The following is a quote from"Fowlers Modern English Usage". I would assume anything that differs from the quotation is simply bad English. Whilst there maybe spelling differences between the US and British, I would imagine the grammer stays the same. (I stand to be corrected..)

Quote:
are, is When one of these is required between a subject and a complement that differ in number (eg. these things...a scandal) the verb should normally follow the number of the subject ( are , not is a scandal). Similarly The only difficultly in Finnish is (not are ) the changes undergone by the stem.


If I understand it correctly it is the way you phrase the sentence:
" The goverment (singular) is incompetent..."
or
The governments (plural) are incompetent.."

I think thats what Whisky69 said! <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />