UK Government Performance 2019-2024

[Freddie1980]

1. Brexit done by January 31st, 2020 - too Vague but if that mean the Withdrawal Bill is put into the statue books then - YES
2. Complete EU withdrawal by the end of 2020 - YES
3. 40 new hospitals - YES
4. 50,000 new nurses - NO
5. Reintroduce maintenance grants of between £5,000 and £8,000 a year for nursing students - YES
   
6. 20,000 new police officers - NO
7. No income tax, VAT or National Insurance rises - YES (assuming nothing drastic happens to the worlds economy)
8. The state pension will be increased by CPI measure of inflation, wage growth or 2.5% each year - whichever is the highest - YES
9. Introduce a points-based immigration system - YES
10. Full gigabit broadband by the end of their term. - NO
    
11. Take back control of our waters (fishing) - NO
12. End automatic early release from prison - YES

Opposition claims if the Conservatives won a majority (were these warranted, or scare mongering?):

1. The NHS will be sold off to Trump. - NO
2. The Country will suffer a hard Brexit at the end of 2020 - That's a matter of opinion
3. The Tory manifesto has surreptitiously included a dangerous mandate for constitutional change - YES (potentially)

The changes to the immigration system is going to make it hard to recruit all those extra nurses in 5 years. From what I've read and heard a lot that 50k will be by trying to reduce the rate of attrition within the NHS.

Full gigabit broadband? Must have been at the back of the manifesto because there wasn't much coverage about it. Fantasy world if you think everyone in the country will be able to access full gigabit internet, there's still a number of people today who only have 1mb ADSL2+ let alone modern fibre.

Fisheries, I've said no as I think there's a good chance Boris will use it as leverage to get a better deal in our post Brexit relationship with the EU.

The rest should be fairly easy to achieve, on the whole the Conservative manifesto was safe and not practically exciting.

The opposition ones - The NHS sell off is a load of codswallop invented by some lefty looney trying to create a fantasy scare story out of thin air. Why would we pay more for drugs on purpose post Brexit? Makes zero sense.

With Brexit high on the agenda and SNP conquering all North of the wall there's good change of another referendum in Scotland which could split the UK.

 

[Safetytrousers]

Boris is more on course than ever to be the first person to be British PM and American President.

 

[Uther]

There is not a chance in hell that they achieve this. Not a chance. Would require billions spent and we don't have the engineers to do it in 10 years let alone 5.

You'd better let Johnson know.
I expect the Cons to do all of it, after all they have promised to. With such a trustworthy PM it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[StarShock]

I'll be very curious too see if Johnson pushes for a quick brexit. There seems no need for it now that he's got his 5 years.

A quick dirty Brexit at this point would just mean its him firefighting all the short term problems, and he has nothing to gain from it, politically at least since the voters have already had their say. Seems like he'd be better off dragging his heals and/or moving to as easy a transition as possible.

And hey, in 5 years he'll be able to campaign once again on being the man to get brexit done

 

[Sankari]

How & why do you think they missed the previous deadlines ??

Because they're incompetent, and their party is divided over Brexit, just like Labour.

There is not a chance in hell that they achieve this. Not a chance. Would require billions spent and we don't have the engineers to do it in 10 years let alone 5.

Are you serious? This is one promise the Tories could easily keep if they're prepared to stay the course. The UK is a tiny little country the size of a teaspoon, you could wire up the entire place with gigabit-ready fibre in 10 years flat, and it would probably cost less than Australia has already spent on fibre to connect a country three times the size of Western Europe.

 

[Sankari]

I'll be very curious too see if Johnson pushes for a quick brexit. There seems no need for it now that he's got his 5 years.

Johnson does not strike me as the kind of guy who wants to string out Brexit for as long as possible. He's desperate to avoid becoming Theresa May II.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Is it? I thought it was "let the market decide" and all that jazz. That you should never force private industry to do anything but act in their own best interests. *That's* the Tory way.

So why, when the market wants us to invest more in infrastructure and we are desperately trying to invest 12 billion in that infrastucture, are the government regulator telling us we're not allowed to invest even half that amount? I mean, we're regularly criticised for making such massive profits and investing **** all, yet here we are trying to address that very thing and the government won't allow it... It's in our interests to invest, as we profit by it and it's teh only way we can deliver on all our KPIs... Oh, and there are threats of nine-figure fines if we fail to deliver despite such restrictions... So much for not forcing.

So yes, I'm sure everything is 'voluntary'... but you make it 'mandatory'* by offering incentives that are too good to refuse, and penalties that are too crippling to incur.


*Manda-Tory, geddit? Heh, I just spotted that!!

 

[FoxEye]

Are you serious? This is one promise the Tories could easily keep if they're prepared to stay the course. The UK is a tiny little country the size of a teaspoon, you could wire up the entire place with gigabit-ready fibre in 10 years flat, and it would probably cost less than Australia has already spent on fibre to connect a country three times the size of Western Europe.

Industry insiders say we don't have the labour to do it. We'd need to import migrant labour from overseas in the form of engineers and construction workers.

The irony.

Also that the govt would need to inject somewhere between £33 billion or more; much more to hit the 5-year timetable.

 

[Freddie1980]

Because they're incompetent, and their party is divided over Brexit, just like Labour.



Are you serious? This is one promise the Tories could easily keep if they're prepared to stay the course. The UK is a tiny little country the size of a teaspoon, you could wire up the entire place with gigabit-ready fibre in 10 years flat, and it would probably cost less than Australia has already spent on fibre to connect a country three times the size of Western Europe.

