Increasingly, we read that the present UK government is ‘incompetent’.   But I’d suggest the Government is ‘only’ incompetent in things it reckons are fundamentally unimportant for the longer-term.

David Cameron may make the occasional attempt to appear cuddly but George Osborne really doesn’t bother.  And why? … because the fundamental intention is to raze all social / public provision and pass it on to someone else, anyone else but the government.

DE-governance is the name of the Tories’ game.  And fast is the way they want to play it.

The current government would like there soon to be virtually nothing in the social agenda for which it is directly responsible or accountable. All those awful failures to provide care / a modicum of safety net for people who need that sort of thing will soon be the ‘fault’ of non-central-government bodies with no money anyway.

Looked at in this way, apparent incompetence in social policy is actually an asset for the Tories. Whilst the rest of us faff about which policy doesn’t work or is not compatible with which other social policy, the nation’s leaders are able to get on ruthlessly with ensuring that they won’t have to bother with silly things like social policy anyway very soon. Incompetence is a good smoke screen, intentional or not, for this ruthlessness.

The Tories are moving, as quickly as they possibly can, towards total DE-governance, a state where there is little to govern except for ensuring the market remains long-term as free as they’d like.   All this apparent incompetence is in effect an effective cover for the real, very competent job George Osborne is doing, razing the welfare state and replacing it with a ruthless free market.

The Conservatives don’t care whether they’re competent to administer and develop social or public policy; beyond immediate political necessity it’s of little interest to them – if they’re aware of it at all.

What they do want to achieve a.s.a.p. however is a situation whereby they’re not remotely responsible or accountable for any of this. They’re rapidly razing the welfare state to the ground, whilst we all continue to carry on debating whether they’re competent to run it.

Does George Osborne care whether the welfare state is working properly?  Or, rather, is his focus solely establishing a monetarist free market, as fast as he can?

The answer is in the word we started with: DE-governance.  The smart way to a market scenario which strongly favours the right-wing political class, whilst shifting all responsibility away from those same political leaders.

The rewards for Osborne, Cameron and friends of this monetarist shift will be enormous – and nigh-on impossible to reverse.  Once the welfare state is lost, how could we get it back?

DE-governance.