I'm sure at some time in our lives, we've all been asked the question, " if you were Prime Minister, what would you do?"
The question of course assumes that the Prime Minister's role comes with the capacity to do things and to make things happen- after all, it is the highest office of power in the land.
Or is it?
Recent evidence points to the fact that Gordon Brown is having difficulty getting his troops to deliver what he wants them to deliver. When the government came to the rescue of our failing banks last Autumn, the PM expected that banks would start to lend money again. Many businesses are still waiting. Last October, Mr Brown made a pledge that government departments would pay their SME trade suppliers in 10 days, but recent research from Graydon will reveal that it's nowhere near happening. As the Daily Mail pointed out last week, The PM promised in 2008 that anybody committing knife crime would go to prison- well, a year on, the Ministry of Justice has released figures showing that the majority of offenders brought to trial since then aren't banged up at all.
There may always be a distance between political rhetoric and reality, but are we witnessing a deeper problem with the apparatus of government itself? In all the examples I have mentioned, I'm sure the PM had the majority of the public right behind him.... but it ain't happening, for him or for the electorate.