Tuesday 28 April 2015

9 days to go - In which Dave's plans for the economy didn't quite work out

28/04/15

Dear Claire,
Here is part two (of three) of what Cameron promised in his ‘Contract between the Conservative party and you’, issued before the 2010 election.
I put the contents of the initial letter from Cameron in my letter of the 25th. We’ll just remind ourselves of the closing line from that letter:
“So this is our contract with you. I want you to read it and – if we win the election – use it to hold us to account. If we don’t deliver our side of the bargain, vote us out in five years’ time.”

I must, once again, thank Thomas G Clark and his excellent blog ‘Another Angry Voice’.


The second of three parts addressed  the economy.

“We will change the economy”

“Gordon Brown’s economic incompetence has doubled the national debt, given us record youth unemployment and widened the gap between rich and poor. Unemployment is still rising and this year we will spend more on debt interest than on schools. We need to get our economy moving
“If you elect a Conservative government on 6 May, we will:

1.      “Cut wasteful public spending”
The cuts that were implemented included things such as cutting spending on flood defences, for places which were badly flooded. The misguided cuts implemented by Osborne caused the ‘double-dip’ recession. Let’s not forget the first recession was not caused by the previous government. The global banking crisis led to that; the Tories just ensured that it happened again.
2.      “Act now on the national debt”
Despite their promises that ideological austerity would have completely wiped out the budget deficit by now, the government is still borrowing £billions every month. Cameron’s government has now created more debt than all of the Labour governments in history combined!
3.      “Reduce emissions and build a greener economy”
After pretending that they would be the ‘greenest government ever’, Cameron soon U-turned. He cut spending on green energy infrastructure and research. He began promoting fracking and even instructed his aides to ‘cut out all the green crap’.
4.      “Get Britain working by giving unemployed people support to get to work” 
 
Where to start on this one? They haven’t cut benefits for those ‘who refuse to work’, they have slashed the in-work benefits used to top up the poverty wages paid by their corporate backers. The apprenticeships policies are pretty much forced unpaid labour schemes.  

5.       “Control immigration”
Without reforming EU Freedom of Movement legislation, this was always a completely impossible promise. Net immigration rose39% to 243,000 in 2013-14. To give Cameron one tiny bit of credit, he has admitted “We got it wrong” on immigration. What a shame he cannot own up to all his other abject failures.
OK, that’s the second of the three sections of broken promises. We’ll look at Society over the next few days.
A pretty shabby performance all round. If I were to have an appraisal or performance review for a job I was currently doing which reflected such a dire performance on previously stated objectives, I know I’d be out of the door with my P45 without my feet touching the ground. Once again: a damning report on Tory failures.
Kind regards

Polly

1 comment:

IwishIwasAndrewMitchell said...

To quote a character in the TV sitcom Dad's Army ... We're 'DOOMED!