Anyone that was struggling to pay their mortgages would probably have been heartened in December last year when Gordon Brown said that the government were to introduce a new scheme to help them. Gordon Brown’s announcement even managed to upstage the Queens Speech. To be fair, Gordon Brown did say that the Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme would be available early in the new year, but a recent government update suggests that it will only be up and running in April. Surely this has got to be one of the cruelest things this government could do to people facing repossession? Does this man, Gordon Brown or New Labour have no sense of decency? In December, the government claimed that 8 mortgage lenders had signed up to the scheme, if true, why the subsequent delay, doesn’t this government understand the urgency of the situation for real people in trouble?

For a government that loves statistics, I wonder if they will have anyone calculate how many families will have lost their homes during the intervening period between the announcement and implementation of the new scheme? I very much doubt it somehow. People could have been forgiven for believing that the government, following the annoucement, had something ready for imminent launch. What was the rush for Gordon Brown, was he just chasing the headlines? It smacks of a cheap and wilful swipe at real people, in crisis…something that appears to have become the norm for New Labour.

To make matters worse, Cabinet Office minister Liam Byrne said the governments approach compared favourably to the Conservative Party’s “do nothing” approach. Is this guy on the same planet? Firstly the public are sick and tired of hearing government ministers and Labour MP’s constantly justifying their own failings by claiming that the Conservatives Party policy was to do nothing as if this was an acceptable excuse. Secondly, the Labour government appears to be incapable of understanding precisely how much they raise expectations when they make policy announcements and the level of disappointment felt by people when they find out that the reality doesn’t match up to the rhetoric.

Whilst I am not a great believer in government intervention, I do believe that if they make a commitment or promise, then they must deliver on it in timely manner and in accordance with the original announcement. That said, this government has rarely, if ever, lived up to any of its promises, it is time for a change and I suspect, the people that they are now disappointing, will be the very people that ensure they get it. I cannot wait for an election so that we can get rid of this incompetent, self-serving, spin loving, pathetic party and get on with repairing the damage they have cause and once again, get to the stage where we can call it Great Britain again. I suspect that it will take a long time to get things right, but at least we would have the comfort of knowing that a promise made, is one that they will do their damnedest to deliver.