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Nothing works in this country anymore — it’s a complaint you hear with increasing frequency these days.

It’s obviously an exaggeration. But it should be a matter of great concern to the Government, for there’s enough truth in the phrase to make it politically toxic for those in power.

This is especially true because it is the dysfunctional performance of the services that have an impact on everyday life — health and transport, for example — that annoy the public most and which people correctly expect government ministers to put right.

Yet they clearly don’t know how to fix things. Instead of solutions and improvements, people see too many politicians who manage to combine incompetence and impotence in equal measure — so that, far from anything getting better, things invariably get worse.

When you look at those now holding office, many conclude that the Tory gene pool has been seriously depleted ¿ that the Government is composed of ministers struggling to cope

When you look at those now holding office, many conclude that the Tory gene pool has been seriously depleted — that the Government is composed of ministers struggling to cope

Perhaps the most visible sign of ministerial impotence has been the way in which, week in, week out, a small band of entitled eco-loons has managed to disrupt the lives of folks going about their day-to-day business.

Two supposedly hard-line home secretaries, and a long line of other ministers, have condemned their actions and urged police to take a tougher line. But still the motorways and highways were blocked with impunity, causing people to miss work, lose money, fail to show up for hospital appointments and, in several heart-rending cases, be unable to make births and funerals.

The police lack the intelligence to forestall the protesters. They deploy in huge numbers after the blockades are in place, largely to stand around aimlessly in hi-viz jackets which let us see all too clearly that they are doing nothing. So it takes ages to clear the way.

The roadblocks have come to an end only because the protesters seem to have run out of steam — not because of robust policing or the deterrent effect of sentences handed down by the courts. They could soon have a second wind.

The police defend their softly-softly tactics with reference to a Supreme Court ruling which seemed to elevate the right of protesters to disrupt above the right of the rest of us to enjoy uninterrupted movement on the King’s highways.

If that is really inhibiting the police response then, instead of ineffective huffing and puffing, ministers should rush emergency legislation through Parliament to counter the Supreme Court ruling, enshrining the right to protest but severely curtailing the licence to disrupt. Only the foolhardy would vote against that.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have got a grip of economic policy

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have got a grip of economic policy

Instead, ministers sat on their hands, mouthing ineffective threats and platitudes, while the rest of the country shook its head in despair.

Meanwhile, despair is not strong enough for what people increasingly feel about the NHS. Anger and fury are probably more appropriate — and increasingly common.

The litany of failure is now well-known. Over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists. Most people waiting for hours at A&E (the target that 95 per cent should be seen within four hours hasn’t been met since 2015). Some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe (worse than several much poorer countries). More chance of winning the lottery than getting a same-day doctor’s appointment.

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All health systems have been knocked back by the pandemic and are taking time to recover. But no equivalent health system in any other prosperous nation has anything like the same numbers waiting for an operation, waiting in an ambulance for hours because there are no hospital beds, waiting even longer in A&E.

The British conceit that the NHS is the envy of the world is now in tatters. Most countries are relieved that they didn’t follow our example.

It’s all set to get worse before it gets better (if it ever does). On my Channel 4 show last Sunday, a health minister told me the waiting lists would be even longer this time next year. I’ve seen projections that they could reach 10 million before starting to dip — which would mean an incredible one in six of the population on an NHS waiting list. Who would envy that?

Over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists. Most people waiting for hours at A&E (the target that 95 per cent should be seen within four hours hasn¿t been met since 2015)

Over 7 million people on NHS waiting lists. Most people waiting for hours at A&E (the target that 95 per cent should be seen within four hours hasn’t been met since 2015)

Cancer Research UK warns that our cancer survival rates, already among the lowest, are set to get even worse. Instead of trying to meet targets, ministers now talk openly of simply abandoning them.

Other than the usual guff about reducing bureaucracy and red tape (spoiler alert — it never happens), the Government hasn’t even the semblance of a reform plan to bring the NHS into the 21st century and provide the sort of high-quality service long par for the course in continental Europe.

Perhaps the most egregious example of government impotence when it comes to the NHS is what’s happening to our once-revered GP services. When I was a child my mother suffered from acute asthma. It was scary to be woken in the middle of the night by the sound of her struggling for breath, wondering if she would make it through the night.

But we knew our family GP was on his way to deliver the necessary injections, whether it was two, three or four in the morning, without complaint, his bedside manner always intact. My parents, who’d known what life was like without an NHS, had much cause to be thankful.

I’m not sure they’d feel the same way today. Many GPs seem to elevate their own work-life balance above the needs of their patients, despite average salaries of £112,000 a year.

Securing a doctor’s appointment can take ages. In the worst NHS trusts, only one in eight are face-to-face. It is astonishing that the best the Government thinks it can do is to secure GP appointments within two weeks. Almost two decades ago Tony Blair was aiming to make it two days.

