Genuinely curious about the Conservative Party

[Lorelielee]

Hi,

Im sat waiting to set off for work and started pondering about this. I’ve thought about it quite a lot and I really would appreciate anyone’s thoughts.

Can anyone just off the top of your head think of one tangible achievement or policy , or scheme or initiative that the Conservatives since David Cameron was elected have done. Any infrastructure to show for it? Anything really, either good or bad, that you can pin point on the Conservative Party. I don’t want to include Brexit because I feel like that happened as a bit of side hustle, led by bad actors. I mean the Conservative Party as a serious political party. With beliefs, and an ideology. That a layman can describe. Like we can talk about Thatcherism and agree or disagree with it, it was their ideology, it was transparent and Thatcher talked about her economic beliefs and vision for the country.

Labour under Blair and Brown

I can easily reel off

Sure Start
Tax Credits
Family Investment child trust funds
a plan to cut hospital waiting lists and increase patient choices.
expansion of PFI
Introduced tuition loans for University
Supporting People Scheme
Prescott had his regional assemblies thing.

We don’t even seem to be trying to keep the ‘special relationship’ with the US that was so important prestigious and a priority for previous governments in my lifetime.

It’s just a nothingness…am I missing something? I’ve watched prime minister’s question time a lot and it’s just nothing. From both parties to be honest. If you stopped me in the street and asked me what the Conservatives stand for today I wouldn’t be able to answer it. To be honest I would struggle with Labour too.

Are they really just winging it? Do they care? I guess my last thought I would like to add is I have always thought that legacy was important to Prime Minister’s. What the history books will say about them. They don’t seem to care about that. Do they even care that there is great possibility that next year they will lose the election so badly that they will never be able to recover as a serious opposition party. They are bringing their destroying their own party.

Im sorry I hope that makes sense, I am normally a bit more articulate than that. I just wanted to write it down really.

I don't think you can attribute achievements within the coalition government solely to the LDs (and I am a LD supporter, BTW) - the point is, as a junior partner in the coalition they had very little power to do anything without getting the Tories on board to some extent. In this case Cameron was a supporter and that is why the bill got through in spite of a fair chunk of the Tory MPs being opposed to it.

I watched pmqs last week and Rishi is still throwing out the old “Captain Hindsight” stuff. That was the only contribution that I can remember. He can’t even be bothered to make up his own insults.

They have just returned from the summer break, they should be getting some business done.

I know PMQS is a bit of theatre but they can’t even get a decent bit of debate going.

Carbon reduction. We're a world leader. Ukraine. Fully supported from day 1
COVID vaccine
Increase in NMW/Pensions
Reduction in tax for lowest paid
Cancer drug fund

NHS..... Of course you can argue it's been underfunded for years, but we have more staff and treat more patients, with more complex issues than ever in its history. It needs reform fit for the 21st century. Will any part dare?

Labour will win the next election, but I don't think much will change.

Basically Brexit and Covid have dominated politics for the last few years. They'd have still dominated politics had Labour been in power. It's left little scope/enthusiasm within political circles and the civil service to think about other things.

Increased/maintained pensions for the elderly in a way that labour are not particularly wedded to. Driven forward electric car legislation. Saved tax payer money by giving less funding to local govt. Rolled out the vaccine program. Been one of the first inline to support Ukraine. Given households funding towards fuel.
They are not my party of choice, but I guess most conservative voters would see the above as good things.

Free school meals
30 hours childcare
Degree apprenticeships

Saved tax payer money by giving less funding to local govt.

Meaning fewer potholes fixed, less graffiti cleaned, fewer schools maintained, fewer teachers, social workers, carers, grants to voluntary services...all things that Conservative voters do care about.

