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NY Times( How Britain has changed during 14 years of Tory rule) shocking

91 replies

T0pSh0p · 04/07/2024 08:23

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/03/world/europe/uk-election-better-worse.html

It’s shocking to see it in a simple list. So much damage done. There is a reason why we’re all so fed up.

NY Times( How Britain has changed during 14 years of Tory rule) shocking
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Voterswung · 05/07/2024 09:19

@bananasplitsallround unfortunately there have been no inspiring ideas to crack the problems.
I know what they could have said about education to fix it but not a whisper. It's about more teachers but how?
These problems have been faced globally pretty much and the ousting of left leaning government in the eu and possibly the US, is simply because they have been the parties in power. Had they been right leaning like us they would have gone left.
It's the lack of openness in the rhetoric that depresses me.
Had keir said " globally we have had a bad run for 17 plus years and we have been hit by crisis after crisis. We are going to look into new and innovative ways to solve the issues and not come out with the same stuff" I would feel more heartened.

behindthemall · 05/07/2024 08:52

Coffeerum · 04/07/2024 15:32

Which bits of the infographic specifically aren’t that bad?

Increased migration (I’m pro migration), police numbers broadly static, significant reduction in unemployment, reduced fossil fuels usage (if I had to distill my vote to one issue, it would be fossil fuels).

Earnings, pension and university admissions all up (although I’m not entirely sure university admissions increasing is actually that great… but given it was a cornerstone of Labour policy, I won’t hold it against the Tories).

Graduate debt increasing meaningless, I’d care more about graduate debt repayments.

Yes the bad stats are awful (eg foodbank usage), but on the whole - it’s not as awful as the rhetoric.

justasking111 · 04/07/2024 21:39

MattDamon · 04/07/2024 08:48

Their reporting has been compromised by ideology for years now.

That's what my NYC friends said. The exodus from there of couples and families is noticeable. Friends work as realtors with offices all over the states. The relocation enquiries are out not in.

Koko83 · 04/07/2024 21:35

How can crime be so much less when prisons are overcrowded and they are now having to release some early to make space?

bananasplitsallround · 04/07/2024 21:33

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Question everything.

Having said that, it does feel like life in the UK has deteriorated in that way. But many possible reasons and the world as a whole has changed in that time.

But what can the opposition really do to change it? Will they? Can they? They will face just the same challenges so they are going to need some magic!

Alwaystired94 · 04/07/2024 18:41

sausagesbbq · 04/07/2024 17:37

which indicates not only a massive disparity but also a massive increase in disparity between reported and actual

i still struggle with the figure in relation to reported crime though!

we have no figure for it is the issue. people can’t report it due to cuts and then many never bother again

sausagesbbq · 04/07/2024 17:37

Alwaystired94 · 04/07/2024 17:18

it's reported crime really not actual crime so all those who can't log it aren't included

which indicates not only a massive disparity but also a massive increase in disparity between reported and actual

i still struggle with the figure in relation to reported crime though!

Alwaystired94 · 04/07/2024 17:18

sausagesbbq · 04/07/2024 17:14

I struggle to see how crime could possibly be down by 54 percent. Crime surely has gone up by 54 percent. Unless I misread the tiny print.

it's reported crime really not actual crime so all those who can't log it aren't included

sausagesbbq · 04/07/2024 17:14

I struggle to see how crime could possibly be down by 54 percent. Crime surely has gone up by 54 percent. Unless I misread the tiny print.

Alwaystired94 · 04/07/2024 16:48

LuluBlakey1 · 04/07/2024 16:35

You could say so- buy you'd be assuming the majority of the electorate bother to understand the ideologies. They don't. They vote on soundbites and headline promises or emotive rhetoric. The Tory ideology will NEVER benefit most people long-term. It relies on people's greed for money short-term influencing how they vote.

Soundbite politics has royally screwed us over the last few years.

"350m for the NHS"
"stop the boats"
"don't surrender"

none of the issues can be fixed with such vague words. yet people fall for it hook line and sinker.

LuluBlakey1 · 04/07/2024 16:35

Floatingandundecided · 04/07/2024 15:43

So it's an ideological problem? The Tories have done what they set out to do and make the country into a small state and people have objected to having to be self sufficient?

You could say so- buy you'd be assuming the majority of the electorate bother to understand the ideologies. They don't. They vote on soundbites and headline promises or emotive rhetoric. The Tory ideology will NEVER benefit most people long-term. It relies on people's greed for money short-term influencing how they vote.

