Constant Deterioration

There is a joke told about a vicar who has just announced he is leaving. 

An older parishioner is talking to him in the coffee queue later. 'We'll never find another one as good as you' she says .

The vicar acknowledges this apparent kindness and suggests there are plenty of fine candidates out there.

'No, no' she says 'I've been here through five vicars and every one's been worse than the previous one.'

I thought of this joke during the budget. 

In 2010 we had a Conservative led coalition which decided on austerity. Showing his working the appalling David Cameron announced that it was always good to fix the roof when the sun is shining. Then he took all the extra money he and his journeyman chancellor collected and put it away to use to fix the roof on some future date when roof-fixing was more expensive. In his metaphor the roof was debt not infrastructure.

Coming to the end of his five years (remember the Fixed-term Parliaments Act?) he then made a reckless promise which he never expected to have to keep because the sound of the boos of the crowd when any member of his team presented Olympic Medals must have still been ringing in his ears. Unexpectedly winning a small majority he was stuck in a corner with the promise of an in/out referendum on EU membership. This led to the first stirrings of Boris, probably not because of his enthusiasm for democracy but the idea of some in/out action. Meanwhile Cameron insisted that the government would act on the result of the referendum.

We are familiar with 2016 and the marginal, probably rigged, referendum which divided the country and even some families. Reminds me of the old joke about a stranger being approached in Belfast during the troubles. 'Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?

'Actually, I'm an atheist.'

'Yes, but are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic one?

Are you a remainer or a brexiteer?

Neither, we've left. 

Yes, but are you a...? Well it doesn't quite work but it should.

Cameron resigned, because he was a staunch remainer, humming a little hum as he went and the obvious choice for replacement was someone who had campaigned for remain as he had. Theresa May's big idea was to get the country behind her so she held a General Election and lost her slender majority. Nevertheless she got to a point where she had a deal with the EU but her party voted it down. She resigned and Boris Johnson replaced her, immediately going to the EU and negotiating a worse deal than the one just rejected. He took this to the electorate in 2019 and got a majority back for his 'oven-ready' deal which his party then approved. Ian Duncan-Smith told us it didn't need any more scrutiny because every line had been scrutinised over and over again. Never over-estimate the ability of a quiet man. Shortly afterwards Johnson and Co decided it wasn't very good and tried to put it back in the freezer. Sadly no-one has yet invented an uncooker.

Meanwhile the world got Covid 19 and our under-invested (austerity, remember) healthcare providers and government of all the finest minds that thought Brexit was a good idea, were a bit slow to act and a lot cronyist in their contract allocation. During this time Johnson lied again and again to his colleagues, Parliament and even the late Queen. His home became the most-fined address in the UK having broken lockdown regulations.

It took just over two years for the nakedness of the new emperor to become apparent to his colleagues and then there was a bit of a wait for the letters of no-confidence to arrive with the entire cabinet acting like naughty children. Almost everyone had a go at being Education Secretary.

So Johnson was forced out and the single transferable vote system to find a new Conservative leader (yes, even they use it) gave us another Remainer who alleged she had seen the light and said she would be making unpopular decisions but wasn't sufficiently clear that this was because tanking the UK economy is, by and large, unpopular with everyone. As I write our savings are looking precarious, our rivers full of shit, our mortgages unaffordable, our hospitals in meltdown and I really have no idea who is Education Secretary without googling it. Our Home Secretary rejoicing in the idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is not only cruel and unpopular with almost everyone - it seems to have persuaded India to pull out of a trade deal. Our PM failed to be immediately clear that the French were our allies, when asked. I've lost count of how many Tory MPs are currently suspended while sex crimes are being investigated. The Truss weeks (she can't survive months, surely?) feel like we are being used as the toys of someone who fancied playing with a country to see what it was like. Get UK22 for the PS5 and see if you can do better. If you press the 'Blame Brexit' button you have to start again.

This has been the worst twelve years of UK management I have experienced in my life. I think it's going to get worse. I'd love to be wrong.