Deliberate Incompetence as a Cover for Self-Destructive Policy
Published on HivePostify by @spectrumecons · Fri Aug 21 2026
Hi Everyone,
The level of incompetence within Government appears to be staggeringly high. Almost everything they do fails or backfires. Their actions typically make the problems worse or create even more problems. This is happening in almost every Western country. I have experienced it firsthand in Australia and now in the UK. Ever since the start of the Covid-19 fiasco, these levels of incompetence have rapidly worsened.
The Apparition of Incompetence
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From the UK alone, there are dozens of examples of apparent incompetence.
- Wasteful expenditure on projects that take years to commence and, in some cases, never do (e.g., the UK HS2 rail project ([Building Construction Design](https://www.buildingconstructiondesign.co.uk/news/how-much-money-was-wasted-on-the-hs2-project-and-is-it-common-in-construction/))). - Policies that exacerbate problems they are intended to solve (e.g., people entering the UK illegally ([Global Statistics](https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/illegal-immigration-statistics-in-uk/))). - Grotesque errors of implementation (e.g., accidentally releasing dangerous criminals from prison ([BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d0kll2vn4o))). - Not building new or maintaining existing infrastructure such as schools, prisons, hospitals, roads, reservoirs, etc. ([The Productivity Institute](https://www.productivity.ac.uk/news/boosting-productivity-why-doesnt-the-uk-invest-enough/)). - Politicians making ridiculous gaffes (e.g., Keir Starmer’s famous ‘release the sausages’ remarks ([The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/24/keir-starmer-makes-gaza-sausages-gaffe-in-labour-conference-speech))). - Political party infighting and indecisiveness over policies leading to an excess number of policy U-turns (e.g., over a dozen U-turns in the Labour Government’s first two years ([Sky News](https://news.sky.com/story/every-labour-u-turn-as-starmer-rows-back-on-compulsory-digital-id-plan-13493934)). - Regular but relatively small incidents of potential corruption (e.g., not declaring expensive gifts, not paying correct tax, falsifying CVs, and hiring people with connections to paedophiles ([The iPaper](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-scandals-controversies-14-months-power-3920656))). - Government leadership verbally attacking working-class people by calling them ‘far right’ when they express anger over immigration policy ([Express](https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2110776/labours-lanyard-classes-working)). - The Prime Minister spends an excessive amount of time overseas and on foreign policy, thus neglecting the many domestic problems such as the failing health service, housing crisis, and cost of living crisis ([The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/24/starmer-government-foreign-trip-spend-increasing-figures-show)).
Most of these are just some of the examples from the past two years alone under the current Labour Government.
All of the above looks like gross incompetence; the majority of the people in the UK believe this to be the case. In September 2025, YouGov conducted a survey asking people how they feel about the Government’s performance regarding competence and trust.
UK Government Approval Ratings
Source: [YouGov](https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/53058-how-do-britons-see-labour-ahead-of-their-2025-party-conference)
The UK Government’s approval ratings have plummeted to almost record lows within just over a year of the Labour Government taking office. They are almost as disliked as the previous Conservative Government, which appeared almost equally incompetent.
Questions Relating to Competence
Source: [YouGov](https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/53058-how-do-britons-see-labour-ahead-of-their-2025-party-conference)
Based on the survey, the people find the Government to be weak, out of touch, untrustworthy, lacking direction, incompetent, self-serving, uncaring, and a little intolerant. However, most did not find them extreme; this is an important observation in regard to what the Government wants people to believe regarding its intent.
Opinions Relating to Trust
Source: [YouGov](https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/53058-how-do-britons-see-labour-ahead-of-their-2025-party-conference)
The level of trust of the Government is incredibly low in every area asked. The highest area of trust is ‘protecting minorities’, which only 33% of the population trust them to do. Less than 15% expect the Government to keep their promises. Considering the Government’s lack of success in solving any existing problems, it is not surprising people have lost trust in them.
Capturing Votes to Win Elections
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The apparent lack of competence is a key reason people have lost trust in the Government, but that alone does not fully satisfy much of the public. People also believe that political parties put their own priorities above national interests ([The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/trust-hits-new-low-45-of-people-think-politicians-put-party-before-country-232187)). This sentiment applies to both Establishment parties, Labour and Conservative, and the same claims are being made about the new Reform Party.
