In 1986 Ronald Reagan got the biggest laugh and world recognition when he said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Of course his attack on government was really a dog whistle to racists and states rights advocates, whereas others saw it as finally limiting the size and scope of government, the end of earned social benefits and lowering the effective tax rate to zero for the richest 1%.
However over the years people still remember and the literal meaning still rings true because when government fails to deliver, it's because they are out of their depth unqualified or not capable of doing anything well - so no one is surprised when everything is delayed, costs more than anyone imagined and nothing functions as intended.
It used to be said of teachers that those who can, do, and those who can't, teach. But it wasn't true and needs to be updated because it's the people who can't do anything who get into politics and local government.
DEFRA's regulations were written with local council enforcers in mind - when anyone with any personal experience of local governent knows that local government employees have the concepts of truth, responsibility and public service beaten out of them before they're even handed a company pen.
But it's worse because people without any work experience or industry knowledge were given the job of inform the public about the quality of care by rating private businesses by applying regulations that are clearly dysfunctional, nonsensical and unfit for purpose.
But DEFRA has allowed this nonsense to continue despite the lack of an appeals process and knowing that Licensing Officers were unable to apply the regulations with any common sense or consistently.
And licensing officers were quite happy to abuse our members and ruin the reputations of well run and experienced businesses - and they were entirely responsible for threatening successful businesses with closure without any concern for the impact on families, local communities or the consequences for UK tourism.
It took three separate tiers of incompetent officials to reduce the industry's boarding capacity and drive successful and experienced people out of business - and not one of them will take responsibility for being unfit for public service:
How does downrating a perfectly well run and functional cattery supposed to improve cat welfare?
How is a downrated cattery supposed to increase its profits to pay for upgrades or improvements after DEFRA has publicly insutled, demeaned and financially disadvantaged them?
Why aren't the individual licensing officers being held responsible for their own decisions, why aren't the CFSG board being held responsible for their useless and ill-informed advice and in DEFRA's case, why haven't they been fired for writing both the idiotic regulations and ignoring the forseeable consequences?