To remind ourselves of what the Tories have done since 2010...

[Dabralor]

...it seems like there are lots of conservative voices bots currently starting threads about how terrifying a labour govt will be.

In the interest of balance, I thought it would be useful to have a list of terrifying things the Tories have already done.

I'll start thus:

Brexit (we aren't supposed to think of this as an election issue but it's shite so I will)

Partygate

The COVID ppe scandal

... Would anyone like to add any more?

It's not a well publicised one but they introduced free market economics into the care of looked after children (kids removed from their facilities due to neglect/abuse etc). Private children's care facilities are now owned by international private equity firms. The regulator is toothless and councils have no choice but to use them. The most vulnerable children who have had the worst start in life are being 'cared for' by hedge fund managers out to monetise a market. These private providers are often shockingly poor but cannot be effectively held to account because the whole regulatory system is so light touch (to encourage people into 'the market').
Awful awful immoral state of affairs.....

What absolute nonsense. The Conservative Party has demonstrated time and again, particularly since 2016, that it really doesn't care about corruption and incompetence so long as its members and their friends and relatives can line their pockets.

Brexit wasn't a Conservative action. They were doing what the majority voted for, as any good government should.

Brexit has fucking ruined this country, from the after decisions made by leaders in the Conservative party.

I don't have the time or energy to reply in detail, but most countries don't have simple majority referendums on constitutional matters, party gate was a kick in the teeth to everyone who missed out on important things due to COVID, and austerity was the actual government policy. The debt mainly went up due to COVID.

The referendum was also brought up by David Cameron who couldn't run away fast enough once it went the way he thought it wouldn't leading to the revolving doors of even increasingly appalling pms.

The Conservatives called the buggering referendum in the first place.

Partygate was NOT a non-issue. It proved unequivocally that they were taking the piss out of us and couldn’t be trusted.

Increasing the debt isn’t evidence that austerity wasn’t a thing. Austerity is stripping public services. It happened. Increasing the debt is borrowing money and giving it to your mates in whopping contracts that delivered fuck all. It’s wasting billions on HS2. It’s a result of GDP being on the floor (as a result of austerity, Brexit and Covid).

This is where the 'free market' goes

Sadly.

The most vulnerable are expendable

They fucked up vaccine when it came to the third round. And it hardly compensated for the PPE cockups and the utterly callous way they treated the elderly, particularly those in care homes.

They had to be dragged kicking and screaming with the threat of legal action into providing the free school meal vouchers, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the damage caused by withdrawing Sure Start. The increase in the tax-free minimum wage was also forced on them and is some way less than it should be, which is one of the factors contributing to our current absolutely appalling child poverty levels.

I have to question the point on sewage water. I live near the sea and I’m pretty sure a sewage overflow pipe was installed in the early 2000s , when Labour was in power.

The point about the Tories sending sewage into the sea well I’m afraid I think this has been going on for many years.

They are still at very low levels, yet another factor contributing to the worse child poverty figures in decades. Current manifesto proposals for benefit cuts will harm the disabled as well as other very vulnerable people.

And here he is 8 years later , back as Lord David Cameron, our foreign minister! Not even an MP bit gets a job for life as a peer.

And why the hell is Charlotte Owen in the House of Lords? I want Labour in if only so they can open up the files on that one.

To say nothing of a sodding knighthood for sodding Rees-Mogg for services in licking Johnson's boots.

They had a purpose. They were previously allowed to discharge waste to stop homes from flooding, but only in particular circumstances. There were EU regulations to make sure water companies couldn’t routinely dump sewage. The tories scrapped regulations these post Brexit, and now sewage discharges are pumped into the sea daily.

Shit in our rivers & seas
Wrecked the NHS
Dodgy contracts to mates during Covid
Eat out to help the virus out
PPE scandal
Betting scandal
Partygate
Brexit
Liz Truss Budget
Boris
Rwanda
Small boats
Rishi not knowing how to use an umbrella

How do you feel your life will be more challenging under Labour? Which Labour policies will affect you in that way?

I don’t care about partygate. All/most of the parties were doing similar. The vaccines and furlough were far more important.

Living with the SNP in charge, you appreciate the Tories.

Oh ok thanks.

Surfers Against Sewage was formed in 1990, when the Tories were well and truly in charge.

It was very much the action of certain conservatives who then gained positions of power off the back of it. Boris was not a fan of leaving the EU until he saw the opportunity it presented to him and look who masterminded Leave campaign...

Cameron totally fucked up the Brexit referendum. Something of that nature should have required a higher majority, and it was ludicrous saying that it was purely advisory when he must have known he couldn't treat it as such. He should also have put much more effort into countering Johnson's and Farage's outright lies during the campaign. He learnt nothing from the fact that the Scottish devolution referendum went his way only by the skin of his teeth.

Subsequently it was painfully obvious that neither May nor Johnson had any clue about how to effect a sensible Brexit deal and Johnson in particular did his best to mess up on the Irish border issue. So we're now losing £40 billion a year for the whole utterly stupid disaster which is certainly down to the Tories and no-one else.

You think that Partygate didn't affect the lives of voters? Try talking to voters who couldn't visit their dying parents, spouses, siblings and children, and had to sit on their own at their loved ones' funerals. The message coming out of all that is that the Tories didn't give a damn about the law and didn't give a damn about other people's sufferings so long as they were making money out of it. That attitude persists to this day.

When fuel prices were at their highest, they could have imposed a windfall tax. Instead the tories chose to hand over taxpayers money to their mates.

Sunak made a fortune in 2008 when the banks failed. One of the reasons that the country ended up in a mess at the time was the actions of him and his mates making money at British taxpayers expense.

https://news.sky.com/story/huge-increase-in-raw-sewage-released-into-uk-waterways-and-sea-data-reveals-12677730

Reduced funding to local councils to the point where many are either going bankrupt or unable to fulfill basic services such as bin collection and maintaining roads - is there anywhere in the country that isn't covered in potholes???

Tore up the 1989 pension contracts of the police and fire service, forcing them to have a new one which essentially meant working years longer for less. They had to change the law in order to do this - totally immoral.

Also, remember back in the 90s when you could ring your GP surgery at any time of day and easily get an appointment for that day or indeed a day of the week that suited you? Seems like a distant dream now.

The NHS is fucked. My DH sought help at the end of january - he has cancer and didn't get to start chemo until the middle of June. Not enough resources to cover the amount of people needing treatment and diagnostics.

Also, the lack of action on things like allowing children to freely have access to the internet/smart phones. There should have been an age restriction put in place years ago - it's been a social catastrophe for a generation of kids in terms of what they have been exposed to and the effect on behaviour in schools/bullying etc. In addition, stronger legislation could have prevented toxins in our environment that might have a correlation to the rise in cancer cases among the population - pesticides and microplastics on our food for example. In the naughties 1 in 3 people got cancer, now it's increased to 1 in 2, in just 15 years. Our rivers are polluted by agricultural run off and sewage discharges - why hasn't there been a zero tolerance approach to these things? So much damage done through inaction.

The people who cared about party gate were those who abided by the rules Johnson and his government set.

Children died alone in hospital, people couldn't visit their (expendable) parents in homes, people couldn't attend the funerals of loved ones, mental ill health went through the roof, people couldn't get essential treatment, while Johnson and co drank wine by the suitcase and stuck two fingers up at the population.

That's why people were angry at party gate.

Ghost town by the specials I'd say