The claims that the UK has become a two-tier system are, in part, based around the idea that parties are targeting particular groups. ‘Right-wing’ politicians claim ‘Left-wing’ parties favour minority ethnic groups to capture their votes. They sell the favouritism to their base as promoting equality. ‘Equality’ has been an area ‘left-wing’ parties have promoted for a long time and has become an established policy goal ([Horn, Jensen, and Weisstanner](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2026.2614069)). ‘Left-wing’ politicians claim ‘right-wing’ parties point this out to sow division and win the vote of the native ethnic majority, whom they often claim to have far-right leanings ([BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgz23p8117o)). It is a divide-and-conquer strategy that also serves the purpose of demonstrating that parties are self-interested in maintaining or obtaining power.
Deep State Conspiracy
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Another argument has been made that the deep state prevents the application of Government policies. This claim has been made by ‘right-wing’ politicians such as former UK Prime Ministers Liz Truss ([Huffington Post](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/liz-truss-attack-global-left-fox-news-tory-partyuk65d5d123e4b0cc1f2f7a2641)) and Boris Johnson ([Bell, E.](https://publications-prairial.fr/elad-silda/index.php?id=1484)).
These politicians’ version of the deep state is not the same as what I refer to as the [Establishment](https://peakd.com/hive-112018/@spectrumecons/the-establishment), which I discuss in many of my posts. They are referring to the civil service area of the public sector. Their role is to implement executive branch policies. The claim is that the heads of civil service delay or even block the implementation of ‘right-wing’ policies or even policies not considered ‘woke’.
The civil service is likely to attract people with ‘left-leaning’ views of the world. This is because ‘left-wing’ ideology is orientated towards larger Government and more Government control, thus making it an attractive destination for anyone who wants to contribute to building it. People with ‘right-leaning’ views of the world are more likely to be attracted to the private sector. In doing so, they would be supporting their own positive views of capitalism.
People working in the public sector are more likely to join a union than people working in the private sector. In the UK, almost half of all public sector workers are part of a union. Whereas less than 12% of private sector workers are part of unions ([worker-participation.eu](https://www.worker-participation.eu/national-industrial-relations/countries/united-kingdom)). Higher union participation is likely to push public/civil servants closer to the ‘left’.
The extent to which ‘left-leaning’ people dominate civil service and top-level civil service jobs is difficult to fully determine.
It is quite possible that many top-level civil servants would personally be less receptive to policies that they consider ‘right-wing’ or made by a Government that is labelled ‘right-wing’. In theory, they could offer resistance to such policies. However, such resistance could not be sustained because they are still employees and can be replaced for reasons such as misconduct.
Despite ideological differences, most people would not want to risk losing highly paid jobs nor risk the damage to their reputation. Top-level civil servants might become bold enough to oppose a ‘right-wing’ Government if they strongly believe that the Government is on the way out, but they would also know that they could not be entirely sure how events will play out.
Masking the Agenda
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The UK is widely regarded as one of the most established democracies in the world. Its democratic institutions are some of the earliest to be established in the world. Why would the political elite want such a tradition marred with incompetence? They would not!
The apparent incompetence is orchestrated. The UK Government, like most other Western Governments, is deliberately destroying their countries. They are destroying their economies, society, and culture. This extends beyond just current Governments. It extends to all Establishment parties and even most emerging parties.
If the people believe their Government as well as all other political alternatives are actively trying to destroy their country, many would lose hope in the democratic process that will not and cannot lead to change. Therefore, they will feel pressured to cause change through other means, which could lead to people rising up against the Government, the political class, and the system. It is a little too early for that to happen now.
The Establishment, through the Government, needs to destroy the country in a manner to avoid strong resistance. Creating the impression of incompetence is a good approach to this. Incompetent leadership could be dealt with through the political system. Incompetent leaders can be replaced with competent leaders. Such possibility gives people some hope that through the democratic processes of their system, positive change can be achieved if good leaders are elected to power.
People are also more willing to believe the current failures in Government policy are related to incompetence than deliberate malice. This is because deliberately harming the country is not in the party’s best interests. If a political party wants to win an election, it needs to please people for them to vote for them. We could call it a form of enlightened self-interest. This is based on the assumption that a party’s main goal is to win an election.
