fellow minister James Cleverly indicated that he does not know the answer to this in an interview with Sky – wome 2 days after the story borke. Odd really… one would have thought that Mr Clevelry would have wanted to prepare for the interview, it was after-all a question which was likely to arise…
So back to the question… incompetent… or liars.. I vote BOTH