Friday, June 5, 2020

What have the Tories ever done for us?

You might recognise the question as being a variation on the classic line "What have the Romans ever done for us?" from The Life of Brian, Well, thanks to a Guardian reader, I can give you the answer to the title question:



Tory Promises/achievements. Remember these???
1000 sure start centres closed.
780 libraries closed.
700 football pitches closed.
Food bank use up 2,400%. Now more food banks than McDonalds
Homelessness up 1,000%.
Rough sleeping up 1,200%
Bedroom tax caused mass evictions.
Evictions are running at record highs.
35% of U.K. kids live in poverty.
Student fees up 300%.
Student debt has risen 150%.
Eradication of EMA (education maintenance allowance).
National debt has risen from £850billion to £2.25tn
Deficit has doubled in 2019 to £43bn.
Emergency Brexit stimulus from BoE in June 2016 of £175bn.
Brexit related fall in national revenue £500bn.
£700bn lost to offshore avoidance and evasion.
GDP growth has fallen to near zero.
GBP fallen by circa 15% versus EUR and USD.
Manufacturing in recession.
Construction in recession.
Services in recession.
25-30% cuts to all govt departments.
25-30% cuts to all councils, mainly centred on Labour councils.
Half of all councils are facing effective bankruptcy.
185k extra deaths attached to the political ideology of austerity.
25,000 fewer police officers.
20,000 fewer prison officers.
10,000 fewer border officials.
10,000 fewer firefighters.
10,000 fewer medical professionals.
Highest teacher leaving rate in a decade.
Teachers paying for school supplies.
Schools sending out begging letters to parents to pay for supplies.
Free school meals slashed.
Legal aid slashed.
20% of crown courts and magistrates courts closed.
Police, ambulance and fire stations sold off to property developers.
NHS satisfaction fallen from 83% to 60%.
A&E targets down from 95% to 83%, even after the Tories altered the targets.
Increase of 200% wait in hospital corridors.
25,000 fewer bed spaces for mental illness.
OECD calculates there’s 3 million hidden unemployed, the rate is really 13%.
Creation of 1.3m jobs only, mainly temporary, self employed, gig economy and ZHC.
Only 30,000 full time employment positions have been created.
Close on 50% of workers are self employed, ZHC, or the part time precariat.
25% cuts for disabled community.
Mobility allowance cut by circa 30%.
Closed Remploy.
40% of working households have (practically) no savings.
75% of households have less than £10,000 savings.
80% of households can only survive 3 months without a wage.
Nearly half the working population (17m) have an unauthorised overdraft.
Household debt has reached a new peak, despite emergency base rates.
Increase of 50% in hate crimes.
Increase of knife crime by 150% to 22,000 per year.
Increase in teenage suicide by 70%.
Suicide up 12% in the year 2018.
Self harm among young women up 70%.
Council home building down 90%.
200k social homes lost since 2010.
Zero starter homes built, despite the Tory flagship programme promising 200,000.
One million families on council home waiting list.
100,000 increase in the council home waiting list since 2010.

I think we should have held onto the Romans and not let them leave the British Isles in 400 AD. This is what you get when you let the foreign Anglo-Saxons in.

1 comment:

The headlines of The Economist

 When my students as me to recommend some good reading material, The Economist is one of the few publications that I recommend. As I tell th...