To ask what the tories have ever done for us…

[Tootiredforallthiscrap]

To compliment the thread about labour and give a bit of balance, let’s discuss the legacy of 14 years Conservative government. Never voted for them myself and although we now have 2 out of 3 Tory MPs up here because of the Brexit effect I haven’t seen any great improvement in our town. In fact if anything it’s pretty much gone to the dogs. So good and bad, what have they achieved ?

Yes the furlough payments. Increase in Universal credit when actually many people had reduced costs as they weren't going anywhere, the covid vaccine programme which was rolled out quickly and efficiently ( although I guess NHS takes credit for that ).

Legalising gay marriage
Automatic pension enrollment

Any government would have had to do that ffs. The country would have been in more of a ruin than it is now!

introduced unnecessary austerity. Devastated public services.

Sneered at ‘so called experts’ , closed Sure Start centres and ruined preventive services. CAMHS and adult mental health, alcohol/drug teams demolished. Police 20,000 less
thats just some of the obvious horrors

And all of those things will take a couple of decades at least to fix 🙁 it’s fucking criminal when you think about it.

Same sex marriage and the modern slavery legislation is about the only things I can think of.

pointythings · Today 09:42
Marriage equality. That's it. Everything else has been about making things more and more shit”

Yes and yes. Marriage equality was overdue. Technically, that was a different government, though?

I was very grateful for my £400 energy credit. And my £150 council tax rebate. I needed both.

People using food banks, 2010 approx. 60,000 - 2023 approx. 3 million.

I hope that's irony - you shouldn't have been placed in the situation where you needed it

Created a useless railway system.

They created the problem!? Do you not see that?

furlough was a socialist policy and done to prevent civil unrest rather than altruistically

Do those giving the Tories credit for "legalising gay marraige" not realise that scores of activists had been fighting tooth and nail for this since the 1960's, it was something that happened in incremental steps over decades not because of one act of Parliament. Labour helped to pave the way for marraige equality with the Civil Partnership Act in 2004 and when same sex marraige was eventually brought into law (under the Coalition government, not a Tory majority Government) over half of the Parliamentary Tory Party refused to support it. Don't get me wrong it's great that Cameron eventually found some semblance of a moral compass on this one specific issue but crediting the Tories with winning the fight for marraige equality is re-writing history.

Quantitive easing (aka printing money) is why they were able to afford furlough payments but it's fucked the economy by increasing inflation.
Gordon brown did it too in 2008 and I'm not sure what I would have done differently but it was not some genius move.
It helped lots of people and businesses in the short term though so that was good.

National living wage
Increase in tax free allowance

to be fair the government did control the vaccine rollout- just not accurate to say it had nothing to do with them. And a lot of self employed did get Covid help but not all.

Increase in tax free allowance

It’s frozen for seven years, amid double digit inflation.

Blue Belt scheme
Decarbonisation Programme

Quantative easing is an action taken by the Bank of England to manage inflation. The government doesn’t decide whether to do it or not. The Bank of England have been doing it on an ongoing basis from about 2010 to 2020. it did not pay for furlough.

The government borrowed to pay for Covid measures.

The national living wage is mostly no different from the national minimum wage, which was brought in by Labour, to mass naysaying from the Tories.

How odd. I didn’t label it.
I think it protected families from the worst possible outcome and allowed a quick return to normal economic activity. I don’t think even the most ardent free-marketeer would question its efficacy.

Same sex marriage…. Didn’t many Tory MPs abstain or vote against it ?

How did the Lib Dems force the referendum?

Certainly not public health. The aqueduct appears to be running 10 years behind schedule.