As we brace ourselves for the barrage of self-congratulatory rhetoric from our government and the unelected Prime Moistiness about the “achievements” over the past 14 years since they seized power in May 2010, let’s pre-emptively dissect their record.
Behold! The comprehensive list of their so-called “achievements” that we’ve been subjected to while they’ve ostensibly “been in charge”:
(Note: this list is non-exhaustive, even if it is utterly exhausting)
Economy:
- Biggest drop in living standards since records began due to spectacular economic mismanagement.
- House prices skyrocket while wages stagnate – home ownership is now a pipe dream for many.
- Zero-hour contracts galore – celebrated as flexibility but, in reality, a ticking time bomb of job insecurity.
- The Australia Trade Deal: less about economic benefits more about symbolic gestures with kangaroos.
- Record-high tax burden – because who doesn’t love paying more for less?
- Rising inequality and wealth gap, with the wealthiest 1 per cent holding 70 per cent of the wealth.
- Promised US trade deal remains a mirage in the desert of Brexit promises.
- HS2: the never-ending story of delays, budget overruns, and downsized dreams.
- Carillion’s collapse: the poster child for outsourcing failures and public sector project chaos.
- Food prices rise faster than a hot air balloon, leaving families scrambling to afford basics.
- Public sector pay freeze – heroes during the pandemic, zeros in government budgets.
- Local businesses squeezed by Brexit red tape, choking the life out of entrepreneurship.
- Liz Truss.
- Ignoring rising child poverty rates, leaving many children hungry and in need.
- Bank of England’s interest rate hikes add salt to the wound of an already struggling economy.
- Viciously-slashed social benefits, leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves.
- Potholes proliferate as road maintenance budgets face the axe – good luck with those tyres!
- Energy bills through the roof, thanks to a failure to cap soaring prices [and profiteering].
- Retail sector struggles as high street stores shutter, turning towns into ghost towns.
- Inadequate funding for public transport, leading to delays, overcrowding, and frustration.
- The gig economy: sold as innovation, delivered as exploitation.
- Stagnant wage growth – working harder, earning less.
Healthcare:
- Record NHS staff vacancies, burnout, and the highest number of strikes in history due to aggressive funding cuts and policy failures.
- The COVID-19 response: seeding care homes, delayed lockdowns, PPE shortages, and over 232,000 deaths.
- The COVID-19 PPE VIP Lane enriching cronies and giving a leg up to pub landlords and lingerie entrepreneurs.
- The growing mental health crisis with inadequate funding leading to a lost generation.
- Massive increases in the use of food banks by NHS staff.
- The NHS waiting lists hitting record highs.
- The belligerent mishandling of social care reform leaving the most vulnerable people without support.
- The admission of patients to hospital with acute malnutrition (which is positively Dickensian).
- The return of Rickets and scurvy. See above.
- The scrapping of nursing bursaries leading to a decline in new recruits.
- Increasing privatisation of NHS services – because profit over patients.
- Ignoring recommendations from health experts because what do they know?
- More people on waiting lists for life-saving treatments than ever before.
- GP shortages leading to patients waiting weeks for appointments.
- Increasing use of under-qualified and unregulated Physician Associates instead of fully-qualified doctors.
- The abysmal handling of maternity services, leading to tragic outcomes.
- The dismantling of public health initiatives, leaving communities to fend for themselves.
- Rising prescription charges making essential medications unaffordable.
- Record levels of hospital bed shortages after massive budget cuts during austerity.
- Inadequate support for carers, leaving them to struggle alone.
- The lack of funding for cancer treatments leading to increased mortality rates.
- The massive waiting lists for an NHS dentist, and the withdrawal of NHS services from many practices.
- 40 new hospitals? Yeah, right!
- RAAC and ruin…
Education:
- Schools so underfunded that bake sales and crowdfunding are the new normal.
- Closing libraries and youth centres – because who needs community spaces and the inadvertent cohesion they could cause?
- Turning schools into immigration control points with hostile environment policies.
- Tripled tuition fees in 2012 in England and Wales, ensuring students graduate with debt mountains.
- Classes bursting at the seams thanks to zero investment in new infrastructure.
- RAAC scandal – buildings dangerous for staff and pupils.
- Schools cutting extracurriculars and essentials due to budget shortfalls. Now having to cut staff.
- Special needs funding cuts, leaving the most vulnerable kids with a dearth of resources.
- Ignoring teacher shortages and watching educators burn out in real-time.
- Persistent pay gaps for gender and ethnicity – equality who?
- Axing maintenance grants, making higher education a pipe dream for many
- Overcrowded, underfunded school facilities, making learning a luxury.
- Quality education based on your postcode lottery.
- Expensive free schools and academies – bureaucracy over books.
- Arts and creative subjects? Cut! Who needs a well-rounded education?
- Achievement gap widening, intervention nowhere to be seen.
- Promoting unregulated home-schooling without safeguards.
- Botched exam grading during COVID-19, causing nationwide distress.
- New curriculum standards – confusing and delayed, of course.
- Mental health crisis in schools with funding that’s a joke.
- Remote learning during the pandemic? No resources, no plan, no problem!
- Free school meals are guaranteed not by our government (very opposed they are) but by a football player instead.
- The Prevent strategy making Muslim students feel like suspects.
- Religious education policies potentially side-lining non-Christian kids.
- Unprepared for refugee and asylum-seeker students – no surprises there.
- Early childhood education underfunded – long-term issues incoming.
- Closure of hundreds of sure start centres, proven to improve attainment.
- Brexit killing off educational exchange programs – bye, international learning.
- Post-COVID school return mishandled – chaos as usual.
- School performance league tables – teaching to the test, anyone?
- Oh…and an objective of having every school ‘above average’! Hmm!
- Digital divide ignored, students left behind in tech-less homes.
- School closures impacting social development – brilliant!
- Rising school exclusions, especially among minority students.
- Failing literacy and numeracy rates despite “interventions”.
- Sports funding cuts – goodbye, healthy and active kids.
- Driving universities to cut subjects and places in arts/humanities
Part 2 will cover environment, housing, public services and the numerous scandals, resignations and suspensions featuring Conservative MPs.