The promises they made that are easy to keep would be the ones on raising pensions by the greater of CPI, wage growth or 2.5% and not raising direct taxes. The problem for wiring up the UK for full fibre is there are a lot people who living in rural communities and payback cost for rolling out fibre to those villages makes it financially unviable to install in those areas. The lack of telecom engineers doesn't help either. They should have said something like 'Full gigabit broadband for 75% of the population by 2024' that would have been a lot more realisitic.

 

[StarShock]

Johnson does not strike me as the kind of guy who wants to string out Brexit for as long as possible. He's desperate to avoid becoming Theresa May II.

True, he will definitely want to save face. But I don't think he's the sort to want to deal with the consequences of a disorderly brexit either. Could see him pushing his deal through. Proclaiming that we have left the EU, then prolong the negotiations as long as possible to avoid the actual fall out of leaving.

purely conjecture on my part, but it will be interesting to see what he does. At this point part of me want to see a hard Brexit end of January and for him to have to deal with it. But hey ho

 

[Sankari]

Industry insiders say we don't have the labour to do it.

Which industry insiders? How can you not have the labour to wire up a nation with fibre, when the private sector is already doing it?

We'd need to import migrant labour from overseas in the form of engineers and construction workers.

The irony.

Well, that's what a points-based immigration system is for.

Also that the govt would need to inject somewhere between £33 billion or more; much more to hit the 5-year timetable.

Firstly, where did that figure come from? Secondly, that's a lot less than Australia has already spent. Thirdly, even if the figure is accurate, it's a bargain price to wire up a nation of 60 million.

 

[FoxEye]

Google, naturally. From articles written by ThinkBroadband staff, etc. It's all public domain info. The lack of labour would be if we wanted to accelerate the pace. We have labour as required for a long, protracted roll-out, and ignoring the 25% of households OpenReach et al don't want to wire up. So a lower overall target to start with.

 

[Sankari]

The problem for wiring up the UK for full fibre is there are a lot people who living in rural communities and payback cost for rolling out fibre to those villages makes it financially unviable to install in those areas.

The distances involved are utterly trivial, and 'payback' is not something a government looks for when installing basic infrastructure anyway. It's like asking how much payback you'll get for installing traffic management hardware. Do street lights pay for themselves? Traffic lights? Roundabouts? Of course not.

They should have said something like 'Full gigabit broadband for 75% of the population by 2024' that would have been a lot more realisitic.

But they didn't even promise full gigabit broadband. They said 'full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband', i.e. fibre capable of handling that speed. They only need to deliver the infrastructure; the private sector is responsible for delivering the speed. All the government needs to do is put the wires down.

 

[FoxEye]

The distances involved are utterly trivial, and 'payback' is not something a government looks for when installing basic infrastructure anyway. It's like asking how much payback you'll get for installing traffic management hardware. Do street lights pay for themselves? Traffic lights? Roundabouts? Of course not.

But they didn't even promise full gigabit broadband. They said 'full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband', i.e. fibre capable of handling that speed. They only need to deliver the infrastructure; the private sector is responsible for delivering the speed. All the government needs to do is put the wires down.

Well if it's so easily deliverable let's see Boris stick to his word. There's really no excuse then for failure, is there?

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Syla5]

1. 50,000 new nurses

50,000 more nurses, not new nurses. If they do nothing then they will not have 50k less nurses either, but the aim to retain 19k that would be lost is valid. 31k new nurses is gonna be a stretch though.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

You've said previously that you voted to remain part of the UK, so I don't understand why there's this obsession with talking about what English people want and what Scottish people want, we're all UK citizens, that's what you voted for.

The constituency map doesn't lie, my personal opinion is irrelevant when it comes to this. The SNP have a mandate for an independence referendum, whether the UK government decides to recognise that is another story, although I think we can guess. If we were to ignore the geographical differences throughout the UK, we would do the debate no justice.

Genuine question: is there any evidence that "One Nation Conservatism" exists, or has ever existed?

I don't believe it for a second. It'll be the same old Tories. They don't change.

And lastly - you don't think a big majority will make them even more arrogant and unrepentant?

I think they have the opportunity to hold new ground now that it's broken, whether they put any effort into that is another story. If I was a betting man, I'd share your pessimism.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Industry insiders say we don't have the labour to do it.

Well we don't any more, as they all jumped ship to the Tory side!!

We'd need to import migrant labour from overseas in the form of engineers and construction workers.

Or get all those benefit scroungers up off their lazy backsides and into work, under some kind of.... I dunno what you'd call it... "Back To Work" scheme, perhaps?

 

[FoxEye]

I'm not sure that's a serious comment but, it should be noted, if the roll-out is to be complete in 5 years we need to have the workforce now. Not in 3 years when they finish their training.

We're not talking about whether the UK will have FTTP in 50 years - we're talking about having it in 5 years, as Boris has promised.

 

[Uther]

Or get all those benefit scroungers up off their lazy backsides and into work, under some kind of.... I dunno what you'd call it... "Back To Work" scheme, perhaps?

Are there lots of engineers and construction workers currently living the high life on benefits then?

 

[ron3003]

We'd need to import migrant labour from overseas in the form of engineers and construction workers.

Yep they know how to do it in Europe for sure
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8617-how-full-fibre-is-deployed-in-bucharest-much-faster-than-uk