What did the Conservatives ever do for us ? AKA lets apportion blame where it is due [smile]

[Dymaxion]

After 14 long years of Conservative government, we now have another Party at the helm. I can't help feeling that a lot of what has occurred under the Conservatives will be quickly blamed on the Labour party, who have only been in power for a week, so thought it might be wise to start a thread summarising the Conservatives legacy ?

To start,

1. Brexit is a fairly obvious one, the way in which this was handled by senior Conservative's was absolutely shocking.
2. Liz Truss's mini budget, what was your interest rate pre September 2022 and what is it now ?
3. The NHS, and social care in crisis.
4. Prison and court systems/probabtion in absolute tatters and fit to burst.

Feel free to add your own

As IF our rapists went to jail!

The Tories basically legalised rape.

Exactly. You’re more likely to see your rapist unconvicted and walking about awaiting trial. Especially given that the people being released are those imprisoned for relatively minor, non violent crimes.

You're having a laugh, what are the chances of getting a rapist convicted in the first place... 1%? That's another Tory legacy.

The stat is completely wrong and the political assertion is completely wrong.

Could you offer something more accurate please, then?

Yes, I could. But I didn’t make the claims. It’s up to Kendodd to back them up.

1% was a guess, hence the question mark. Turns out its about right though.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48095118

This was already happening before the election. I don’t know why the papers are trying to pretend it’s a Labour thing, it’s really not.

My addition to the question: froze my pay for 10 years.

That’s a very poor article.

I don’t doubt that rape trials, like all trials, were delayed because of spending cuts and because of Covid and its knock-on effects. But the much longer standing difficulty in getting rape charges into court from the point of complaint (what’s called the attrition rate) is a combination of things, many of them driven by procedural requirements and defence rights. It’s not possible to know the attrition rate of other offences because the data’s not collected.

Even so, rape charging went up markedly under the coalition and the earlier years of Tory majority government.

This is very good if you want to know more:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/judicial-institute/sites/judicial_institute/files/thomas_pre-publication_manuscript_fro_clr.doc.pdf

Rape conviction rates reached a high in 2021, as shown in the UCL research. Here’s a summary:
https://www.pumpcourtchambers.com/2023/03/09/research-demonstrates-juries-convict-in-58-of-rape-cases-on-average/#_ftn1

I was asking a genuine question. What's Ken Dodd got to do with it?

The coalition ended nearly ten years ago. This outlines the current situation.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/08/labour-pledges-80-new-courts-in-bid-to-tackle-backlog-crisis

When the Conservatives came into power in 2010 they were in a coalition. Civil servants in the DWP had their pay frozen if they were on more than £21,000 a year. However, the employees who were on less than £21,000 a year, which included all of the clerical assistants and clerical officers, got a pay rise.

And your point is? Even if that were true because civil service pay rates are nationally determined, not by department. DWP employees were treated like every other civil servant in the country.

The title of the thread asks what the Conservatives did for us. For years people threw around the words 'pay freezes'. My point is that that was not strictly true, but it served some people to trot it out.
I know for certain that the under-£21000s in DWP got a pay rise. It is true. If what you say is true, that all civil servants in the departments were treated the same, then lots of clerical officers and clerical assistants got a pay rise rather than a pay freeze.

The Tories overspend and according to the OBR it could constitute one of the largest year- ahead overspends against DEL forecasts outside of the pandemic years”

The scientists and the NHS logisticians sorted out the vaccine. I don't give any credit to Boris at all for that - it would have happened anyway.

The Torys started nationalising the train network again. Labour are implementing however it was already in motion with the same intended approach of taking back services at the end of franchising agreements.

Different topic but I wish Labpur would first deal with the poor water quality and sewage directly into our seas and rivers first. If I were a government nationalising water would be first.

Now who's being selective with their history. Do you remember the global banking crisis of 2008?

Both parties had to grapple with huge international events during their terms in office that have had a lasting impact, but I believe the current pickle has been made worse by Tory policies and general incompetence.

Launched a campaign to render our largest land carnivore functionally extinct in half the country (while lecturing developing countries on conservation).

Really? Do you have a link for the Tories starting rail nationalisation? This from the Tory mag seems to suggest the opposite.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-didnt-the-tories-nationalise-the-railways/

Yep sure, I don't read newspapers and magazines unfortunately I find they are all misinformed biased or outdated. But if you search I'm sure you will find some text about it.

For anything political I tend to read directly from the govenrment's own website, it's not a secret its been in prime ministers question time, its been debated in the commons etc

I won't go back as far as Covid but of course the government stepped in temporarily to run train networks, I'm sure you would know that part.

Anyway all on here, all historic bills / articles from the transport minister are chronologically listed so you can have a read through from their initial thoughts of reforming Great British Rail to the development of a draft bill in Feb 2024.

www.gov.uk/transport/rail-network

Work your way through to the draft bill from the conservatives.

Hmm. You say that the Tories started renationalisation of the railways but the only evidence you can give is a massive govt list of papers. I actually thought you might have some real evidence.

Google only points to Labour policies about renationalisation, plus the one Spectator article I posted above, saying the opposite to what you said.

So I'll ignore the idea of the Tories starting it until someone actually has evidence and not links to a gazillion papers they know I'm not going to plough through on the off chance I find the right one

What a weird answer read through them the are published documents in chronological order on the government's website- the same place Labour will add their bills to.

So ypu choose to believe Google searches to tell you what the government are planning over th3 governments own documents- where do you think laws come from journalists!

Read them you will see chronological order of the suggested changes, culminating in the Bill - which I'm assuming from your answer you don't understand is the precursor to an Act.

Just read them or remain ignorant your choice I don't gain from convincing you. But knowledge is a good thing to have isn't it?

To be quite honest, today I'm mostly annoyed with Suella Braverman acting like far right thugs had a point and letting them "protect the cenotaph". Emboldening the far right for votes was a bad move.

I won't be reading through them. Usually if I put an argument up I can link to something that supports it, not some vague government website where I would have to spend ages trying to find something that might back you up. If you want people to believe you the onus is on you.

So I don't for now.