Alwaystired94 · 04/07/2024 16:29

Cooper77 · 04/07/2024 16:14

The New York Times is the American equivalent of The Guardian. Of course it's going to be anti-Tory. I wonder if it will run a similar article ten years from now about Britain after ten years of Socialism – overwhelmed by years of unrestricted immigration, the countryside ruined by endless house building, gridlocked roads and a crashed economy. I suspect not.

Sorry, i've been told on MN time and time again that Tories and Labour are the exact same.... which is laughable anyway but especially laughable wondering if that means Tories are socialists??? 😂

Coffeerum · 04/07/2024 16:25

Cooper77 · 04/07/2024 16:14

The New York Times is the American equivalent of The Guardian. Of course it's going to be anti-Tory. I wonder if it will run a similar article ten years from now about Britain after ten years of Socialism – overwhelmed by years of unrestricted immigration, the countryside ruined by endless house building, gridlocked roads and a crashed economy. I suspect not.

Oh no, it’s labour and all the migration to blame.

NY Times( How Britain has changed during 14 years of Tory rule) shocking
cupcaske123 · 04/07/2024 16:25

Missymoo100 · 04/07/2024 16:21

Yes but is, Is the increased homelessness and requirement of food parcels -also caused by the increased influx following mass immigration?

Unlikely. Five week wait for UC, cut in benefits, low wages, zero hour contracts, huge rents, increase in food, unmanageable utilities, debt...

Missymoo100 · 04/07/2024 16:21

LuluBlakey1 · 04/07/2024 14:24

The lack of care the Tories have shown for the most vulnerable in society and young people is shocking. They have made decent futures much more difficult to achieve.

Yes but is, Is the increased homelessness and requirement of food parcels -also caused by the increased influx following mass immigration?

Cooper77 · 04/07/2024 16:14

The New York Times is the American equivalent of The Guardian. Of course it's going to be anti-Tory. I wonder if it will run a similar article ten years from now about Britain after ten years of Socialism – overwhelmed by years of unrestricted immigration, the countryside ruined by endless house building, gridlocked roads and a crashed economy. I suspect not.

PKNI · 04/07/2024 16:14

Floatingandundecided · 04/07/2024 15:43

So it's an ideological problem? The Tories have done what they set out to do and make the country into a small state and people have objected to having to be self sufficient?

Most people do not 'object to having to be self sufficient' - most people simply do not have enough money coming in to be self sufficient! Many people earn so little they require benefit top ups as the Conservatives have allowed wages to stagnate while profits soar, putting money into the pockets of the few at the top (CEOs, large shareholders etc). Also, those who genuinely cannot work due to disability and illness are being forced further and further into misery with shrinking public health services and care - and no money to buy it privately! If people do pay for private healthcare, they pay for the healthcare - plus the profits for the company and the shareholders. NHS contributions don't have to provide profits, therefore are more sensible if everyone pays in. And don't forget, private healthcare providers cherry pick which services they will provide - private hospitals will happily operate on you if you pay - then dump you onto the NHS when things go wrong - no intensive care beds if your op goes wrong - you're blue lighted via NHS ambulance to NHS intensive care bed. There's so much wrong with what the Conservatives have done in so many areas of the structure of what should be public services. Housing, energy, water, sewage, education etc etc. I really don't understand why anyone but the super rich would dream of voting for them!

LuluBlakey1 · 04/07/2024 15:58

PBandJ111 · 04/07/2024 15:50

Probably due to labour making the country bankrupt.

Rubbish.

PBandJ111 · 04/07/2024 15:50

Probably due to labour making the country bankrupt.

Dotjones · 04/07/2024 15:47

It would be more interesting if similar charts were supplied for other governments over the last century or so. During the course of many other administrations crime and unemployment have increased significantly, things that have fallen under this one. The point I am making is for any government you care to take a look at you will be able to find things that improved and things that got worse.

If in ten years time all the Tory negatives in this chart have become positives, but crime has doubled, unemployment has nearly doubled and we've gone back to using coal as the main source of power, will people be happy? Probably not the extra victims of crime, the extra unemployed and people who worry about climate change.

We need context too for some of the categories. Is the increase in knife crime solely an increase in stabbings? Or is it that the police are more proactive in searching people for knives or that the laws have been tightened so more people are being prosecuted? The statistic on its own is rather meaningless - it's not necessarily "bad" if the increase in knife crime actually means more criminals are being caught rather than get away with it.

