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What Has This Government Achieved ?

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Gromit | 06:14 Sun 18th May 2014 | News
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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.
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Wow!

I make that 106...

1. Free Schools. 
2. Privatisation of Royal Mail. 
3. Privatisation of Air Sea Rescue. 
4. Gay Marriage 
5. Cutting legal aid
6. Housing Benefit changes (Bedroom Tax).
7 -106. The hundred ToraToraTora is keeping Secret.


Thanks everyone.
Question Author
Peter Pedant

// The rich are rich so let's tax them ! - first really seen in the 1964 election,
Dennis Healey - I will tax them until the pips squeak ! //

Whoops only 2/10 for accuracy Peter. The pips squeak quote was about property speculators, not the rich and it 1974...

// In a speech in Lincoln on 18 February 1974, Denis Healey promised he would "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak" //
The most significant achievement, which is almost entirely due to LibDem pressure, is surely in raising the Tax Allowance to £10k. Not sure anything else is so impressive, and yet ultimately the 2015 election on current trends is sure to see a (slim) Conservative majority and a broken LibDem party.

Other things that spring to mind might be the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act that's set to be one of the most significant pieces of Social Legislation for years; and that's probably it, actually.

Among the non-achievements, managing to kill off any hope of significant Electoral Reform for at least a decade is probably up there...
The truth is that the 2010 election was a good one for the Labour Party to lose, but they haven't made the most of it since.

Interesting that 1964 has come up. In 1964, Tory Reginald Maudling left a note for his Labour successor James Callaghan: "Good luck, old cock ... Sorry to leave it in such a mess."

Echoing this in 2010, Labour Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne left a note for his successor, the Lib Dem David Laws: "Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left".

Given that a) it's a coalition and b) there was no money left, I wonder quite what you expected since 2010 ... and whether Gordon Brown's Labour would have done much better had it retained power?
The electoral reform you mention, Jim, I take it is some sort of proportional representation that will consign the country forevermore to a "hung" parliament, followed by a Coalition similar to the disasterous shower we are discussing here. Can't wait !!!
I actually voted to keep FPTP but, while I remain convinced that the AV system is pretty rubbish, I still don't see how it's a good thing to keep FPTP indefinitely. It has far too many endemic flaws. Hung Parliaments and Coalitions needn't necessarily be dreadful; that our current government is not very good probably says more about the politicians in it (and so how we elect them) than about Coalitions.
Relaxing of planning permission rules and building on green belt
Thanks Gromit.

I dont think he coined it then but recycled it....

I am certain he didnt wake up one day in 1973 and see that property prices had tripled in eighteen months- and think erm I know! will invent confiscatory taxation
I am certain -er- having lived through it and voted in the eiections of 1973-4 that this had been a longlived issue ( confiscation - if someone has something the govt in power doesnt like [or doesnt have and envies it]- take it away from them ! )
.
Interesting that 1964 has come up. In 1964, Tory Reginald Maudling left a note for his Labour successor James Callaghan: "Good luck, old cock ... Sorry to leave it in such a mess."

thx - missed that at the time.
but I didnt miss the mess continuing such that Sunny Jim devalued the pound by 15%
and hung around like a er something on a something - for another 12 y until one Margt Thatcher defeated his govt on a vote of confidence by one vote. - My goodness me, wasnt failure GRAND in those days and long term ? !

It was Harold "White Hot" Wilson who devalued the pound, Peter. November 1967, the pound was devalued by 14% from $2.80 to $2.40 (happy days!!)

This bit of fiscal chicanery was accompanied by Wilson's now famous speech which was probably the first undisguised attempt by a politician to treat the electorate as complete idiots:

"It does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued."

"Sunny" Jim Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. He had consistently opposed devaluation. He stayed in the job long enough to participate in the debate on the measure and then resigned on what he said was "a point of honour". However his "resignation" simply saw him move to replace Woy Jenkins as Home Secretary.

The Labour administration did not survive for twelve years after that. In between Ted Heath's government ruled from 1970 to 74. Wilson returned as Prime Minister in a Hung Parliament until 1976. Sunny Jim then became prime minister in 1976. It was during this time that he presided over yet another economic crisis culminating in the famous "Winter of Discontent". I can still picture him to this day, stepping off a plane in January 1979, looking tanned and well after attending a "summit" in very agreeable surroundings in Guadeloupe. (Strange they don't hold summits in Manchester in the Winter). At the time bodies lay unburied in mortuaries and rubbish was piled in the streets. The middle of London's Leicester Square (near to where I worked at the time) was six feet deep in festering filth. When asked how he was going to tackle the mounting chaos he replied "I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos." The front pages the next day were filled with pictures of him disembarking his aircraft under such headlines as "Crisis? What Crisis?" His fate was duly sealed.

At the end of March his government lost a vote of no confidence by one vote and in the following general election in May Mrs T swept into No. 10. The rest, as they say, is history.
i remember all too well the three days weeks, the rubbish left uncollected, the endless endless strikes, the power blackouts, when we worked those days without electricity - and when it got too dark lit candles, not Dickens time either, as that would make me ancient. Let us not go back to those days please.
emmie always have some candles and a torch in stock ready and handy

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fn8y38&;s=8#.U3pBfChQNTs
I always had candles and a torch handy when Labour were in power (or should I say the Unions). It would be disastrous if they ever got back into No10 again. After Gormless Gordon sold off the national reserve for a song, handing out benefits for all and sundry while condoning unchecked immigration we can only expect more of the same if they get in again. This Government have had the task of trying to undo the 13 years of misery by trying to pay off the deficit for a start, quite apart from trying to put right the mess Tony Blair left us still paying more for the EU rebate when he re-negiotated for Agricultural Reform which failed to come to anything. This costly blunder shows that his intervention has lost us £10b in the past five years.
Well he did manage to get a good job with the EU though, ayg !.
I don't necessarily want to anoint the Labour administration as God's gift to this country, but portraying the incoming Tories as some sort of Saviour isn't right either. Their reforms to the benefits system have in some cases been worse than useless, and George Osborne has so far missed all of the targets he's set. If we avoided a triple-dip then it's not clear that it's anything to do with him, really.
. Question Author
Wow!

I make that 106...

1. Free Schools.
2. Privatisation of Royal Mail.
3. Privatisation of Air Sea Rescue.
4. Gay Marriage
5. Cutting legal aid
6. Housing Benefit changes (Bedroom Tax).
7 -106. The hundred ToraToraTora is keeping Secret.


Thanks everyone. <

107 , batteries
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2akahad&amp;s=8#.U3pMFyhQNTs


or is it because asda had them on special offer -)
sorry the kodak extra were £1 in poundland

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