Why have the Tories mismanaged the country so badly? (title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[HebburnPokemon]

Genuinely interested in views on this: why have the Conservatives made choices to preside over the virtual demolition of this country? - to the point where they are facing the biggest defeat of their existence. They have not only damaged the country, they have destroyed themselves! This level of self-harm is unheard of.

I'm trying to make sense of it. Even Covid & Ukraine cannot explain the sheer degree of this implosion. This is not your bog-standard "political cycle" of ruling party enjoying a decade of power then inevitably falling out of favour. Lib Dem are on course to become the opposition ffs!

The word from inside Government is one of transcendence. The fall of the current administration goes beyond anything ever seen in the UK before.

They treated the UK as an idealogical experiment.

They devalued the legal, teaching & medical professions and worshipped those who make money from money.

Brexit

They fell for the charm of Boris Johnson, who only cared about Boris Johnson.

They lied time after time. Their utter lack of morals and integrity is shameful.

They treated the UK as an idealogical experiment

It certainly feels that way. I don't think anyone could argue otherwise. Lettuce Woman being perfect example.

This answers OPs question imo. Conservatives from 2010 were Blairites. Cameron even openly admitted it and described himself as the heir to Blair. Austerity started under the last Labour government.

http://www.labournet.net/other/0409/disability1.html

Yep, that's what I would say.

They're a bunch of self-interested, in it for themselves and fuck everyone else, lying deceitful crooks.

Unfortunately Labour are full of extreme capitalist ideologists who are totally out of touch.

Some choice hey.

Not just short but faulty. Do you know how much interest we’ve paying on borrowing now? £8.6 billion a month. By my reckoning that’s £103 billion a year for nothing. It makes £4 billion for schools and hospital look a bit of a bargain, don’t you think?

And this below on housing. Imo the Conservatives from 2010 simply continued wreaking the damage Blair and Brown started (honourable mention to Thatcher for starting RTB but Labour didn't end it).

Perhaps the next Labour government will change course? We can but hope

https://unherd.com/2022/04/how-blair-broke-britain/

NHS targets were removed at the behest of doctors. It had created an environment where those not in the most need were treated ahead of those separately ill, in order to match the targets. As an aside NHS target figures were also routinely fudged by nefarious means in order to meet said supposed targets.

I believe that getting rid of Boris was a huge mistake because what followed was a shit show and I cannot believe that things would have been worse if he had stayed
But there again getting rid of Boris seemed to be what everyone wanted as Partygate was a news item every single day for over a year

Starmer I don’t believe will be this huge saviour. I think he will just keep the status quo. He doesn’t remind me of someone who has the strength or knowledge or plan to turn things round and will just fiddle around the edges trying to keep everyone on side and Sunak is just out of touch with reality

I cannot see myself voting in this election

Except I haven't suggested our needs are "equal" whatever you mean by that but we are all the public and the state manages us all from the cradle to the grave. Our basic needs are the same. Which you dismiss patronisingly as potholes to the "wealthy", seemingly them not qualifying as the public.

Are we only members of the "public" if we need the state i.e.the public's administration, to give us money? I get that impression from the never ending anger.

No they weren’t. Since when has any government listened to doctors? They were removed by a government that didn’t want proof of the failure caused by its austerity policy.

The awful spectacle of left wing journalists queuing up to one by one, bristling with rage and venom, ask the same questions over and over of a father about why he took his sick wife and autistic child to stay with relatives for help was enough to make me realize hatred will always come first with a large section of the left.

Hatred, anger and disorder are escalating and Starmer is already getting it from his own side too, with a willful misinterpretation of the Bangladesh comments he made.

It's going to be awful to observe left on left rage when the fight over money really gets going. Glad to be retiring and switching off from it all.

I don’t remember that. Can you supply a link, please?

Boris Johnson culling all the halfway competent technocrats who didn't agree with him didn't help. But I think the rot started with Cameron throwing the entire country under a bus in an ultimately futile attempt to appease the right of the party.

The targets were the subject of constant complaints. How easily that's forgotten eh!

Outsourcing of hip operations and other routine procedures were how Labour made the targets work. The outsourcing companies all managed by former NHS staff who leapt at the chance.

www.bmj.com/content/327/7406/72.8

Not where I worked they weren’t. A lot of effort was put into maximising theatre time and minimising length of stay. Nothing was outsourced. I find it astonishing that there’s a constant cry for reform in the NHS and constant carping about the only government that’s even attempted it and the (largely successful) mechanisms it used. It’s almost as if some people want the NHS to fail.

So doctors didn’t like targets in 2003 and that’s why a completely different government got rid of them a decade later? OK.

Ok, here's another for you.....
www.health.org.uk/research-projects/using-and-removing-national-performance-targets-in-the-nhs

Well Boris has a lot to answer for. His motivation appeared to be simply to have power. In pursuit of this aim, he chucked out the moderates and surrounded himself with sycophants, lied copiously and behaved illegally (not only party gate, but also prorouging parliament). His complete lack of integrity and moral compass led the party to make terrible decisions. The Brexit campaign was founded on lies (unsurprisingly as led by Boris) and subsequently took up so much time and space in parliament and the media that very little thought was given to other important areas (e.g. education, NHS etc).

Jeremy Corbyn also has a lot to answer for. Yes, I know he wasn't in charge, but every government needs a well functioning opposition and under JC, Labour was a bubbling, disorganised shitshow. So credit must also be given to the system that allowed JC to be elected leader of the party, despite never holding any ministerial or shadow ministerial responsibility or having any prior leadership experience.

One of main reasons is rather than putting UK first they have spent the last 5 years mired in their own selfish interests and civil war and playing "whose turn is it to be leader".

Whilst they have managed to line the pockets of their rich cronies (PPE contracts scandal during COVID) as well as partying and law breaking, they haven't achieved much else unless we count crashing the economy, sewage infested river waters and cost of living crisis with record tax burden as a success.

Sure there was Covid, but the big elephant in the room is that Brexit has also wiped £Billions of UK economy and damaged/destroyed so many small and medium sized businesses.

The only thing the Tories have proved to be masters at is lying which they have made into an artform!

First paragraph

In the last 15 years, the delivery of national targets has arguably had a greater impact on NHS performance than any other policy lever available to system stewards, including patient choice, competition, regulation, reorganisation and transparency.

Ideology and poor judgement.

They've turned us into Argentina on the Channel.

Austerity (when it wasn't needed at the level implemented and has hollowed out the state to such a degree that it has impacted on growth and investment. Surprise surprise, workers with poor health housing and access to food are less productive).

Brexit / nationalism (with its fool's gold ideas about the sanctity of national sovereignty at the expense of GDP growth)

Trussonomics (which is the one truth faith. If it doesn't work, you must try again and try harder because it is the fault of non-believers talking down the economy).

Immigration (which they claim to hate but actually encourage because it is in fact the only thing masking the country's complete loss of competitiveness.

So many sacred cows. Hopefully they can all be slayed after this time next week!

Yes, I agree with your post completely. The election campaign currently in the USA remind me of the Boris v Jeremy years.

This gestures at crumbling country is the logical result of Tory ideology