Yet activist doctors, with the backing of their various pressure groups, are now arguing that their working day should be reduced to a bog-standard 9-to-5 with, naturally, no weekend working. You’d think an NHS that now costs us £3 billion a week could do better than that.

Of course, there was a time when the shortcomings of the NHS could be blamed on a lack of resources. That’s still a common refrain from the myriad bodies that represent the NHS producer interests. But it has less force these days.

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Using OECD statistics that allow for international comparisons, last year the UK spent almost 12 per cent of its GDP on health, about the same as France and a little less than Germany. No other major European economy spends more. But, in the absence of a reform agenda, the only government policy is to bung the NHS even more cash.

The small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel to our shores have become totemic of their inability to secure our borders (another broken Brexit promise)

The small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel to our shores have become totemic of their inability to secure our borders (another broken Brexit promise)

The NHS is not working. It will work even less well this winter, when nurses and many other groups of health workers fulfil their pledges to take industrial action over pay claims.

Those who think nothing works in Britain are about to be presented with many more examples of things going wrong as strikes spread across the nation. It is not clear ministers have a clue what to do. They’ve put up with repeated rail strikes since the summer, with the RMT calling the shots and shutting down services at will. Every now and then ministers talk tough about introducing new legislation to make it harder to strike in crucial public services financed by the taxpayer. Of course, nothing happens.

Nowhere is the general sense that ministers are out of their depth more palpable than when it comes to immigration. The small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel to our shores have become totemic of their inability to secure our borders (another broken Brexit promise). More than 40,000 this year so far — compared to 28,000 last year — more than a third from Albania, a European country with a democratic government.

The more ministers talk about clamping down, the more the migrants jump into their dangerous boats. If you think the latest expensive deal with France will make a difference, I have a bridge to sell you.

In truth, the boat people are the least of ministers’ immigration problems. Many people voted for Brexit to reduce immigration. To say it hasn’t quite worked out that way is the understatement of the decade (so far). Over 1.1 million emigrated to Britain in the year to June. It is a staggering figure.

Even allowing for the exit of over 500,000, that still leaves net migration at more than 500,000 — way higher than the pre-Brexit record of 336,000 in the year to March 2015. I think it’s safe to conclude this will be something of a shock on the Red Wall.

Of course, there is a case for it. Hundreds of thousands are students come to study. That’s good for our universities and our balance of payments. The composition of migration has changed dramatically — far fewer Polish plumbers, far more Indian medics and IT specialists. Those on the Red Wall might conclude it will increase their chances of a doctor’s appointment.

All have required a visa to enter. It was official policy to allow them to come here. Under EU free movement rules we had no choice. To that extent we are in control. But ministers have run for cover rather than try to explain any of this. The numbers are just too large to argue away.

Instead, they’re keeping their heads down and mumbling about cutting student numbers (it doesn’t get more self-defeating than that).

Not that we’re anywhere near building the houses required for immigration on this scale. The official target of 300,000 new homes a year has never been met and is now effectively junked. Not only are we short of houses, we’re stuck with ones that are no longer fit for purpose.

A two-year-old died because the family lived in social housing with such bad mould that it destroyed his lungs. Yet the head of the housing project in Rochdale, where average wages are around £30,000, was on a salary of £170,000.

How can this happen? When Britain doesn’t work, it is not just annoying. It can all too easily be tragic.

The litany of ministerial incompetence and impotence — from a failure to clamp down on cowboy parking operations (despite many promises to do so) to irritating, patronising announcements on trains (which a former transport minister wrote about in the Mail this week) — could fill every page in this paper, not just these two pages.

Suffice, for now, to ask this: why? Why are ministers regarded as generally useless, incapable of resolving clear wrongs, hopeless at making anything better? It is a corrosive sentiment if, as likely, it grips most voters.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have got a grip of economic policy, though that won’t stop us having the highest inflation of any G7 country this year and, according to the OECD, the biggest fall in GDP of any rich nation next year. But elsewhere it seems business as usual.

When you look at those now holding office, many conclude that the Tory gene pool has been seriously depleted — that the Government is composed of ministers struggling to cope, never mind making their writ run. And the Civil Service has clocked this.

They see a government exhausted and without direction, an administration on its last legs simply serving out its time. So they’re in no mood to help.

Indeed, the Whitehall Blob is already turning its mind to a Labour leader in No 10, someone it thinks will be more congenial to its way of thinking than the present occupant. Far from helping the Tory Government get things done, it seems more interested in conspiring to get rid of troublesome ministers by coordinating grievance procedures against alleged bullying.

It’s a grim prospect for the Government. The perception that nothing works is only likely to spread this winter and the ability of the powers-that-be to change that perception is hampered by their own inadequacies and the indifference (perhaps even hostility) of the permanent bureaucracy.

Sunak is smart and a bundle of energy. But it will require a superhuman effort on his part to turn things around. For now, the odds are against him.

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