Your go-to reminder of 14 years of Conservative ‘achievements’. Part 1: economy, healthcare and education

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.