It's interesting too that "net migration" is seen as a bad thing. Yes if you believe the narrative that immigrants are wrecking the country and we'd be better of without them - but the more liberal might not see immigration as bad by default. In my experience the more liberal people I know, who are very vocal critics of the Tories, are the very people who believe in open borders and free migration.

Floatingandundecided · 04/07/2024 15:43

LuluBlakey1 · 04/07/2024 15:41

I don't think you understand any of this.
The Tories had choices, every government does- Where do you raise money from? Where do you invest it?
The Tories do not raise money - they want to keep taxes as low as possible for the most wealthy. What they do is reduce spending on public services. They call it 'small state intervention'. They mean not providing universal healthcare, investing in high quality education, not having services that they recognise need to be centrally maintained like energy, water, transport. Instead they leave people to fend for themselves- which affects the poorest much more than the wealthy. If Mr Sunak or his family require healthcare, or cancer treatment or dentistry, they can pay for it without blinking an eye and it will be on tap very quickly. If someone earning £100,000 a year requires it, they can afford health insurance that means they too have access to that service. For the vast majority however, that is not the case and they are the ones who suffer from the NHS underfunding. That suffering is life-changing.
They prefer not to invest in nationalised industries- there are none left so I am not sure which you are referring to when you say 'the already nationalised ones aren't working'. They used to be: the phone system, Royal Mail, British Gas, Electricity, Water, British Rail etc. They are all disaster zones now - they were privatised so that various Tory governments reduced the burden on the State for that provision and allowed their capitalist cronies to make billions for themselves asset stripping them, not maintaining infrastructure and increasing bills exponentially with few limits on what they charge us. We now have an approaching catastrophe with water and energy and no plans from the companies involved to resolve any of it apart from raising prices.

You raise monies in several way - taxation is one, allowing private investment is another. The Tories prefer private investment- the responsibility is no longer the government's and their pals make whopping profits and they allow voters to keep more of their earnings (except it NEVER works out that way, only for the already very rich).

The richest should pay more of the tax burden. Everyone should pay something more but the richest should shoulder more of the burden.

If you invest in people by paying them more, they pay back more in taxation, they spend their extra money in your economy. If you don't, they pay smaller taxes or none at all if they are unemployed, and have nothing to spend so the economy shrinks and businesses collapse.

If you invest in health and education, you produce a population that is healthy, able to work and skilled, that has educational confidence, that are entrepreneurial and creative risk takers, scientists, technologists, people who want to contribute and give back to create a big society. If you don't, you produce a population that is unhealthy, can't work and is unskilled- there are no people to do the required skilled jobs, to build businesses, to be the social contributors and train as Drs, dentists, teachers, nurses. People struggle to look after themselves.

An example of Tory cynicism sold to the British working classes by Mrs That her as 'giving them an opportunity' was the selling of council houses. The Tory government was concerned about how much social housing was costing- there was an aging stock of council housing and they were worried about cost of repairs but more so of replacement. Mrs Thatcher sold it off through 'Right to Buy'. Not only did she sell it off- often to unwitting council tenants who could not afford to buy any other way but were actually paying relative peanuts often for houses that were in need of significant investment and repair- but she prevented councils using the money raised to build new council houses- because she did not want the State to have the responsibility fir social housing. Any new housing councils funded themselves was subject to;Right to Buy' legislation so why would they keep building if they could be forced into selling it at huge discounts after 4 years and finding themselves without the housing stock?

The knock-on effect was....wait for it.....a massive expansion in private landlords, buying up housing that they then rented out to tenants who could no longer find a council house to rent and .......charging them vastly inflated rents in comparison to council rents because now it was a privatised business run by capitalist landlords who were in it to make fortunes. Thete were people who owned thousands of properties around the country, whose mortgages on those properties were being paid off by tenants who coukdn't afford their own home and could not get a council home and, in addition, were funding the living expenses and lifestyles of landlords. It continues today.
Adult social care is another example.

It's how the Tories work- they don't give a stuff about small people, only about offering opportunities to the rich to exploit them. They don't want to be a government that takes responsibility for building a fair society for everyone.

Edited

So it's an ideological problem? The Tories have done what they set out to do and make the country into a small state and people have objected to having to be self sufficient?

LuluBlakey1 · 04/07/2024 15:41

Floatingandundecided · 04/07/2024 14:37

How do we get a living wage without raising the cost of living to fund the living wage?
How do we fund better benefits?
Why should we nationalise more industries when the already nationalised ones people are saying aren't working? I'm a floating voter and haven't cast my vote today so am genuinely interested to know what the answer is.

