Would you vote conservative again?

[Erica56]

I wouldn’t vote conservative again after the total shambles that have been the last 12 years. They’re constantly infighting rather than sorting out the economy and have left the NHS in a total mess. No care for people suffering from the cost of living crisis

Remind me how long A&E and GP appointment waits are now. And don’t say “Yes, but Covid” because they were abysmal in 2019.

This

I'm sure you have the stats. Why don't you post them if you think it will further your debate.

With the greatest of pleasure. Here you go.

digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-accident--emergency-activity/2019-20/performance-times

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/qualitywatch/nhs-performance-summary#headlines

The Tories threw money at the vaccination programme. That's the main reason that worked. 'Throwing money' at a problem, generally does work.

Yes, I would & will.

@ilovesooty yeah, probably. With the Tories, it's less likely they will raise my taxes. I know they have recently and that's been disappointing, but the other parties it's almost guaranteed. I can't afford to pay anymore.

The irony of quoting Pink News, then admitting it’s a poor source!!

Either Starmer has policies or he does not. Make up your minds.
Self ID has not been on the cards for a couple of years now and none of the parties has policies since their last manifestos.
What’s the Conservative policy on Self ID?
They were the ones that were going to bring it in. Have Maria Millar, Penny Mordaunt etc. changed their minds?

To be fair, it was the global financial crisis that crippled the country with debt. That was partially caused by New Labour being intensely relaxed about low regulation and oversight of the institutions which actually caused the global financial meltdown, because the country had short sightedly made these institutions its cash cow, to the disadvantage of other sectors, long before Labour came to power (partially, because the UK government was not the only one in the world to be intensely relaxed about neo liberalism). New Labour at that time was really just a high spending but otherwise right wing party which specialised in intensely annoying the Tories by adopting a lot of the same policies they would have done, but then spending more on things that improved the quality of life of the majority, thus making them popular, so the Tories didn’t know how to fight against it until the low regulation of which they actually approved sparked a financial meltdown.

So the Tories would not have saved us from financial crisis and recession, they would just have ensured most people had a lower quality of life and poorer public services and infrastructure at the start of it. And they would still have inflicted austerity on us. And we would still be where we are now, only with even worse health, education and infrastructure which would thus require a far longer period of time and far more investment to recover from.

We could, of course, all vote for the party that is at the moment going out of its way to accelerate the decline of the country and accelerate increasing global instability, but I’m not sure why we would want to do that? Why encourage dictatorships and extremists to believe they have already reached their opportunity to make themselves pre-eminent?

Yes.

Blossomtoes · Today 12:08

The bit that you posted refers to waiting times not health outcomes? The reports conclusions are that there was massive increase in investment which led to no discernible impact on productivity, staffing levels or improved patient outcomes?

What do you think waiting times indicate? They indicate prompt treatment which automatically leads to better patient outcomes. Your attempts to discredit a report which definitively indicates that the NHS was infinitely better 17 years ago than it is now are frankly pathetic. And transparent. I doubt anyone with half a brain can’t see what you’re doing. It’s impossible to have a sensible debate with a fact denier.

The things that hold back our country, which never seem to get fixed, no matter which party is in power, are:

the blame-game - pointing the finger at previous administrations and claiming what they did wrong was the cause of current failures. If less energy was spent finding somewhere else to lay the blame for stuff and more energy invested in actually getting to real solutions, even in incremental steps, we'd be a lot better off.

Linked to the above

Short Term-ism - politicians doing whatever is expedient to make them look good in their immediate term of office, to the sacrifice of the longer term good of this country. Where's the altruism, and for that matter, where's the honour. There is none.

There was a time when, if someone did something really shameful, they'd own it and do something about it. I always think of Profumo and how he spent the rest of his life away from the public eye, giving back to society, because he felt that was the honourable thing to do. Nowadays, someone who lies, cheats and misleads is clinging on for dear life like a limpet, insists on waiting for a report to be published, marking time in the hope it can all get kicked into the long grass.

What do you think waiting times indicate? They indicate prompt treatment which automatically leads to better patient outcomes.

Unfortunately, that's not true in all cases. There are data from England showing that when patients were operated on locally by general surgeons to reduce waiting times, 30-day mortality was significantly higher versus patients operated on in a specialist centre.

It’s true in relation to ambulance and A&E waits, cancer diagnoses and GP appointments. In the early years of this century you were guaranteed a GP appointment in two days, now the ambition is two weeks.

Have you seen who is waiting in the wings to take over? Sir Keir who backed Jeremy Corbyn and his neo-communist policies last GE plus Angela Rayner who is a big fan of Mr Corbyn. So things can get worse!

They really can’t. However much fictitious hyperbole you post. Crashing the economy and nearly bankrupting the country is as bad as it gets.

That's complete nonsense @MariEllie - Corbyn was suspended from the Labour party by Sir Kier Starmer so he's hardly likely to be backing him now.

I ve asked two specific Tory posters to tell me anything that has improved since 2010... no response.

Anyone?

Exactly but why did Starmer back him in the first place then?

Well, one presumes that was before the whole anti-semitism issue reared its very ugly head.

But that was before - things have moved on. Your post implies that Sir Kier is still a supporter of Corbyn, which he very evidently is not.

I ve asked two specific Tory posters to tell me anything that has improved since 2010
The number of billionaires in the uk and the number of children living in poverty in the uk have both increased since 2010 - does that count?

Corbyn had a mandate from the party membership and its better to have moderates inside Labours front bench than not.

But on a thread about the Tories, why not ask Nadim Zahawi why he wanted Boris gone in July but now wants him back as PM ?

Or why Boris never criticised Truss's economic policies before she enacted them - he was PM after all - if he is soooo good, why didn't he save us all from this disaster?

No... lol!

are you reading what I said. I am not endorsing bringing Boris back. But I know that labour will make a complete mess of things even worse than the Conservatives. If you think otherwise you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. There was actually nothing wrong with Truss’ economic policies - low tax, high growth - it was the sudden implementation of them combined with high borrowing that spooked the markets. Added to which that all the markets are governed by a certain philosophy and beware anyone who breaks outside of that. Starmer will not be able to break out of that philosophy of low growth and high taxation anyway and we will all be taxed to the hilt under Labour. I know of businessmen who are going to leave the country anyway if he gets in as they will just not be able to run a business under Labour. The problem we have with the Conservatives is that they can’t get their act together. Boris has now become a hindrance to them. He needs to give it a rest and let someone else have a go. He is damaged goods as far as politics is concerned at the moment and ought to go abroad and earn his money speaking. Unfortunately his oversized ego will not allow him to do this