AS STERLING fell against the euro and US dollar yesterday, the markets delivered their own verdict on the UK’s hung parliament. With a weak government, the fear is that action will not be taken to resolve Britain’s massive debt and spending problems.

The irony is that what the country currently has – and which so many there desperately do not want – is a system that will prevent swift, decisive and consistent decision-making. Every significant vote in the Commons would potentially go to the wire, with no certainty on outcomes.

In short, Britain is looking into the abyss of consensus government and, as of today, no prospect of tackling its economic difficulties in a timely fashion. The parallels with Guernsey are considerable, except this island has no debt – yet.

The reckless spending by a number of key departments, Health and Social Services the most notable, means that the island is also on course for another breach this year of the fiscal strategy of containing expenditure increases at or below RPI.

Unchecked, that means the Treasury minister returning to the Assembly in December with the 2011 Budget asking islanders to put their hand in their pockets – again – to bail out profligate departments.

What some departments have done, notably Health, Social Security and Public Services, is to decide that the budget given to them by the States was insufficient and increased it by spending accumulated savings.

Quite what happens when the savings have gone is another matter but the Health minister’s admission of ignorance about his extra 90 staff raises the issue of who actually is responsible for this financial mismanagement and who should be answerable for breaching the States decision that spending should be at or below RPI.

Are ministers and their boards being properly advised by their officials, or are they ignoring the spending warnings they receive on a monthly and quarterly basis?

While this clearly cannot carry on, there is no one stopping it and no minister prepared to carry the can for abusing islanders’ trust that when they said ‘restraint’ they actually meant it.