50 mistakes in 100 days (26-30)

By Howard Dawber

Over 100 days ago, Britain woke up to a new coalition government. In that time they have already displayed extraordinary economic illiteracy and are beginning to champion a dangerous mix of cruelty and cheerful incompetence, perhaps already worse than any government in living memory.

Here are the numbers twenty-six to thirty of the top 50 things they have done wrong … so far…

26. GERRYMANDERING ON A MASSIVE SCALE
Perhaps wounded by their failure to win the election, the Tories have decided to change the system so they automatically win more seats. By reducing the number of constituencies to 600, they hope to split Labour-supporting towns in half and match them with large county seats ensuring that they win. It will also mean fewer MPs and less representation for a lot of areas in the UK. They have decided to hitch this shamelessly self-centred piece of political chicanery onto the referendum introducing the AV system.

Why is it a bad idea? Having failed to win a majority on a fair basis, the Tories are trying to skew Britain’s electoral system in their favour. That’s not democratic or fair.

27. TRYING TO CUT FREE SCHOOL MILK FOR UNDER-5s
In August Conservative Health Minister Anne Milton wrote to her opposite numbers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland sounding out the idea of cutting school milk for under-5s. When this was leaked to the public, David Cameron rushed out a denial that the policy was even being considered. David Willetts was live on air at the time on the Andrew Marr show defending the cut – 15 minutes later Tory spokesmen were on TV saying it was never planned…

Why is it a bad idea? This episode shows a whole series of things wrong with the new government. First of all, they haven’t got a clue what they are doing. Secondly, they are making up policy as they go and are prepared to drop things at the first sign of trouble. Thirdly, the people likely to face the impact of cuts first are the most vulnerable – here their plan was to remove school milk from the neediest young children.

28. CUTTING THE ROAD SAFETY BUDGET AND CUTTING FUNDING FOR SPEED CAMERAS
The government has cut £38 million of the £95 million that had been due to go to local authorities this financial year for road safety. They are also not going to fund any more speed cameras.

Why is it a bad idea? Councils have been working through plans to put in new road safety measures – now these are all in jeopardy. After years which have seen fewer deaths on the road the ConDems will now sit by while safety schemes are axed. The department for transport’s own studies show that deaths and injuries are reduced by 42% where cameras are deployed. No-one likes speed cameras, but when they are installed and operated properly, they work.

29. MERGING THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AUTHORITY WITH THE BANK OF ENGLAND
When Labour came to power in 1997, regulation of financial services was split between different agencies and different government departments. Labour merged the agencies into a single powerful regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) reporting to the treasury. Now, in the middle of a financial crisis, while the world sets out a new regulatory framework, the ConDem government wants to abolish the FSA and split its powers between several different regulators.

Why is it a bad idea? There is no evidence whatsoever that having the same people doing the same thing under a different name would have had any impact on the recent financial crisis – in fact the secretive nature of the Bank of England compared to the open model of regulation used by the FSA might have made things worse. These proposals make no practical sense – they are political window-dressing to mask the fact that the ConDems do not really know what changes they want to make to regulatory policy. At worst, they will distract and destabilise our banking and financial services regulators just at the point when they need to have their time focused on the job. And the changes will cost £50m according to the government’s own figures.

30. INCOMPETENCE IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS
As the summer started, both David Cameron and Nick Clegg made a series of serious gaffes over foreign policy. First Clegg, standing in for Cameron at Prime Minister’s question time, said that the Iraq war had been “illegal”. This is not government policy and undermines seven years of diplomatic work explaining what the UK was doing in Iraq. While Clegg opposed the war at the time, Cameron and the Conservatives supported it. Then Cameron said that Britain was the “junior partner ” of the USA and also that we had been the “junior partner” in 1940 against Nazi Germany. Quite apart from the question over whether the UK wishes to be seen as the “junior” sidekick of the USA in international matters, in 1940 the US had not entered the war and Britain was seen as the leader of the free world. His comments were an insult to the men and women fighting for Britain as she stood alone in 1940. Then Cameron went to India where he insulted neighbouring Pakistan, saying that their intelligence services were helping terrorists. Even if this is true – which is heavily disputed by Pakistan – it is the sort of issue best raised quietly behind closed doors rather than as a throwaway comment to curry favour in a neighbouring and rival country. Finally Cameron said that Iran had nuclear weapons. If so, this is news to the rest of the world – even the CIA, who can normally be relied on to overstate the risk from various rogue states, doesn’t think Iran has nuclear weapons.

Why is it a bad idea? It’s becoming a bad idea to let Cameron – or Clegg – open their mouths on foreign policy issues without engaging their brains. More seriously, foreign policy gaffes like this can take years to repair.