Ministers regularly give the impression they don't know what they are doing or, worse still, don't care.
The government has been in office for just over a year but the very many devils in the detail of their policies are only now starting to appear.
For instance, work capability tests for disabled people led to over two-thirds losing benefits. People should be punished if they are abusing the system or the system loses public support.
But my fear is that the tests have been set unfairly. It's said, for example, that if a disabled person can get to a distant test centre they're fit enough to work but those who cannot are struck off for being absent. This is a classic Catch 22.
But government incompetence and callousness is producing a reaction, judged by last week's wave of public sector strikes over working longer and paying more for lower pensions.
I used to be the President of the main public sector union, Unison and know full well that people don't strike and lose pay on a whim but the government has refused proper negotiations about changes that would impact badly on millions of often low-paid workers.
It is right that people defend themselves when they are robbed by the government just as much as householders can defend themselves from burglars.
Government claims that public sector pensions are unaffordable have also been exposed as false. The overall cost will actually fall in future years. This is typical of the current government - they exaggerate in order to bamboozle people into accepting their policies.
People rightly resent a government of millionaires that has let the bankers off the hook although they caused the economic crisis in the first place. People wouldn't have to protest and strike if there were genuine fairness in sacrifice to revive our economy but the burden is being placed on the least well off. It's sad when people have to strike to make their voice heard and none of those on strike would have wanted to disrupt the services that they deliver day in day out for their fellow citizens.
Newcastle Chronicle and Journal
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