What Has This Government Achieved ?

[Gromit]

Seroius question. The agovernment has been in power for 4 years and I was stuggling to think what they had done.

1. Free Schools.
2. Privatisation of Royal Mail.
3. Privatisation of Air Sea Rescue.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Regardless of whether you agree with the Coalition's policies, can you fill in the blanks. They must have done more than 3 things, but I am stuck to remember them.

[Sqad]

LOL...well, with all the "buggering up", we are all set for a landslide Labour victory.

But...............the polls show Labour/Cons neck and neck.......must be a flaw somewhere.

[emmie]

am i wrong dear doc, as i honestly think that some don't get the fact that all this has to be paid for.

[emmie]

a year or more to go, anything could happen

[douglas9401]

With all these problems about the place it's just as well that, as a country, we keep our big noses out of other people's business and not go marching about the place for no discernable reason.
That would be a great drain on resources requiring massive borrowing for no reason whatsoever.

[sunny-dave]

I think the problem with the NHS is that it has largely split into "Good NHS" and "Bad NHS" - with the big cities (London in particular) getting a disproportionate dose of "Bad NHS".

Personally I can always talk to a GP within an hour or so and then get an appointment on the same day if needed. If I insist on talking to and/or seeing a specific GP then it may take a couple of days.

My A&E is impeccably clean and (even when full of idiots who don't really need it) pretty efficient at seeing people. The "front door triage" works brilliantly at prioritising urgent cases.

We don't get more money than elsewhere - it's all down to efficient management and good staff.

I just wish there was a magic wand to roll it out everywhere.

But the one thing that nearly wrecked the system here was the utterly unnecessary 'root and branch' reorganisation that Cameron introduced.

Yes there was some dead wood (the Strategic Health Authorities were just useless bureaucracy), but that could have been weeded out without all the pain.

Ironically the worst of the 'policy wonks' from the SHAs are now in positions of even greater power - the one thing they are good at is watching their own backs ...

[sunny-dave]

Yes emmie - I too am feeling that "the squeezed middle" need a break - there are days when I get the impression that about half a dozen of us are paying taxes and everyone else is 'on the take'.

The answer is to move taxation from income to expenditure - particularly expenditure on non essential items.

It's a damn sight harder to avoid (particularly if you clamp down on some of the daft VAT avoidance tricks) and is 'progressive' - the richer you are, the more you spend, the more tax you pay.

While we're at it, let's tax businesses on UK turnover not profit - that will stop all the fiddling about with phoney foreign companies to hide tax liabilities.

[emmie]

on student fees, some very sound sense. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes

[DrFilth]

they are helping their mates

>David Cameron has intervened to keep the cost of gun licences
frozen at £50: a price that hasn't changed since 2001.

The police are furious: it costs them £196 to conduct the background
checks required to ensure shotguns are issued only to the kind of
dangerous lunatics who use them for mowing down pheasants <


> the government announced it would raise the subsidy it provides for
grouse moors from £30 per hectare to £56. Yes, you read that right: the
British government subsidises grouse moors, which are owned by 1% of
the 1% and used by people who are scarcely less rich.

[emmie]

do only Tory nabobs hold gun licences.

[Svejk]

what are you moaning about Sunny Dave? Between your 'champagne of the week' threads and 'seemingly' never- ending holiday snaps, you seem to be doing better than the average fat-cat.
What do you want? A gold plated Harley. (rhetorical)

[DrFilth]

emmie the ones i know are not but they also don't go out shooting grouse

they may drink a couple of bottles of the famous grouse but do not repeat do not go out on the grouse moors

[Farriercm]

Increased Foreign Aid Payments, Created food banks.

[Kromovaracun]

Although it was introduced for entirely cynical reasons and I suspect may have only a short shelf life, I actually quite admire the Fixed-Term Parliament Act. I quite like the fact that it stops politicans being able to call elections whenever it happens to be in the best circumstances for them.

It was however passed with very little fanfare or appreciation so I think there's a good chance it'll be quietly dispatched in the next parliament.

[whiskeryron]

It would appear to me emmie that a proportion of students will never pay it back, this suggests to me that the system is completely flawed, but the horrible spectre of owing a large amount of money will always be there. Having diligently always paid bills as they arrived & never being in debt ( except for a mortgage which was paid off as quickly as possible) I would absolutely abhor this. Surely if the powers that be are aware that these loans will never be paid it wouldn't be rocket science to develop a way of wiping the loan off.

[Svejk]

poor old farrier, lol. food-banks, lol.

[Svejk]

we should do everything in our power to discourage some of the half-wits from attending uni.

[sunny-dave]

Not so much moaning about what I pay, svejk - prudent planning has indeed meant that I'm relatively 'comfortable'.

I'd just be much happier if the people further up the tree also paid their fair share - both businesses and individuals.

[DrFilth]

Svejk the idea that half wits go to uni is that after studies they become full wits

[sunny-dave]

Perhaps I'm a Marxist at heart :

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

[Svejk]

quite right, sd. ;)