I don't think you understand any of this.
The Tories had choices, every government does- Where do you raise money from? Where do you invest it?
The Tories do not raise money - they want to keep taxes as low as possible for the most wealthy. What they do is reduce spending on public services. They call it 'small state intervention'. They mean not providing universal healthcare, investing in high quality education, not having services that they recognise need to be centrally maintained like energy, water, transport. Instead they leave people to fend for themselves- which affects the poorest much more than the wealthy. If Mr Sunak or his family require healthcare, or cancer treatment or dentistry, they can pay for it without blinking an eye and it will be on tap very quickly. If someone earning £100,000 a year requires it, they can afford health insurance that means they too have access to that service. For the vast majority however, that is not the case and they are the ones who suffer from the NHS underfunding. That suffering is life-changing.
They prefer not to invest in nationalised industries- there are none left so I am not sure which you are referring to when you say 'the already nationalised ones aren't working'. They used to be: the phone system, Royal Mail, British Gas, Electricity, Water, British Rail etc. They are all disaster zones now - they were privatised so that various Tory governments reduced the burden on the State for that provision and allowed their capitalist cronies to make billions for themselves asset stripping them, not maintaining infrastructure and increasing bills exponentially with few limits on what they charge us. We now have an approaching catastrophe with water and energy and no plans from the companies involved to resolve any of it apart from raising prices.

You raise monies in several way - taxation is one, allowing private investment is another. The Tories prefer private investment- the responsibility is no longer the government's and their pals make whopping profits and they allow voters to keep more of their earnings (except it NEVER works out that way, only for the already very rich).

The richest should pay more of the tax burden. Everyone should pay something more but the richest should shoulder more of the burden.

If you invest in people by paying them more, they pay back more in taxation, they spend their extra money in your economy. If you don't, they pay smaller taxes or none at all if they are unemployed, and have nothing to spend so the economy shrinks and businesses collapse.

If you invest in health and education, you produce a population that is healthy, able to work and skilled, that has educational confidence, that are entrepreneurial and creative risk takers, scientists, technologists, people who want to contribute and give back to create a big society. If you don't, you produce a population that is unhealthy, can't work and is unskilled- there are no people to do the required skilled jobs, to build businesses, to be the social contributors and train as Drs, dentists, teachers, nurses. People struggle to look after themselves.

An example of Tory cynicism sold to the British working classes by Mrs That her as 'giving them an opportunity' was the selling of council houses. The Tory government was concerned about how much social housing was costing- there was an aging stock of council housing and they were worried about cost of repairs but more so of replacement. Mrs Thatcher sold it off through 'Right to Buy'. Not only did she sell it off- often to unwitting council tenants who could not afford to buy any other way but were actually paying relative peanuts often for houses that were in need of significant investment and repair- but she prevented councils using the money raised to build new council houses- because she did not want the State to have the responsibility fir social housing. Any new housing councils funded themselves was subject to;Right to Buy' legislation so why would they keep building if they could be forced into selling it at huge discounts after 4 years and finding themselves without the housing stock?

The knock-on effect was....wait for it.....a massive expansion in private landlords, buying up housing that they then rented out to tenants who could no longer find a council house to rent and .......charging them vastly inflated rents in comparison to council rents because now it was a privatised business run by capitalist landlords who were in it to make fortunes. Thete were people who owned thousands of properties around the country, whose mortgages on those properties were being paid off by tenants who coukdn't afford their own home and could not get a council home and, in addition, were funding the living expenses and lifestyles of landlords. It continues today.
Adult social care is another example.

It's how the Tories work- they don't give a stuff about small people, only about offering opportunities to the rich to exploit them. They don't want to be a government that takes responsibility for building a fair society for everyone.

Hermione101 · 04/07/2024 15:37

T0pSh0p · 04/07/2024 08:41

New York Times is normally pretty good.

They’re not actually “pretty good.” They are ideologically driven and have fired a number of journalists because they didn’t tow the party line. I worked in US national media for over a decade.

Still, the infographic is shocking.

Vinividivici · 04/07/2024 15:33

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 04/07/2024 09:25

I’m afraid the NYT has wavered a bit in credibility since they only just realised that the uS president may be a bit too old for the jobl

What a nonsense comment.

Coffeerum · 04/07/2024 15:32

behindthemall · 04/07/2024 15:10

Interestingly, my take away from that was that the Tories aren’t as bad as made out, and that isn’t that bad a result for a term that has included Brexit and Covid.

Which bits of the infographic specifically aren’t that bad?