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Last 12 years

(6 Posts)
RichmondPark1 Wed 20-Jul-22 17:55:02

Johnson telling us that he considers his "mission largely accomplished" made me wonder what he has personally achieved during his tenure and what the Conservatives have actually achieved in the last 12 years.

He seems proud of the vaccine achievement, but other than what's been achieved? I wonder what others consider successes during this time.

As a comparison, here's what Labour achieved in the previous 13 years.

Longest period of low inflation growth since 1960
Reduced NHS waiting times by 82%
85,000 more nurses
Free eye tests and bus travel for over 60s
Heart disease deaths down 150,000
Cancer deaths down 50,000
Free breast screening for 50-70 year-olds
In-patient waiting lists down half a million
Created NHS Direct
600,000 children lifted out of poverty
1 million pensioners lifted out of poverty
26% increase in child benefit
Introduced winter fuel payments
Made improvements to 1 million social homes
Introduced child Tax Credits
Created 3 million child trust funds
Introduced the first minimum wage
Created 1.8 million new jobs
Cut long term unemployment by 75%
Doubled the number of apprenticeships
Introduced the right to 24 days holiday
Introduced 2 weeks paternity leave
Doubled education funding for every pupil
36,000 additional teachers
Added 274,000 teaching assistants
2,200 Sure Start centres
Record literacy
Record numeracy
Free nursery places
Free fruit for 4-6 year-olds
Scrapped Section 28
Introduced Civil Partnerships
Banned fox hunting
Free TV licenses to over 75s
Free entry to museums and art galleries
Smoking ban
Peace in Ireland (building on John Major's work, but still, completed by Labour)
Added 14,000 extra police
Cut crime by 35%
Increased criminal justice (court) spending by 21%
Created an independent Bank of England
Wrote off debt for dozens of poor nations
Doubled overseas aid (a better life at home reduces the incentive to migrate to the UK)
Created GiftAid
Introduced devolution for Scotland and Wales
Banned fur farming
Brought the Human Rights Act into UK law
And created the cleanest rivers, beaches, water and air since the industrial revolution

Prentice Wed 20-Jul-22 19:10:36

Yes, Labour has a good long list there.However it has to be said that the Covid Pandemic has badly affected things here, and in other countries too, so whichever Party was in office at the time would have had huge problems to get other things done.
I do not have time to look for any statistics for a list but I expect somebody will.

Prentice Wed 20-Jul-22 19:12:34

There was also the financial crash of course.

MaizieD Wed 20-Jul-22 19:16:56

Prentice

There was also the financial crash of course.

Yes, the financial crash that Darling and Brown acted very promptly to mitigate in the UK and which we were actually recovering from when the tories took office in 2010.

It was Osborne's ridiculous and economically illiterate 'austerity' that plunged us back into the economic doldrums.

Prentice Wed 20-Jul-22 19:26:58

I would definitely take issue with the claim that we were recovering at that time, and that is an understatement.
The financial crash and the Pandemic have certainly limited anything that a governing Party is able to do.
I will say that too many years of austerity were not good though.
I have voted Labour for a long time but did not do so last time as Mr Corbyn, who I have met and did not rate at all well, would not have been good for our country.
I am a fence sitter about Sir Keir Starmer, he does not seem to have grown into his position, but it is time for a new political party to be in place.The Conservatives have simply been in office for too long, it is not good for any Party to do this in my view.

RichmondPark1 Wed 20-Jul-22 21:01:58

The pandemic was obviously a stumbling block, but the Conservatives had been in power for a decade before Covid arrived in the UK.