On cutting the new UK government some slack

Bearing in mind that the ultimately ruinous Blair-Brown regime enjoyed a three-year honeymoon following election in 1997 by doing nothing much other than enjoying the national prosperity it inherited, criticism of what the new coalition has found itself obliged to do by the wholesale fecklessness of its predecessor is ridiculously premature. The following from Madsden Pirie on ASI speaks for me:

The partners in this coalition are really working at it, doing their best to make it succeed. They are determined to replace our top-down state school system with one that responds to parents' wishes. They want to take low paid people out of income tax altogether. They want to end the cycle of permanent dependency fostered by the current state welfare system.

And so it goes on through many of the major problems which have been allowed to fester for so many years under a government which thought it could pass directives to micro-manage every aspect of society. Now we have a real chance to move systematically through a reform agenda and try new solutions that put people ahead of government. 

It is not the government people voted for, not the one that most people hoped for or expected. But people are making what they can of an unusual situation, and our hope should be that they can make it work. One thing is already clear: it is light years ahead of its predecessor.