Free school meal vouchers over the holidays

One of the quickest countries to implement covid vaccines

10% welfare benefits rise

Lifetime skills guarantee

Anyway I'm voting Labour, so I'm not being bias but as someone on a low income these are the things I have appreciated and there is no crystal ball to know what Labour would of done, though we know Labour massively overspend leaving to austerity - yes I know our economy isnt great at the moment but before covid hit we were doing ok with national debt ( we also know the vaccines wouldn't of been as quick as they wanted to join the EU programme).

Anyway these threads always turn nasty so before some bashing comes my way - that's my opinion and I quite liked Bojo.

Yes I agree that they have done a good job with post gcse education. I think it’s excellent. To be honest I was surprised. My daughter has had access to such a good range of post gcse courses. To me that is a great policy, or initiative.

i wish they would use that as a platform to have a go at making better policies. Instead they choose to pander to the lowest common denominator of scum bag by focussing on cruel anti immigration gimmicks. For the votes. Because they have realised there’s a market for it. Shame on them. They do not deserve our respect as a legitimate political party.

Hospital waiting lists and targets etc were fudged.

They weren’t. The NHS improved massively in the Blair decade.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/High-Performing-NHS-progress-review-1997-2010-Ruth-Thorlby-Jo-Maybin-Kings-Fund-April-2010.pdf

Nope.

The 'moderate' Tory MP's saw the writing on the wall in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum and Theresa May's inability to enact the loons' unworkable demands, and either legged it to TIG or decided not to stand in the 2019 GE.

Pretty much all that's left are careerists, right-wing populists, ideologues, asset-strippers, profiteers, and lunatics like Chope & Bone

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

oh god, so the Conservative Party does not really exist then except in name? It’s just random people hanging around until the bitter end. So in in the next 12 months they will be more or less taking everything that’s nailed down before the inevitable loss at the elections. I honestly think Rishi Sunak is just there to sort of manage the process of stripping everything they can get. Not a prime minister at all.

That’s a pretty fair summary @Lorelielee.

"yes I know our economy isnt great at the moment but before covid hit we were doing ok with national debt"

Had a quick look at this. Went from a trillion in 2010 to about 1.7 trillion in 2019
Over 2 trillion now.

Dig a bit deeper OP.
Taking us into an Illegal war in Iraq
Plundering pension funds
Selling off the gold reserves
Bankrupting the country

They’ve provided funding to resolve the cladding crisis and provided support during the energy crisis.

I imagine there was a lot of covid drama that distracted from some policy making.

Well facilitating that was always the obvious driving factor behind Brexit, so yes, what we're living through right now is exactly what the ERG intended.

How people could have thought for a moment that it was ever about 'sovereignty' is beyond me. You just needed to look at the histories of those pushing for it to see that it was all about escaping EU financial regulation, a race to the bottom, and siphoning off as much as you could before the well ran dry.

No real wonder that if you hand the lunatics the keys to the asylum that everyone ends up in Bedlam.

A footballer got them to do FSMs.. thankfully.

We gave everyone a vaccine that didn't work well and had severe side effects, for some.. we ended up behind the EU and paid through the nose for mRNA vaccines.

You mean inflation matching increases?

Life time skills? ever tried accessing these things? i have, it was useless.

A global financial crash, started in the US led to Austerity and the Tories have carried it on for 13 years.... the cause of most of our problems in the UK.

The thing the Tories have done well with is Ukraine, undeniable that BJ giving them 2000 anti tank missiles was crucial in stopping Russian advances.

Taking us into an Illegal war in Iraq The one Michael Howard, then leader of the Conservatives, said he’d have taken us into too?
https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/howard-under-fire-over-iraq-7247839.html

Bankrupting the country. That’s the Tories, look at @Notonthestairs’ nice little bar chart.

At least tuition fees were only ~£3K under Labour. I think that was pretty reasonable. It was the Tories that tripled them.

To add to your list OP the Tories have increased police powers to prevent people from taking part in protests.

And made the head of the electoral commission a government appointee.

And cancelled the labour plan to rebuild schools.

I always think of austerity and gove-ified education