The majority of people believe that politicians/parties are placing self-interests above doing the ‘right thing’. On an individual basis, this would explain why there is so much corruption in politics, which is not in the interests of the people of a country.
On a party basis, the goals of the party winning an election and remaining in Government, should align with at least some of the people’s objectives; otherwise, the party would not win. Even if a Government is entirely self-serving, democracy can function if there is an opposition party that could replace them, thus holding them to account to a certain extent.
Many countries with Western-style democracies are some of the most successful countries in the world. I would argue that this has more to do with capitalism and the Protestant ethic than democracy. However, the desire for political parties to remain in power and, therefore, pleasing the people to at least a certain extent has played a role in the success of these countries.
Over time, the goals of the party and the politicians in these parties have diverged from those of the people. Most politicians are puppets to people higher up in the Establishment hierarchy. These people, which I often refer to as the elite, are some of the most powerful people in the world. They have great influence in various areas such as information flow, food, energy, finance, and religious ideology.
The elite have various mechanisms for controlling the puppet politicians. These include opportunities for increasing wealth (e.g., insider trading information), future financial and lucrative job opportunities (e.g., positions in international organisations), opportunities for fame and prestigious awards (e.g., Nobel prizes), and blackmail over past and current salacious or criminal activity (e.g., links to paedophile rings or money laundering activity).
Politicians are selected through party processes. Many of them are career politicians or have spent much of their careers working in various areas of the Government. Politicians who come in from outside the public sector are often lawyers, executives, or journalists. They are also groomed to know how the system works. Many of them are also skilled in some form of debate. Therefore, they can carry themselves in public discussions.
Politicians are selected based on their willingness to tow the party line (i.e., whatever the Establishment has set for them). Certain politicians are chosen for leadership. Rishi Sunak was given an extremely easy seat to run in (a safe Conservative seat), and Andy Burnham was parachuted into the role of Prime Minister from a mayoralty he had had a month earlier.
Results of elections in western-style democracies have generally not mattered. Whichever party wins serves the Establishment. Both political sides play an important role in transfering wealth and increasing the power of the elites within the Establishment.
This is still the case, but timing has become important. ‘Left-wing’ and ‘Right-wing’ parties serve different aspects of the Establishment’s agenda. ‘Left-wing’ parties serve the primary role of destroying countries from within. ‘Right-wing’ parties play a bigger role in creating threats overseas and destabilising the global economy and disturbing the social cohesion of countries that the Establishment wishes to manipulate.
The role of politicians and political parties is to advance these agendas. This could be over a longer or a shorter timeframe. If it is a longer timeframe, the existing Government will need to win elections. Traditionally, this would have involved maintaining sufficient popularity to win an election. In the UK, that is no longer the case. The UK has a first-past-the-post system, which works reasonably well when there are only two dominant parties (e.g., the Conservative Party and the Labour Party). That has changed in recent years.
The popularity of the Conservative Party has collapsed after a disastrous run under failed Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak. The current Government under the Labour Party has also lost significant popularity. These failings gave rise to other parties such as Reform UK, the Greens, and Restore Britain. The Liberal Democrats, the previous third party, have also grown in popularity. Multiple parties with reasonably close popularity greatly weaken the effectiveness of a first-past-the-post system of delivering a fair democratic outcome.
The biggest weakness is caused by vote splitting. UK politics is split between ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ ideology. Labour, Greens, and Liberal Democrats are considered ‘left-wing’. Conservatives, Reform UK, and Restore Britain are considered ‘right-wing’. It is very easy to manipulate elections through vote splitting. ‘Left-wing’ voters are more likely to tactically vote. They see the threat from ‘the right’ as a strong enough reason to put their differences aside. ‘Right-wing’ voters are less likely to vote tactically because they do not trust the other ‘right-wing’ parties. They see them as much of a problem as ‘left-wing’ parties.
Despite the Labour Party's low popularity, they could still win an election by forming a coalition with one or both of the other prominent ‘left-wing’ parties. At the beginning of the year, Reform UK was ahead of Labour by as many as 10 percentage points. They are now almost equal in popularity with the Labour Party.
Tags: #economics#economy#politics#uk#government#unitedkingdom#conspiracy#crisis