Today as up to 1 Million Public Sector workers withdraw their labour and lose a days pay as a consequence, the coalition Government is using all of their communication channels to deny the problem has anything to do with them, and instead blame the workers for their discontent. The Conservative Party is arguing for tougher regulation on future strikes, providing we are prepared to trust them with the country again, in May 2015. A date they have set as the point at which their current contract with us will expire, but in the meantime they are unwilling to attempt to resolve the dispute at the heart of the current issues. It is hard but not impossible to translate this into a comparison with the sort of services some of us obtain for our homes.

Assuming we have chosen a supplier to deliver services to us, if they fail to arrive on time and can’t provide the materials they promised, and then go off site before the job is finished we might raise our concerns with the company or individual that we have the contract with. If he or she cannot improve the services in due course we would consider terminating the contract or withholding payments until the work is completed to our satisfaction. We certainly wouldn’t pay out for the work, as yet unfinished and then ask the same contractor to start another job. Although we might sympathise with the contractor if it is clear that he or she is struggling to maintain their standards, at the end of the day, we have a contract with them alone. It is their responsibility to settle the disputes they have with their workers and get the job completed.

Our contract with the Government is a commitment to pay our taxes on the understanding that they will run the country well, to deliver public services on time, based on the contract they offered us in 2010. It is assumed that when the Prime Minister designate visited the Queen, that he did so believing that he had all of the powers and control he needed to organise his workforce in an effective and competent manner. If he is now admitting that he lacks the control or the foresight he needed to deliver the contract, its not simply a case of promising to do it better next time but carrying on in any case. We have every reason to want the contract to be ended now. As some of our MPs attempt to draw up a rather pale and superficial attempt at a law that will allow us to recall our MP if they have failed to deliver on their promises, perhaps we now need to recall our Government as a whole.